Tablets: How Would You Solve the Input Problem?

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• GeorgeH - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  There's probably a reason I don't get paid to solve problems like this, but here's how I see it:
  
  Problem: You need to input text.
  
  Solution:
  
  You either need a thought-based system, a voice-based system, or a hand-based system. Thought is science fiction and voice is too inaccurate, slow, hardware intensive, and would far too often be completely impractical or simply uncomfortable for a mobile device.
  
  That leaves hand input, which means buttons of some sort. On-screen buttons are out, as they obscure content, are horrible from a tactile perspective, require the device to be designed for typing while holding it (an ergonomic nightmare for a tablet), and despite Swype and similar mechanisms are universally worthless for anything much beyond a quick "LOL".
  
  That leaves dedicated buttons. Projected keyboards are interesting, but they suffer from being an unpleasant tactile experience and requiring "special" surface areas, which disqualifies them for a couch tablet usage model.
  
  That leaves dedicated physical hardware buttons. Keyboards integrated into the device are out, as you either end up with a Kindle nightmare of dramatically increasing the size of device without providing a good typing experience (and forcing a fixed-orientation typing perspective), or you end up with a pop-out or sliding mechanism that if done properly would add significant cost and complexity to the device, while still being incredibly difficult (and probably impossible) to integrate into a tablet-sized device in an ergonomically acceptable fashion.
  
  That leaves dedicated physical hardware buttons distinct from the tablet. In other words, a keyboard. In my limited experience, the type of keyboard most suited for a tablet would be similar to a TI-92 Plus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-92_series). A very wide/tall device (relative to most smart phones), well weighted, with a central thumb+finger keyboard and a small screen that mirrors the text input as you type.
  
  QED
  
  The basic problem with tablets is that computing is a triangle; you need a display device, a pointing device, and a text input device. With clever software and a touch screen you can artfully put the display and pointing apexes very close together, but you'll always need a text input device. As such tablets without a keyboard aren't computing devices; they're fancy display devices, basically nothing more than a small TV with a marginally unique content delivery mechanism.

• Fanfoot - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  1) Make the tablet smaller, like 7" so you can use your thumbs just like a smartphone. Agree that this still sucks.
  
  2) Put the keys on the back as others have said. I assume you'd end up using some kind of chording scheme like the old Douglas Engelbart thing honestly, since it would let you position your fingers once, say into little depressions for each finger, and you'd just press or not press with each finger. Thumbs would probably have to be on the front though if they're required. Originally Englelbart's scheme only used one hand (5 fingers/inputs) though so maybe you could do without them.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard
  
  3) Do a variant of #2 using chording ON SCREEN instead of a keyboard. Not sure whether this is really doable given the way your hands have to rest on screen. Or maybe you just use one hand. Somebody would have to play with the location for the input area to see what works. Anyway would also reduce the size of the input area. Apparently Englebart and TipTap mobile have combined for an iPhone/iPad app with a demo of this (not going to buy it, its $4.99 and since Apple doesn't allow you to replace the keyboard it seems sort of useless, but hey Anand, you could try it).
  
  4) A case with a keyboard in it. Obvious problems are that if you're going to use this all the time, you might as well just get a laptop if you ignore the whole no anti-virus, easier to use for many people angles. I haven't yet seen one that looks like a great idea, but I assume as companies chip away at this over and over again (which they will given the size of the market) something will emerge that really works. Is it a hard shell like that Lenovo U1 design used? Is it a leather case, and if so how does it hold the screen in place so its comfortable on your lap? Can they figure out how to make the keyboard really thin without making it unusable? Can they make the keys big enough given the small size of the tablet itself relative to even netbook displays? Can they make it so it isn't a giant pain to recharge this separately from the tablet? Can you install and remove the tablet easily for those times when you don't want to use it?
  
