Just about every handheld device coming out boasts a miniature QWERTY keyboard. Why? What is the advantage of cramming a frequency-weighted keyboard into a space three inches across?
When I upgraded my phone and switched over from T9, this presented a small impediment to text entry, because you are obliged to hunt around for the keys. I’ve been touch typing for three decades - my fingers have the memory of the keyboard layout, but good luck fitting them on the home row of the that tiny touch screen. If asked to reproduce the keyboard layout, I would have to pantomime typing and pay attention to where my fingers went.
This keyboard layout is optimized to reduce fatigue when touch typing, but scaled down so far you are either going to be using thumbs or an index finger. Wouldn’t it make more sense to arrange it alphabetically? People who hunt-and-peck may be familiar with the QWERTY layout without relying on muscle memory, but don’t most people have the ability to touch type?
I think not just my fingers, but my brain has the layout of the keyboard memorized. Of course the hand position isn’t the same, and I do use my thumbs to type messages on my phone, but I still know in which direction I need to move each time I hit a key and after just a little practice holding the phone in my hand I can figure out the distance.
I thought this thread would be about ultra-compact USB keyboards.
I have a phone that has both QWERTY on the inside and a number padd/T9 on the outside. I use both depending on situation. One reason I chose this phone is because the keyboard seemed easier to type on. The QWERTY is especially useful if I need to type lots of punctuation or obscure words.
I usually touch type with fairly good form but I grew up hunting and pecking, and for a week and a half now I haven’t had the use of my left hand, but typing with one hand only slows me down a little… I’d prefer a miniaturized QWERTY over learning something new, for sure.
I’m definitely not a kid (54), but I can use the keyboard on my iPhone with relative ease. I have the QWERTY layout memorized and I can type a letter with the appropriate thumb without even thinking about it and can approach my typing speed on a full-size keyboard (which really isn’t all that fast to begin with).
I have not even memorized my own address (those fuckers at the post office changed it – may they rot eternally in their own bureaucracy), and I have been known to forget my own name, so memorizing another keyboard layout is just not on for me.
I wish that QWERTY had not been invented, for when I forget where a letter is, it is not as easy as it would be to find it if it were placed alphabetically, so I understand the reason why folks prefer an alphabetic keyboard. I’m just too set in my ways to make the change. Just shoot me and put me out of my misery the next time you see me plodding down the highway with my turn indicator flashing for kilometer after kilometer.
My car — no luxury liner — has an old-fart alarm that beeps after a set distance of no turns. Yours might too, but you might not know it because you’re sharper than you think you are.
I could touch-type on a QWERTY thumbpad within hours of first owning one. Obviously, the muscle-memory of full-finger typing doesn’t apply, but the general shape of words and such is still there. It’s also worth nothing that (I believe) QWERTY is intended to promote using fingers from alternating hands (S, C, T, and W are opposite H; Q is opposite U; etc.) This is even more useful with thumbs.
I’ve never tried a tiny keyboard, but I visualize myself taping toothpicks to my fingers to use one. Could that work? Just don’t scratch your eye while typing.
The blood gas machine where I work has an ABCD touch pad which is ten times larger than my iPhone and takes me ten times longer to type a patient’s name. I wish they’d change it to a QWERTY.
The advantage is that you don’t have to stop and think - “Ok, the C is where the E should be … The E is where the T usually goes … Where the hell is the T? Is it on the bottom left or bottom right?”
Learning two keyboard layouts is way more aggravating than using the one your used to, even if you kinda-sorta know how the second layout looks. After spending thirty years with the E key third from the left, top row, I want it right where it always is regardless of how I’m punching the keys.
I agree with Electric Warrior that my brain knows the QWERTY keyboard as well as my fingers. I have been know to dream in QWERTY – that is, I dream myself typing stuff, and I can see myself hitting the keys in QWERTY format.
I have no problem quickly finding the keys I need on my tiny BlackBerry keyboard.
On a similar note, I’ve recently switched phones and have been trying out Swype. I have figured out that the reason I’m having a hard time with it is that since it is a QWERTY keyboard, I’m used to using two hands, whether it’s all fingers on a full-sized board or thumbs/forefingers on a mobile. Because I’m used to each hand using the part of the keyboard it’s been trained for decades, Swype messes that up. By having to trace the keyboard with one finger rather than type, my right hand has to trace letters on the side my left hand is trained for, and then I get lost. Trying it left-handed gets similar (though even clumsier) results. My brain really is not used to having the opposite hand type letters it’s trained for over decades.
I’ve taken it as a brain exercise challenge and so have stubbornly continued attempting to type with Swype, but if it starts to mess with my full-keyboard typing, I think I’ll have to switch to one of the other two keyboards available on this dang phone.
I wonder if the Swype method would be easier one-handed with an ABC layout, but I do still prefer QWERTY even on a tiny keyboard.
Even though I can touch type quite well, I have no idea where the letters are on the qwerty keyboard. That doesn’t make any sense really, but it is true.
So when I have to use an Iphone or something, I DO have to perform the “ok, where is the o key…got it, now where is the b key…got it.”
All together my fingers know where the letters are, but my brain and index finger do not.