The international research team from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the University of Saint Andrews and the University of Montana launched the project in a bid to facilitate quicker two-thumb typing, after identifying that the current QWERTY keyboard is not optimal for touchscreen typing.
According to the research team, using the KALQ keyboard, research subjects were able to reach a two-thumb typing rate of 37 words per minute - the fastest ever reported rate for two-thumb typing on a touchscreen device.
Using the QWERTY keyboard, the quickest two-thumb rate recorded is 20 words per minute.
“Typing on today's mobile phones and tablets is needlessly slow. One limitation is that the QWERTY layout is ill-suited for tablets and other touchscreen devices when typing with the thumbs. Two-thumb typing is ergonomically very different from typing on a physical keyboard,” the team said.
The researchers used computational optimisation techniques, as well as studying thumb movement models to create the new keyboard, which has been named KALQ, given the position of the four letters beside each other, in a similar vein to the name QWERTY, which alludes to the position of the respective letters next to each other.
"The legacy of QWERTY has trapped users with suboptimal text entry interfaces on mobile devices. However, before abandoning QWERTY, users rightfully demand a compelling alternative. We believe KALQ provides a large enough performance improvement to give users the incentive to switch and benefit from faster and more comfortable typing,” said Dr. Per Ola Kristensson, of the University of Saint Andrews.
On the new KALQ keyboard, letters are divided into two groups on either side of the screen. All vowels are placed in the area for the right thumb, while the left thumb controls a larger number of letters.
"The key to optimizing a keyboard for two thumbs is to minimize long sequences with a single thumb. We also want to place frequently used letters centrally close to each other,” explained Dr. Antti Oulasvirta, of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics.
“Experienced typists move their thumbs simultaneously: While one is typing, the other is approaching its next target. We derived a predictive model of this behaviour for the optimization method,” Oulasvirta added.
The new keyboard is to be made available as a free app for Android-based smartphones.
