TnToolkit: a design and analysis tool for ambiguous, QWERTY, and on-screen keypads

The pervasive use of ambiguous keypads for mobile text entry necessitates examination of their performance characteristics. This paper presents TnToolkit – a self-contained tool to calculate performance measurements for ambiguous keypads. While TnToolkit’s focus is ambiguous keypads, it also works with QWERTY and on-screen keypads. By default, TnToolkit predicts words-per-minute performance based on a traditional Fitts’ law model, and calculates KSPC, the average keystrokes required to enter each character of text. Existing modules are extensible to implement custom metrics. An experiment reveals that using TnToolkit to gather performance metrics is 69% faster than existing techniques, without compromising accuracy. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.2 [Information interfaces and presentation]: User Interfaces – Evaluation/methodology. General Terms Measurement, Performance, Design, Human Factors Keywords Toolkit, text entry, performance measurement, ambiguous keypads, key...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: EICS
• Authors: Steven J. Castellucci, I. Scott MacKenzie
• Keywords: Ambiguous Keypads, Applied Computing, EICS 2009, Performance, Performance Measurement