Aesthetics and virtual keyboard designs for PDAs

Abstract

This paper addresses modern-day, touch screen devices that use a stylus for interaction and text input. To date, such devices utilized QWERTY-based designs for virtual keyboards. However, the assumption here is that there is no necessity for implementing QWERTY-based virtual keyboard designs on modern-day devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) based upon its efficiency of use. There is limited study showing how aesthetic appeal influences the performance of users interacting with text entry on a PDA. This paper considers 3 alternative virtual keyboard designs for PDAs as opposed to the standard virtual keyboard design. We highlight the various design elements, physical attributes and aesthetics. A comparison of means for effectiveness between the 4 virtual keyboard designs and the standard virtual keyboard were performed. The results highlight the significance of more interesting, alternative interface design solutions for text-input and interactions on modern-day, touch screen devices.