Qwerty-like 3x4 keypad layouts for mobile phone

Abstract

Most computer users are accustomed to the QWERTY keyboard layout. This study was started from the hypothesis that a user's skill in a QWERTY keyboard may be transferred to a 3x4 keypad environment. In order to test the hypothesis, we designed an experiment where users are instructed to type a series of sentences on a "blank" keypad after they were informed that the underlying layout is either QWERTY-like or ABC-type (alphabetical). We observed a more localized layout of typed characters over keys in the QWERTY-like case than in the ABC case. Encouraged by the results, we carried out a series of experiments in order to compare a QWERTY-like layout and an ABC-type layout, and obtained consistently better learning curves and better final typing speeds with a QWERTY-like keypad. As an effort to explain the results, we carried out an eye-gaze analysis for the two cases, and the results are presented.