An alternative to push, press, and tap-tap-tap: gesturing on an isometric joystick for mobile phone text entry

A gestural text entry method for mobile is presented. Unlike most mobile phone text entry methods, which rely on repeatedly pressing buttons, our gestural method uses an isometric joystick and the EdgeWrite alphabet to allow users to write by making letter-like "pressure strokes." In a 15-session study comparing character-level EdgeWrite to Multitap, subjects' speeds were statistically indistinguishable, reaching about 10 WPM. In a second 15-session study comparing word-level EdgeWrite to T9, the same subjects were again statistically indistinguishable, reaching about 16 WPM. Uncorrected errors were low, around 1% or less for each method. In addition, subjective results favored EdgeWrite. Overall, results indicate that our isometric joystickbased method is highly competitive with two commercial keypad-based methods, opening the way for keypad-less designs and text entry on tiny devices. Additional results showed that a joystick on the back could be used at about 70% of ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Jacob O. Wobbrock, Duen Horng Chau, Brad A. Myers
• Keywords: CHI 2007, Human Computer Interaction, Isometric Joystickbased Method, Keywords Text Input, Text Entry Method