On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:09:28 +0100 EdorFaus <edorf...@xepher.net> wrote:
> On 02/29/2012 06:50 PM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: > > Am 29.02.2012 um 18:05 schrieb Gerald A: > >> Some people like it. > > > > Yes, I know and want to better understand why. It looks as if they like > > them because they feel better than on-screen keyboards. > > I think this is precisely it, actually. Maybe you just haven't realized > how important feel actually is for this kind of thing, at least for some > people. > > When I type, either on a (closer-to-)full-size keyboard like on my > netbook, or on a smaller mobile keyboard like on my NanoNote or E51, I > do it mostly by feel - I slide my fingers across the keyboard, feeling > each key as I pass it (or maybe more accurately, the edges between > them), and then stop at the right key and apply more pressure, until I > feel it has been clicked (there's usually a threshold). > > All of that is done in my fingers, by touch/feel, which means they can > fairly easily learn how to do it more or less by themselves - leaving my > mind free for the task at hand (maybe except for the rarely used keys > that my fingers haven't learned yet). I wonder how much of this could be added to an on-screen keyboard. Certainly it would never be as good as physical keyboard could be, however... The touchscreen can measure pressure, so we could tell the difference between finger presence and finger activation (strong pressure). As you slide your thumbs we could make a short vibration was you pass the center of each key with a slightly longer vibration for the J and F keys. When you press, a short double-vibration maybe. As the touchscreen can only detect one finger you couldn't have both thumbs down at the same time, which is a definite negative - however we could probably do better than the current crop of soft-keyboards. NeilBrown
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