  5) A slide out keyboard. Again has to be thin, and not add a lot of weight or thickness to the device. And not sure how well this would work honestly--think about a small keyboard sliding out from the bottom of the iPad. Is it in-line with the rest of the device? Is that going to be comfortable to use in your lap? Does it angle out somehow? How do you manage that and have it not fall over given how big and heavy the display is? Are the batteries really in the keyboard half or something?
  
  6) Put the keyboard someplace else, like in gloves or on your arm (again using chording probably).
  
  Or ...?

• slickr - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  Anand Lal Shimpi there is a device for typing emails, writing tons of text and doing everything you do on the tablet 100x times faster and better, its called the PC and laptop.
  
  Laptop especially since its not that much heavier than a tablet, today they are pretty thin as well. They can't fit in your pocket, but neither can the tablet.
  
  I'd say you are alone in trying to invent hot water, when it already exists.

• trip1ex - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  Imagine MBA 11 with a fold out and slide under keyboard.
  
  Seems the logical solution.
  
  Or design a heavy aluminum cover case for the ipad that's a keyboard on the inside. And folds out into a laptop form factor.
  
  Or design a physical keyboard that flips up and covers the the exact dimensions of the ipad touch keyboard. Flips down onto back of ipad when not in use.
  
  Those would be 3rd party solutions most likely.
  
  I agree though that it needs another form of text input.
  
  Maybe the answer is in the form of software shorthand of some kind.
  
  Voice is a solution, but only for certain environments and not for everyone either.

• lenghui - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  How about a glove that will allow you to type on any nearly surface? There are a few reasons you only need one glove. First of all, if you are right-handed, you would be holding on to your tablet with your left hand and wear the glove on the right. Secondly, you can use your left hand for anything else non-tablet related, such as reach for a glass, tv remote control, etc. Thirdly, it cuts down on cost. Lastly, you won't look like Michael Jackson.
  
  The glove itself could have a pad on the palm bottom (near your wrist) so that you can any surrounding surface into a keyboard. So it will take some training, but I swear I never thought I could learn to type in my life time. Now I type faster than I can talk. Another example: many of us are so well trained with the mouse that we literally control our 24" screen without moving the mouse for more than 4 inches -- such precision!
  
  And if you lay your palm on the bottom edge of the tablet, it activates the screen with a digital keyboard, perhaps with more functionality than you would get without the glove. To deactivate it, you just need to hold your glove in a user-definable pattern such as thumb+pinky, tiger claw, crane strike position, etc., for a few seconds, and you would be able to reach for your nice bottle of cool beer.
  
  You can also add a USB port (or miniature missile launcher) to the glove. it could be a fashion statement (Think Michael again). And no more fat fingering!
  
  How about that?

• Mr Alpha - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  I've never had an electronic device sold so many of the problems for me in one swoop as the iPad as. I use it 6 to 8 hours a day. It holds all my study materials I need for my university studies. It is also a wonderful PDF reader. And the number of PDFs I'm forced to read for my studies is immense. Of course, I also use it as my e-book reader.it gives me the flexibility to price shop amongst multiple e-book stores. It also makes a decent computer algebra system. Good enough that it has completely replaced my Texas Instruments calculator. I also find myself drawing Venn diagrams and technical illustrations using a vector drawing program and a stylus.
  
  If I'm forced to write something longer on it I use a stylus and writepad, a handwrite recognition program. It is far from perfect but it gets the job done.
  
  What I wish for is a higher resolution screen for the PDFs, a better their multitasking interface, and good speech recognition.

• wvh - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  The iPad is a consumption device. Maybe you're just not a consumption sort of person. I don't think it's more complex than that... Some people can just sit back and watch youtube videos and cat pictures all day long. Some can't. If I can't open a terminal window and ssh into a remote server, check in a bit of code or write some text beyond what's pleasurable with a non-keyboard device, I feel very restricted. I need to be able to do whatever I want with a computer, and quickly.
  
