FleXslide
The FleXslide keyboard is a text entry system designed specifically for small touch screens such as the pocket pc. Characters are input by touching within one of ten text areas and, if necessary, sliding in one of six directions. The text areas themselves are big enough to allow one or more fingers to be used rather than a pen. The character arrangement is similar to qwerty to minimise learning. FleXslide is shown running as the input method in Figure 1
A text area is selected by placing the finger or pen within it. The border is highlighted and the character in the downward direction is selected as shown in Figure 2.
Each text area is divided into a rosette with six petals. Characters are placed on the petal, black for primary characters, blue for shift characters (‘A’- ‘Z’ are not shown). A character is selected by sliding in the angular direction of a petal as shown in Figure 3.
The input areas themselves are relatively big making it possible to use the nails of 2 or 3 fingers to develop a touch sliding technique, inputting characters without looking at the input method.
As shown in figure 2 the shift character is displayed on the bottom left of the input method. The character changes to blue when active.
A second screen of characters is displayed by selecting the character on the top left of the input method. Sliding for any character redisplays the primary screen, unless the lck character is chosen first.
The top left text area gives a visual representation of which direction is currently active. The petals bordering the left and right of the touch display are restricted in slide length are not used for common characters.
It is slightly easier to slide in a downwards direction than an upwards direction. For this reason the characters q w e r t y u i o p are placed in the top five text areas in rosette petals that require a slide in a downward direction. The bottom row of downward petals is occupied by a s d f space h n m l. The remaining characters z x c v g b j k are placed in the bottom row of upward petals While this is a departure from the qwerty keyboard vertically, the horizontal ordering of qwerty characters is maintained. The advantage is that, in general, downward strokes will be used over 90% of the time. Furthermore the numerical characters and their shift associates are where one would expect them to be. This all means there is very little searching for those familiar with the qwerty layout.
Sunorb, May 7 2003