High-speed Keyboard for Chinese Character Input Based on the Optimal Mapping of Fingers and Letters
High-speed Keyboard for Chinese Character Input Based on the Optimal Mapping of Fingers and Letters
Rearranged the traditional keyboard by calculating the operating frequencies of different letters and punctuations when inputting Chinese characters;
The rearranged keyboard enabled the most flexible fingers to control the most commonly used keys so as to improve the input speed.
Got "Best Freshman Award" and the third prize in the 27th "Challenge Cup" Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Competition for Tsinghua University students
QWERTY Keyboard
The name "QWERTY" for our typewriter keyboard comes from the first six letters in the top alphabet row. It was the work of its inventor C. L. Sholes, who put together the prototypes of the first commercial typewriter in a Milwaukee machine shop back in the 1860's. On his so-called "Type Writer", characters were mounted on metal arms or typebars, which would clash and jam if neighboring arms were depressed at the same time or in rapid succession. The solution was to place commonly used letter-pairs (like "th" or "st") so that their typebars were not neighboring avoiding jams, as a result of which some of the layout decisions, such as placing only one vowel on the home row, had the effect of hobbling more modern keyboards.
Dvorak Keyboard
In 1932, with funds from the Carnegie Foundation, Professor August Dvorak, of Washington State University, set out to develop the ultimate typewriter keyboard once and for all. Dvorak arranged his letters according to frequency. Dvorak keyboard's home row uses all five vowels and the five most common consonants: AOEUIDHTNS. With the vowels on one side and consonants on the other, a rough typing rhythm would be established as each hand would tend to alternate. With the Dvorak keyboard, a typist can type about 400 of the English language's most common words without ever leaving the home row. The comparable figure on QWERTY is 100. The home row letters on Dvorak do a total of 70% of the work. On QWERTY they do only 32%.
Four Design Steps
In order to introduce the design thoughts of Dvorak keyboard to Chinese character input, four design steps were come up with:
(1) Calculated the operating frequency of each letter;
(2) Determined the flexibility of different fingers and different moving directions of every finger;
(3) Rearranged the keyboard to make the most flexible fingers control the most commonly used keys;
(4) According to the features of Chinese character input, rearranged the punctuation keys.
The Operating Frequencies of Letters in Chinese Input Synthesizing IME Analysis and Chinese Phonetic Alphabet Statistics
The Anatomical Basis of Finger Flexibility
A thumb or an index finger is controlled by the median nerve and the deep branch of the radial nerve. A middle finger is controlled by the median nerve. A little finger is controlled by the ulnar nerve. But a ring finger is controlled by the ulnar nerve and the median nerve at the same time, which makes its movement relatively inflexible.
Soft Keyboard Model
Soft Keyboard Test / Final Outcome