  I don't care for tablets because of that consumption restriction – it's like buying a (slow) laptop with a broken keyboard to me. I suppose those e-readers are devices concerned with one clearly defined purpose, and there it doesn't feel so much as a restriction; after all, you rarely read a novel to on-the-fly start rewriting it – you don't expect to produce input in that situation. But the iPad tries to be more than just a single purpose device – a general computing device – and falls short because you expect to be able to use it like a computer – consuming but also producing content.
  
  We have a couple of iPads at work – I guess as a preliminary introduction to write code taking that form factor into consideration – and it's quite clear people fall into one of two possible categories – put into strong terms, the lovers ("it has potential") and the haters ("useless!"). There's not much middle ground here...

• relentlessfocus - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  Without a doubt trying to type on a piece of glass with no contextual kinesthetic cues about where the borders of the keys are or where the fingers are located in relation to the “home” keys is the source of the problem. Many of us already know how to type at some reasonable speed but without the kinesthetic cues of a real keyboard we’re lost when working on tablets (I have seen touch typists who can reach impressive speeds on an iPad but I’m not one).
  
  The solutions presented in the comments so far include
  Swype, not something you’d want to do if you writing a novel
  voice recognition which requires a quiet background and has other limitations
  a separate keyboard which is bulky and runs counter to the logic of a tablet.
  
  I did some quick research as much to scope out the problem as to present solutions.
  
  1) Typical professional typing speeds come in at around 50-70 words per minute with high accuracy. Of course typing isn’t a natural human function, those of us like myself who learned to type in school find it almost second nature now that we know it but THAT we know how to do it is because we were taught. We could learn other data entry skills in school which would make touch typing seem antiquated.
  
  2) The typical court stenographer can write at 200-300 words per minute with high accuracy. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOBs25_g23s) When we say that typing on a tablet sucks, its possible that a court stenographer would say that normal touch typing also sucks. Even if a tablet keyboard could be built to mimic a steno machine, we mere touch typing mortals would be left having to learn new skills and the same problem of kinaesthetic feedback on glass pertains.
  
  3) Speech recognition in theory lets you “type” as fast as you can speak but as this video of speech recognition on an iPad shows, even in quiet environs there are other limitations (not accuracy particularly). Most of us can talk faster than we can think and so getting words out is only part of the problem. Mulling over one’s thoughts and editing are also important and speech recognition may suffer a bit in these regards. Anyway, here’s speech recognition on an iPad:
  http://www.youtube.com/watchv=TJs5L2RT8GE&feat...
  
  4) Another possibility is shorthand. Speeds of 150 words per minute are not uncommon for writing in shorthand and here’s a video of someone writing in shorthand on a tablet computer at 140 wpm:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inTf7SM0zaM&fea...
  
  One big problem going forward to be that most of us are reluctant to learn a new way of doing things (for example shorthand) with the requisite demands of becoming a beginner again. Shorthand may well be a better data entry technique on a tablet but I’m skeptical that it will catch on. We may just need to reorient our thinking about what we do with tablets and which type of data entry is appropriate for the work we do. Horses for courses, for some a laptop is a better solution while for others the tablet is the better solution. Perhaps there is no “one size fits all” solution to the problem?

• dmoto - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  I didn't read all the comments, but and idea came to me where you could take the magnetic cover that protects the screen could also turn into a blue tooth keyboard. Now this is just an idea, so if the keyboard ends up being to flimsy to type on, then just have a thin solid metal board slip into the magnetic cover to keep it firm. What do you think?

• simplemime - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link

  Two 8 way D-pads located on the right and left bezels, right under your thumbs when holding the device in landscape mode (sort of like a game controller).
  
  You can press the pads individually but pressing them simultaneously produces a different input.
  
  Some examples:
  
  Left Right Input
  pad pad
  ↑ 1
  ↑ ↑ 2
  → ↖ 3
  ↓ 4
  ....
  
  There are 80 combinations. If a few are reserved for modifiers (alt, shift, symbol, numlock) you can get every command you need. Of course, there would be a learning curve since you would have to memorize all the combos, but I think this would be pretty fast once mastered.