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Okay, you see where I was going with that. An attempt at humor. Ha! It was funny in my head. I type in a very learned fashion which is based upon a ‘home position’ learned in Typing 101, my senior year in high school. I actually got up to 55 wpm. I spent a long time in my twenties typing both sides of a red and black ribbon on an old manual Remington. Late night typewriter chatter echoed from behind the closed up blinds, curtains, or blankets thumb-tacked to the wall. I’ve always needed a place that’s private.

I would type pages and pages of thoughts out onto a plain white sheet of typing paper that may have been there for two weeks. I’d get a thought and swivel my chair over the small noisy letter making machine. After a while, the switch of a lever and I went from light fading gray to dark red. Manila folders would get filled with red print. I usually didn’t make too many errors.

I see the words on the keyboard as I dictate them out of my mind. They talk in a shaky pattern depending on how well my fingers are working. I have big hands and fat fingers which cover the keyboard so I start with both hands at their home position at 10 and 2. No, wait. That’s driving. Okay they’re at my home position. They are in front of me and out of the way so I can see the keyboard. My home position is where I happen to have them when I am home.

I literally look at each letter plucking them out one at a time. My thumb is too big to slap down on the space bar. I’ve developed a two hands/two finger middle and ring finger technique. Every last letter of a word gets an automatic space bar with my right middle finger, or a comma/space, or a period/two spaces. I use little chain events like that to get some speed going after a bit. New sentence gets an automatic shift key left hand and I’ll go across to reach whatever key to start my new sentence.

I wouldn’t be able to explain more than that. I could give a demo sometime. It might be interesting. I believe I type about 60 wpm if I’m going good. and I’m on a roll. If I factor in the words I backspace (complete paragraphs or more) away and omit, along with reworking a sentence now and then, I’d guess I’m more around 35 wpm. That’s a glass half full image if I ever saw one.

I can reach a ring finger up and nail the backspace when I see a blunder. This can be with every 2nd or 3rd word. In fact, as much as I write, I’m amazed I get as much out as I do. My fingers are simply too fat for my keyboard. I get a quick look after each word to see if there’s any extra letters there. Many get passed my first look. I get excited sometimes and hit submit too soon. I immediately proofread once after each submission. If I see a typo 3 or 4 words back, I found it’s easier to backspace to it than to click and cursor back, and click in the right spot, and click and fix.

From the sound of this, I should never attempt to be a writer. Lucky for me, I don’t write because I’m trying to be a writer. I am a writer because I write. There’s a decision usually. But it’s only a matter of choosing what to write. Either way, I’ll be writing. If I can someday make some money from writing, I’d love that.

Recently, I got a PM from someone who said they are a professional writer This person has 6 answers, no profile data and asks me whether I’m interested in featuring some links placed here and there in my answers and how I feel about that. They will provide me with questions and I am to write in my normal tone. Whatever that is. Well, I feel pretty strongly about not doing that. I haven’t seen any figures that they pay for that. I can’t imagine doing it for less than a lot. Like, thousands. If it’s just for a few bucks why would someone try to slip this stuff in. It says, “I don’t really believe this but I’m getting money if you click here.”

I would feel like a phony. I would feel like I believed I was fooling you. I would quickly unfollow anyone I saw doing this more than once. If I didn’t notice and found out later, I’d feel duped. I’d feel violated. I responded to the professional writer by asking them how does Quora feel about me doing that? I never heard back. I’m assuming it violates something, somewhere. If not, it should. It’s not respectful to do this to someone who reads you for the feelings you share, and the unusual perspective sometimes brought when it all comes together. I can’t imagine cheapening my content with sponsored content. It goes against everything I stand for.

The grandson pics, I’m done with those. I see how it looks like I’m going for upvotes by tugging on heart strings. I understand people’s view about attention or approval seeking, posting selfies too often. I have felt this recently as the outsider I sometimes become looking in. I look for these things and when I see them, I make a note and might let it go. I even worry when I say Stiegl beer is like a food. I worry someone might mistake my reference as a product placement reference. I can assure any reader of my content, if I ever can make money from this, I will. I will also say upfront how it’s happening.

