An Assessment Method and Toolkit to Evaluate Keyboard Design on Smartphones

Keyboard input has played an essential role in human-computer interaction with a vast user base, and the keyboard design has always been one of the fundamental objects of studies on smart devices. With the development of screen technology, more precise data and indicators could be collected by smartphones to in-depth evaluate the keyboard design. The enlargement of the phone screen has led to unsatisfactory input experience and finger pain, especially for one-handed input. The input efficiency and comfort have attracted the attention of researchers and designers, and the curved keyboard with size-adjustable buttons, which roughly accorded with the physiological structure of thumbs, was proposed to optimize the one-handed usage on large-screen smartphones. However, its real effects remained ambiguous. Therefore, this protocol demonstrated a general and summarized method to evaluate the effect of curved QWERTY keyboard design on a 5-inch smartphone through a self-developed software with detailed variables, including objective behavioral data, subjective feedback, and the coordinate data of each touchpoint. There is sufficient existing literature on evaluating virtual keyboards; however, only a few of them systematically summarized and took reflection on the evaluation methods and processes. Therefore, this protocol fills in the gap and presents a process and method of the systematic evaluation of keyboard design with available codes for analysis and visualization. It needs no additional or expensive equipment and is easy to conduct and operate. In addition, the protocol also helps to get potential reasons for the disadvantages of the design and enlightens the optimization of designs. In conclusion, this protocol with the open-source resources could not only be an in-class demonstrative experiment to inspire the novice to start their studies but also contributes to improving the user experience and the revenue of input method editor companies.