3 ms·

I use swiping almost exclusively, and HN has discussed before how Dvorak is actually really bad for that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7110619 https://

by jerf 4y ago

I use swiping almost exclusively, and HN has discussed before how Dvorak is actually really bad for that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7110619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7110619 , but the article is broken, so see https://web.archive.org/web/20150320170000/http://minuum.com/model-your-users-algorithms-behind-the-minuum-keyboard/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150320170000/http://minuum.com... . Having all the vowels next to each other, and so many words in English that differ just by vowels, is actually really hard on the swiping algorithm. As I mention in the comments of that article, it is likely that QWERTY is not optimal for that use case either, but it's a lot closer. Despite using Dvorak for almost everything else, including typing this comment right now, I have no use or desire for it on mobile phones. YMMV, of course.

bscphil 4y ago
A lot of different people have come up with metrics for the optimality of a given keyboard layout. This has given rise to various unusual layouts that are the optimal layout for a given metric. [1] I wonder if the same could be done for a swipe based phone layout. Seems like you'd end up with something very different than Dvorak and probably quite different than Qwerty as well. Perhaps part of the metric could give a bonus to layouts that were similar to some other layout, thus creating Qwerty-phone and Dvorak-phone alternative layouts. As someone who types with Dvorak on the computer, I'd happily attempt to learn a new layout for phones. My error rate is extremely high with swipe keyboards, even though I use Qwerty. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220926205948/https://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220926205948/https://mkweb.bcg...
- thatguy27 4y ago
  >I wonder if the same could be done for a swipe based phone layout. There are others, but the one that comes to mind for smartphones and other small devices is MessagEase. [1] They offer apps for Android, iOS and Windows. I use the Android version. I love using it although it is sometimes buggy (display gets stuck on letters/digits and you have to remember where the digit/letter you want to enter is located) and backspacing over a lot of text (instead of selecting and cutting it) is always very slow. [1] https://www.exideas.com/ME/ICMI2003Paper.pdf https://www.exideas.com/ME/ICMI2003Paper.pdf

by jerf 4y ago

bscphil 4y ago

A lot of different people have come up with metrics for the optimality of a given keyboard layout. This has given rise to various unusual layouts that are the optimal layout for a given metric. [1] I wonder if the same could be done for a swipe based phone layout. Seems like you'd end up with something very different than Dvorak and probably quite different than Qwerty as well. Perhaps part of the metric could give a bonus to layouts that were similar to some other layout, thus creating Qwerty-phone and Dvorak-phone alternative layouts. As someone who types with Dvorak on the computer, I'd happily attempt to learn a new layout for phones. My error rate is extremely high with swipe keyboards, even though I use Qwerty. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220926205948/https://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220926205948/https://mkweb.bcg...

thatguy27 4y ago
>I wonder if the same could be done for a swipe based phone layout. There are others, but the one that comes to mind for smartphones and other small devices is MessagEase. [1] They offer apps for Android, iOS and Windows. I use the Android version. I love using it although it is sometimes buggy (display gets stuck on letters/digits and you have to remember where the digit/letter you want to enter is located) and backspacing over a lot of text (instead of selecting and cutting it) is always very slow. [1] https://www.exideas.com/ME/ICMI2003Paper.pdf https://www.exideas.com/ME/ICMI2003Paper.pdf