I don’t plan on ever making money from this. It should be easy to continue this way of thinking. I don’t have people sending me release forms for the rights to my life story. I don’t ever plan on being anything other than what I am. That is always changing. There isn’t a list of can or can’ts. There is no cause. There is nothing I might do to let anyone down. I’m not on a mission and I have no agenda. My fat fingers just need a place to land sometimes when I get some weird twisty thoughts coming up to the surface of the slushy foam of ideas that churned up just behind the sandy beach of my consciousness.

I better type that onto my typing paper and keep it forever with a bunch more of the same red print. I can reread it someday before tossing it into a box for easy posthumous disposal. Clack, clack, clack. The little bell, too. Tabs getting set. Paper ripped out and balled up and hitting the edge of a trash can and rolling on the carpet for three complete revolutions before coming to rest among the 20 other crumpled up sheets that the proverbial writer decides is just not working. So, crumple and toss…nah. I’d rather make the wrong thing work. I have a good imagination. I’ll make anything fit anywhere.

Much to my dismay, it doesn’t always fly. At least, I try. Then I move on. It’s cool. If I say I won’t post songs for awhile, there comes along a song question I can’t overlook. It never fails. I’m currently trying to avoid baby pics, me pics, and song posts. Starting now. Ready, set, go. Oh, yeah. I’m also going to try shorter answers. Starting now! Ready, set….

Multi-touch interfaces (a la the iDevices and Androids) have already gained wide adoption. Gesture interfaces (a la the Kinect) are following. I don't know about you, but I find the voice-driven interfaces for handhelds highly annoying, and don't know anyone else who uses them. The BlackBerry when I touch it in the wrong place is always prompting me, "Say a command." I hate that, and I've never learned how to use it, Maybe a few people who are driving a lot have.

The practical application of voice to text demands more human assistance than you can imagine, and it's not like typing and mousing or swiping will go away.Machines as has been pointed out elsewhere by answerers here don't have near enough intelligence to understand an individual's own context, particularly not in the moment.

Dragon works for those who have a lot of patience. Over all these years, I think I've seen one reporter using something like Dragon, and he was using it by combining speech to text with his own typing. It was odd sitting behind him at a conference see him speak into his laptop, and it's clear he couldn't speak if someone was up on stage. But for him, it was productive. That's the one percent crowd, which doesn't constitute adoption..

I think handwriting recognition requires an equal amount of patience, if not more. Training the device can work most of the time but not all. So you're left with hassling with the rest.

Brain machine interfaces (BMI) for the disabled hold a lot of promise. That's a user group who has a strong incentive to learn and train the interface. It's a niche, but an important one. Krishna Shenoy at Stanford, among others, has done good work in this area: http://med.stanford.edu/news_releases/2006/july/shenoy.html

So a lot depends on the generalizability of interfaces to a variety of applications. Keyboard/mouse and multi-touch are highly generalizable. Many of the other interfaces demand more specific application areas. A voice command to a GPS is an example of a specific application area, or an interactive voice response (IVR). Anyone trying to reach customer service at a telecom carrier knows we still have serious problems with those. Amdocs is improving IVRs, among other applications it develops, with the help of a triple store base that allows more applications context and connectivity. I know Bill Guinn will be speaking on that technology at SemTech this June: http://semtech2011.semanticweb.com/sessionPop.cfm?confid=62&proposalid=4133

One thing many haven't thought about that Amdocs apparently has: how you can improve the application of something like voice recognition by revisiting the infrastructure and the information you collect, integrate and analyze. Problems with the data, apps and presentation/interface layers are all intertwined. Which behooves more developers to gain knowledge about each of these layers. The data layer is the one most in need of improvement at this point.

