Mobile text entry using three keys

Abstract

Six techniques for three-key text entry are described. The techniques use Left- and Right-arrow keys to maneuver a cursor over a linear sequence of characters, and a Select key to select characters. The keystrokes per character (KSPC) for the methods varies from 10.66 to 4.23. Two techniques were chosen for formal evaluation. Method #2 positions characters in alphabetical order, while Method #6 uses linguistic enhancement to reorder characters following each entry to minimize the cursor distance to the next character. Both methods position SPACE on the left and use a snap-to-home cursor mode, whereby the cursor snaps to SPACE after each entry. Entry rates were about 9-10 wpm for both techniques, as measured in an experiment with ten participants. Interaction issues are examined, such as the challenges in using linguistic knowledge to accelerate input, and the opportunity for using typamatic (viz. auto-repeat) keying strategies to reduce the number of physical keypresses.