Evaluation and improvements of on-screen keyboard for television and Set Top Box

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an on-screen keyboard for television and Set Top Box (STB) users which allow them to type with reduced number of key-strokes using a remote control and thus improves users' over-all experience while using services like Internet surfing, short message service (SMS) and Instant Messaging (IM). The faster typing is made possible with novel on-screen keyboard layout that facilitate hierarchical navigation. This work enhances users' experience of browsing Internet from television by allowing users to type easily and quickly through this on-screen keyboard architecture. It also brings up the enhanced user experience at reduced cost by eliminating the need for a separate physical keyboard. Thus it extends the reach of Internet to newer audience by making it easy and less costly. This work adopted iterative design cycles, where users' feedback were collected and analyzed in each cycle, and those have led to user-driven usability improvement. In this paper, the complete design cycle is outlined and user study data is presented to show the improvements achieved from user experience perspective.