Touchscreen devices play a significant role in research across various fields due to their versatility, ease of use, and ability to collect and process data efficiently. Here are some key roles they fulfill:

1. Data Collection

• Survey and Questionnaires: Touchscreen devices are widely used for collecting survey data, as participants can directly input responses, reducing errors associated with manual data entry.
• Behavioral Studies: These devices enable researchers to study user interactions, cognitive processes, and decision-making by tracking touch patterns and response times.

2. Experimental Tools

• Psychological Testing: Touchscreen devices are often employed in experiments related to cognition, memory, and perception due to their ability to present stimuli and record responses precisely.
• Interactive Experiments: In fields like education, touchscreen devices help simulate real-world environments for testing theories or teaching methods.

3. Healthcare and Clinical Trials

• Patient Monitoring: In clinical research, touchscreens are used for entering and accessing patient data during trials.
• Cognitive Assessments: They facilitate the administration of cognitive and motor function tests in neuroscience and psychological studies.

4. Education Research

• Student Engagement Studies: Researchers use touchscreens to evaluate how digital tools impact learning outcomes, engagement, and retention.
• Learning Behavior Analysis: These devices allow tracking of students' problem-solving methods and progression through interactive educational software.

5. Accessibility Studies

• Touchscreen devices help evaluate the usability of technology for individuals with disabilities, enabling researchers to design more inclusive tools and applications.

6. Real-Time Data and Field Research

• Mobile Applications: Researchers can use apps on touchscreens for real-time data entry and analysis in fieldwork, improving efficiency and accuracy.
• Remote Monitoring: Touchscreen-enabled devices are used to monitor environmental factors and collect data remotely.

7. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Studies

• User Experience (UX): Researchers study how users interact with touch interfaces to design better software and hardware.
• Gesture Recognition: Touchscreens help evaluate the effectiveness of gesture-based commands and their impact on user satisfaction.

Advantages of Using Touchscreen Devices in Research:

• Portability: Easy to transport for field studies or multi-location research.
• Engagement: Intuitive interfaces improve participant engagement.
• Speed: Faster data collection and processing compared to traditional methods.
• Integration: Compatibility with software for real-time data analysis.

Challenges:

• Cost: High-quality devices can be expensive.
• Technical Issues: Potential for hardware or software malfunctions.
• User Bias: Participants unfamiliar with touchscreens may face difficulties.

Touchscreen devices have transformed the research landscape, enabling more interactive, efficient, and scalable methodologies. As technology evolves, their role in research is expected to expand further.

Some interesting numbers to put this question in perspective.

Average Typing Speed: 33-40 WPM
Average Rate of Speech: 150-160 WPM
Average Rate of Writing: 31 WPM

Professionals average about 70 WPM typing (I am personally in the 60-70 WPM range).

While I think in the long run the keyboard could become obsolete there is no pressing reason for it to do so for a long time. While rate of speech seems to be an improvement, that would depend on the hardware in question being able to comprehend at the same rate the human brain does and would most likely require follow up editing to deal with unintended words and verbal fillers. As anyone who has used modern voice transcription or recognition can tell you, we have some work to go before this is truly a feasible replacement.

I grabbed these numbers from the Wikipedia article on Words per Minute and the numbers jive with what I remember reading in the past on this subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute

I am trying to learn just that. You would have to clarify though. By touchscreen, do you mean iPad or smaller?…

For me, I saw the movie Tron and thought typing on glass could be the future. I would like to get used to typing faster on an iPad, so I decided to make all my typing touch screen based. I got myself a Bastron Glass Keyboard for my desktop. So far it has been great. I am not as fast as I am on a normal keyboard and making all the mistakes can be frustrating; specifically since I am trying to touch-type and well trying that on glass is hard.

I’m making progress, even though it is painfully slow. I can type at about 30 WPM now on the Bastron which is pretty good. Hopefully I can get faster.

Touch Screen Keyboards (aka the ones that come up on an iPad or an Android Tablet) have some things going for them. One, it does not have the physical impact of the fingers hitting the keys.

