(Please trim subject line to just "Onscreen Keyboard" if you reply)
On Wed, 20 Jul 2005, darcy parks wrote: > Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 20:52:08 -0400 > From: darcy parks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: Tom Conneely <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Usability] Keyboard technology enhancement, > usability implications? > > I think it's neat, but I don't see it as really useful. I think the > Photoshop setup could be confusing if I wanted to add some text (mode > confusion). Since all those buttons are on the screen anyways, I > don't see a big reason to put them on they keyboard. There is a lot to be said for the standard Alphabet. It is a set of widely recognised symbols and icons most of us learnt a very young age so much so that we think of them as text rather than just another graphic. Iconography can often be difficult to decipher and figuring out the meaning of a graphic means can often be slower than reading the associated text. <!-- Insert clever comments about pictures and a thousand words here --> > The Quake setup might help for learning the game, but after the while > I don't imagine that any game players look at the keyboard. In a game > environment you have to be especially fast, so having to look at the > keyboard is something to be avoided. Any quake player looking at the keyboard for long will very quickly find themselves unceremoniously shot dead. > I have an "internet keyboard" myself with special buttons like > favourites, forward, backwards and such. All I use are the rightmost > and leftmost ones, because they feel different and I can figure out > which one I'm using by just by running my fingers over the keyboard. Keyboards are not supposed to be looked at for very long. Learning to type was one of the best time investments I have made in many years. It drove me crazy how the Macintosh used different The little notches on the home keys F and J make the keyboard all about touch rather than vision and I would be more interested in a keyboard that made greater use of tactile feedback rather than visual feedback. Electric Shock keyboard, fun at parties! Patents pending :P Rather than having visual feedback under your fingers where you should not be looking anyway it would be nice to have onscreen visual feedback of what you are doing on the keyboard. This is something which would already have to be built into any kind of handheld device or Typing tutor, anyone know an existing GTK application like that?* If we had that kind of on screen keyboard it could probably be extended to help teach people not only how to type but also how to learn the specific keyboards shortcuts for a new program. The images displayed onscreen for the keys could change to indicate their functionality when ctrl is pressed to help users learn the shortcuts. We could probably use some of the stock icons and change z x c v to the respective icons for Undo Cut Copy Paste for example. (Admittedly I am always looking for ways to encourage Gnome and GPE to become more closely integrated and share applications push for a more inclusive idea of what Gnome means.) * Screenshot of GPE Using a "Virtual Keyboard" http://handhelds.org/~gpe/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Applications&id=port_22126 * GOK although described as an on screen keyboard seems to be quite a different kind of on screen control device and I wouldn't say resembles a physical QWERTY keyboard but there is probably some obvious software I've overlooked. To reiterate I think showing an onscreen visual repsentation of the keyboard would be a much better (and easier to implement) way of providing more hints about with keybinding shortcuts and help users to learn. Sincerely Alan Horkan Inkscape http://inkscape.org Abiword http://www.abisource.com Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/ Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
