An alternative to push, press, and tap-tap-tap: gesturing on an isometric joystick for mobile phone text entry

ABSTRACT

A gestural text entry method for mobile is presented. Unlike most mobile phone text entry methods, which rely on repeatedly pressing buttons, our gestural method uses an isometric joystick and the EdgeWrite alphabet to allow users to write by making letter-like "pressure strokes." In a 15-session study comparing character-level EdgeWrite to Multitap, subjects' speeds were statistically indistinguishable, reaching about 10 WPM. In a second 15-session study comparing word-level EdgeWrite to T9, the same subjects were again statistically indistinguishable, reaching about 16 WPM. Uncorrected errors were low, around 1% or less for each method. In addition, subjective results favored EdgeWrite. Overall, results indicate that our isometric joystick-based method is highly competitive with two commercial keypad-based methods, opening the way for keypad-less designs and text entry on tiny devices. Additional results showed that a joystick on the back could be used at about 70% of the speed of the front, and the front joystick could be used eyes-free at about 80% of the speed of normal use.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Input devices and strategies (e.g., mouse, touchscreen)

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
EdgeWrite, T9, gestures, isometric joysticks, mobile phones, multitap, pointing, smartphones, text input, unistrokes