This tends to get offset by the fact that most such devices are "limited" in width. So it is difficult to get a good hand-position on them to type. In addition, most of the devices are to be treated as hand-held. This leads to problems in typing on the device.

There are a slew of adapters and extension keyboards that get proposed for tablets and smartphones. This in itself throws light on the subject (as in - what to expect from the touch screen keyboard)

In a nutshell, RSI is more about how much of repetitive tasks you are doing and what wrist posture do you end up using. So the debate would be more related to the volume of typing (rather than being a physical keyboard vs a touch keyboard)

Using tablet devices, I find that they work great for limited typing. Some of the suggestive keyboards (like Swiftkey) help with frequently used word prompts. In a sense, this does help reducing the amount of typing done on screen.

Another alternative that really helps is in looking at "handwriting recognition" via physical tablet-devices to say Windows 7. Gives a good alternative to data entry via a stylus. It forces you to be slower and ends up simulating a pen-based stress rather than a keyboard stress.

Voice to Text is another good alternative. With a bit of training, the current versions of Speech to Text (like Dragon 11) are quite powerful. They take away a lot of the typing if you can think and phrase your thoughts in a structured manner.

In the end, it is about making the right choices, having balance in the different tasks and interfaces that you use. Taking appropriate breaks and exercises helps to complete the loop.

The oldest touch screen tech I remember seeing was back in the 70s. The LED and the photocell both existed and were used in this case. A frame around the screen held LEDs on two sides and photodetectors on the opposite sides. They created a X-Y layout such that a finger would block the light to a pair of photodetectors and give the control circuits an XY location. The problem was that the system had low resolution and sometimes required a bit of searching to find an intersection.

Another method used a two layer screen cover that used the resistance detected from the pressure point to the edge. I don’t know exactly how it worked. I think I also read about one that somehow used ultrasonic sound waves that were interrupted by the finger.

Great question!

I can't give my answer any statistical heights or numerical evidence (sorry if that's a disappointment), but I do know this much:

• Tablet touchscreen typing is slower compared to phone touchscreen typing; and between phone touchscreen typing and keyboard, I'd go for keyboard. (I do 80WPM on average).
• If we took the Autocorrect feature from phones and tabs, I think the keyboard will win hands down.
• For those who do one-handed typing both on phone and PC, the phone is quite faster than keyboard.
• For an 'all-inclusive' typing (symbols, numbers, etc), the keyboard proves much faster.

These are based on personal experience and information keyboard enthusiasts.

The type of touchscreen used in almost all current consumer touchscreen devices, including smartphones and tablets, is called a projected capacitive touchscreen. In this type, an array of transparent electrodes (rows and columns) patterned on the glass touchscreen substrate are scanned by a controller IC; a fingertip or other conductive object near any intersection will be detected due to its capacitive coupling to those electrodes. A "p-cap" touch system is very durable, has little to no optical effect on the display, and can detected any number of touch points simultaneously (generally limited only by the controller capabilities). Its primary disadvantages are that it does require that the touch be produced by a conductive object which ties to the body - i.e., if you can't touch the screen directly with a finger, then the object doing the actual touch has to be itself conductive and held in the hand. You can't use a plain plastic stylus or similar. P-cap screens can also be sensitive to the electrical noise produced by the product or the display itself, so may require that the display provides a "quiet time" between display updates when the controller can perform the scan for touches.

This really depends on the touchscreen you are referring to.

For phones, use two thumbs (which you likely already do), and simply practice. Most people, after texting for a while, get quite fast at typing on a phone.

If you are referring to a tablet or large touchscreen, I’d simply use normal touch typing. To get faster at this, there are a number of methods, but usually, typing tests and races are the most efficient way to do this.

These are two sites I’d recommend:

• Typing Test, Competitions, Practice & Typing Games
• TypeRacer - the global typing competition

Good luck in your practice!

