A One-Page Text Entry Method Optimized for Rectangle Smartwatches

Abstract

In this paper, we provide the design and implementation of UOIT, a text entry method optimized for smartwatches. UOIT uses only one page where a user can see and tap directly for entry without any additional actions, such as zoom-in/zoom-out and swipes, which are required in the existing entry methods. To fully utilize the constrained screen space and to address the “fat finger” problem, we use a technique called “drawing-like typing”, which reduces the 26 small alphabetic keys into 13 large keys with a dual input property. To evaluate the performance of UOIT, we conducted two user studies while varying the learning period. In the short-term experiments (i.e., two days), we observed a fast learning curve of users when using the UOIT keyboard. Moreover, with the long-term experiments (i.e., a month), we show that users can type as fast as QWERTY keyboard but with much less errors. Moreover, UOIT outperforms the state-of-the-art keyboard in both speed and error rate.