Design of soft keyboards for reducing visual attention shifts

Abstract

In our mobile computing era, devices are getting smaller and smaller and consumers require more various services and communication on them. Therefore text entry research to such a small device is becoming an increasingly crucial. An on-screen keyboard is one of stylus-based text entry methods and has the attribute of tapping on virtual key and directly obtaining the desired symbol. But it is graphic based interface so user must enter text with non-eye free from it. Using on-screen keyboard, user should repeat gaze shifts between two attention areas in on-screen keyboard. In this thesis, we focus on the interface design which could resolve this problem. We suggest new soft keyboards designed to reduce the distance between FOA areas and verify the usability of new methods by measuring and analyzing input performances and work load.