-Andrew Prasetya

Touch screens are far more simpler and portable to use, if we were to try and use our other senses like sight, although navigating around the screen is easy, its hard to implement a system which can open up pages or drag icons along, mouses are good but they require an outside source to navigate across the screen, the physical mouse itself is not as portable as having one single device that you can interact directly with. Therefore we have opted for touchscreens as portability is what we have tried to achieve over the years, although touchscreen methods are not as fluid or efficient as a mouse, its the portability and ease of use for the consumer which drives this motivation to further in creating more advanced touchscreen technology

Adding touch gestures to existing software could, at the very least, give you more ways to do the same things that you do with the mouse and keyboard currently. For example, it might be nice to occasionally use my fingers to select and drag/drop (cut/paste) sections of text in a word processing app, or groups of cells in Excel.

One of the awkward things about most of the Office apps is the big collection of dialog boxes that you have to navigate through to change things... Like text formatting options in Word, for example - there are many types of paragraph styles and list formats... bullets, numbered, lettered... you want roman numerals with that? nesting? what do you want on each level of testing? And so on.

So I have to wonder if a touch UI could make it easier to quickly navigate through all of those options and apply them to different sections of a document. But then, I find mice rather tedious, and perhaps not everyone does, so what seems to me like an opportunity to make big improvements might seem irrelevant to some.

Disclaimer: I do work at Microsoft, but I mostly write server software, so don't take this as any indication whatsoever of what might or might not appear in future versions of Office or anything else that has a user interface. :-)

Apple's "No Look Controls". The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has approved Apple’s U.S. Patent No. 8,407,623 for "Playback control using a touch interface."
First filed in 2009, the patent covers a technology used on mobile devices that registers touch gestures when no content is displayed on the screen.

According to the invention, users are sometimes in situations when looking at a multitouch display isn’t feasible. For example, during a gym workout. The invention corrects this by offering “no look” controls, even when the device’s screen is dark.

From the patent summary:

To allow a user to control media playback using a touch sensing device without requiring the selection of displayed options, the electronic device can include a mode or configuration for which the touch sensing device can sense touch events, but not display any content on a display. For example, an electronic device with a touch screen can have a mode in which no content is displayed on the touch screen (e.g., the touch screen remains dark), but the touch screen is operative to detect touch events of the user.

Apple’s system includes a number of finger gestures that the user can initiate, including a single tap to play/pause music and clockwise circle to increase the volume. The patent credits Duncan Kerr and Nick King as its inventors.

Source: http://mashable.com/2013/03/26/apple-no-look-technology/

Touchscreen devices play a significant role in research by enabling intuitive, interactive data collection and visualization. They are commonly used in:

1. User Behavior Studies: Observing touch-based interactions for usability testing.

2. Data Collection: Facilitating surveys and experiments via touchscreen forms and applications.

3. Scientific Simulations: Providing an interactive interface for simulations in physics, biology, and other fields.

4. Accessibility Research: Designing tools for people with disabilities.

Their portability and ease of use make them valuable for field and lab-based research alike.

Sure. This sensor has a range of 150 mm (~6 in) Capacitive Sensors with extreme long sensing distance (KXS)

But lets think about this first before we add hover to touch screens…

I would argue that this is not desirable in many situations, when you think about how you interact with touch screens it comes down to two things muscle memory and affordances designer create interfaces where people know what to touch, and use and reuse patterns so that these actions and controls are in expected and consistent places.

On touch UIs the users hand is frequently over the interface, between the screen and their eyes, having hover effects would be useless in most cases as the screen is obscured by your finger or hand. This patterns works on desktops because a mouse cursor is very small, hover effects help not only show what you can interact with but where the cursor is.

Here are some good things to think about when designing interfaces in general, and specific to touch UI. Designing hover states with touch-screen devices in mind

Just because something is possible doesn't mean its a good idea. Making interfaces usable and clear without hover affordances should be your goal, with hover effects being a positive bonus, not a requirement.