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ThumbStroke: A Virtual Keyboard in Support of Sight-Free and One-Handed Text Entry on Touchscreen Mobile Devices

Authors:

Dongsong Zhang,

Isil Doga Yakut Kilic,

Lina ZhouAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS), Volume 10, Issue 3

Article No.: 11, Pages 1 - 19

https://doi.org/10.1145/3343858

Published: 07 September 2019 Publication History

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Abstract

The QWERTY keyboard on mobile devices usually requires users’ full visual attention and both hands, which is not always possible. We propose a thumb-stroke-based keyboard, ThumbStroke, to support both sight-free and one-handed text entry. Text entry via ThumbStroke completely relies on the directions of thumb strokes at any place on the screen of a mobile device. It does not require physical press on any specific keys, thus eliminating the need for visual attention and reducing errors due to tiny key size, fat thumbs, limited thumb reachability, and visual occlusion. We empirically evaluated ThumbStroke through a 20-session longitudinal controlled lab experiment. ThumbStroke shows advantages in typing accuracy and user perceptions in comparison to the Escape and QWERTY keyboards and results in faster typing speed than QWERTY in sight-free and one-handed text entry. This study provides novel research contributions to mobile HCI, advancing the design of soft keyboards for one-handed interaction with mobile devices and mobile accessibility.

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Cited By

Komninos AStefanis VGarofalakis J(2023)A Review of Design and Evaluation Practices in Mobile Text Entry for Visually Impaired and Blind PersonsMultimodal Technologies and Interaction10.3390/mti70200227:2(22)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/mti7020022
Li ZYu CGu YShi Y(2023)ResType: Invisible and Adaptive Tablet Keyboard Leveraging Resting FingersProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581055(1-14)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581055
Zhou LWang KLai JZhang D(2023)A Comparison of a Touch-Gesture- and a Keystroke-Based Password Method: Toward Shoulder-Surfing Resistant Mobile User AuthenticationIEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems10.1109/THMS.2023.323632853:2(303-314)Online publication date: Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2023.3236328
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

ThumbStroke: A Virtual Keyboard in Support of Sight-Free and One-Handed Text Entry on Touchscreen Mobile Devices
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Interaction devices
      1. Keyboards
    2. Interaction techniques
      1. Gestural input
      2. Text input

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems

ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems Volume 10, Issue 3

Research Commentary and Regular Paper

September 2019

83 pages

ISSN:2158-656X

EISSN:2158-6578

DOI:10.1145/3361142

Editor:
Daniel Zeng
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

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Copyright © 2019 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 07 September 2019

Accepted: 01 July 2019

Revised: 01 May 2019

Received: 01 January 2019

Published in TMIS Volume 10, Issue 3

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Cited By

Komninos AStefanis VGarofalakis J(2023)A Review of Design and Evaluation Practices in Mobile Text Entry for Visually Impaired and Blind PersonsMultimodal Technologies and Interaction10.3390/mti70200227:2(22)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/mti7020022
Li ZYu CGu YShi Y(2023)ResType: Invisible and Adaptive Tablet Keyboard Leveraging Resting FingersProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581055(1-14)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581055
Zhou LWang KLai JZhang D(2023)A Comparison of a Touch-Gesture- and a Keystroke-Based Password Method: Toward Shoulder-Surfing Resistant Mobile User AuthenticationIEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems10.1109/THMS.2023.323632853:2(303-314)Online publication date: Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2023.3236328
Ahmed IFarrok O(2023)SwingBoard: introducing swipe based virtual keyboard for visually impaired and blind usersDisability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology10.1080/17483107.2023.219979319:4(1482-1493)Online publication date: 25-Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/17483107.2023.2199793
Zhou Y(2022)The Application Research of Visual Touch Based on Computer Vision in Artistic Visual Image DesignWireless Communications & Mobile Computing10.1155/2022/57107762022Online publication date: 1-Jan-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1155/2022/5710776
Tu JJeyachandra ANagesh DPrabhu NStarner T(2021)Typing on Tap: Estimating a Finger-Worn One-Handed Chording Keyboard’s Text Entry RateProceedings of the 2021 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers10.1145/3460421.3480428(156-158)Online publication date: 21-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3460421.3480428
Alajarmeh N(2021)Non-visual access to mobile devices: A survey of touchscreen accessibility for users who are visually impairedDisplays10.1016/j.displa.2021.10208170(102081)Online publication date: Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.displa.2021.102081
Stefanis VKomninos AGarofalakis J(2020)Challenges in Mobile Text Entry using Virtual Keyboards for Low-Vision UsersProceedings of the 19th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia10.1145/3428361.3428391(42-46)Online publication date: 22-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3428361.3428391

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