Re: design prototype: the ultimate unicode keyboard?

From: Raymond Mercier (rm459@cam.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Jul 18 2005 - 14:22:42 CDT

  • Next message: Kenneth Whistler: "Re: Letters for Indic transliteration"

    Kenneth Whistler writes

    > The whole concept of moving your
    > hands *off* the keys to *read* the keys, and then back on the
    > keys to key your input -- particularly for complicated IME's
    > that change the state of input as you go -- strikes me as
    > at best un-ergonomic and at worst frustrating and inefficient.

    We are more bound by the tactile experience of the keys than we imagine,
    even those of us who are not real touch typists.
    I tried a new keyboard recently (mis-designed by Belkin) that had the
    unfortunate characteristic that the character appeared on the screen only
    after the finger was lifted from the key, instead of appearing on the
    downstroke of the key. It was quite impossible to type at normal speed. That
    experience rather suggests to me that normal typing would be very frustrated
    by having to pay so much visual attention to the keys.

    Raymond Mercier



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