Bimanual text entry using game controllers: Relying on users’ spatial familiarity with QWERTY

Abstract

A strategy for entering text using two-handed game controllers with two analogue joysticks is proposed where the QWERTY keyboard layout is used as a spatial mnemonic. The technique is inspired by two-finger QWERTY typing where the fingers are represented by the two joysticks. Characters are organized into a QWERTY layout with the joystick resting position conceptually located where the index fingers are in touch position. The user moves the relevant joystick in the direction of the desired character. The technique is easy to learn for users already familiar with QWERTY two-finger typing or touch-typing. Furthermore, text can potentially be entered with limited visual feedback, and the bimanual nature of the approach implies a potential for high input speed as the operation of each hand can be overlapped. The technique can be realized with commonly available off-the-shelf hardware and it is especially applicable to online gamers communicating textually. Experimental evaluations show that text can be entered at a mean rate of 6.75 words per minute with less than one hour of practice.