Despite legislative and social campaigns to reduce texting while driving, drivers continue to text behind the wheel. There is abundant evidence demonstrating that texting while driving impairs driving performance. While past driver distraction research has focused on how texting influences driving, the influence of driving on texting behaviors is often ignored. This study used a classic Lane Change Task and a smartphone texting application to study the mutual influences of driving and texting. Results showed that concurrent texting impaired driving by increasing variability in lane position. Meanwhile, driving impaired texting by increasing the texting task completion time and texting errors, and reduced texting key entry speed. The finding of mutual interferences of driving and texting provides new knowledge for social campaigns, which intend to persuade drivers not to drive while texting, and importantly provides a scientific basis for the development of smartphone-based technology to reduce the risky behavior of driving while texting.

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Objective The user experience of typing on a smartwatch was evaluated with three unique input methods (tap, trace, and handwriting) while standing and while walking. Background Despite widespread development within the technology industry, smartwatches have had a relatively slow adoption worldwide compared to smartphones. One limiting factor of smartwatches has been the lack of an efficient means of text entry. The 2017 release of Android Wear addressed this issue by providing support for native text entry (i.e., tap, trace, and handwriting). Determining how user performance and subjective ratings compare across these input methods is essential to understanding their contribution to smartwatch user experience. Method Twenty college-age individuals typed phrases using tap, trace, and handwriting input on a smartwatch in three different mobility scenarios (standing, walking a simple course, walking a complex course). Results Participants typed faster with trace (30 words per minute; WPM) than with tap (20 WPM) and handwriting (18 WPM), regardless of mobility. Trace also outperformed tap and handwriting across all subjective metrics, regardless of mobility. Conclusion Trace input appears to be especially well suited for typing on a smartwatch as it was found to be objectively and subjectively superior to tap and handwriting regardless of user mobility. Objectively, typing speeds with trace are shown to be nearly two times faster than most alternative input methods described in the literature. Application Results suggest smartwatch manufacturers should include QWERTY keyboards with trace input as a standard feature in order to provide the best overall typing experience for their users.

The use of smartwatches is increasing exponentially as is consumer interest. Currently, smartwatches offer the ability to read text messages, notifications, and email once they are synchronized with a smartphone. Text input, however, is limited to voice or predefined response phrases and no input keyboard is typically provided. A general consensus is that the interface of a smartwatch may be too small to implement a QWERTY keyboard. This study examined user performance and acceptance with two commercially available QWERTY keyboards, Swype and Fleksy, on a smartwatch. Contrary to the suspicion about the small screen of a smartwatch for text input, results indicate users can type accurately at speeds averaging 20-30 words per minute after brief practice, which is comparable to the typing speed of novice smartphone users.

Usability and typing performance on a smartphone with two unique QWERTY keyboard layouts (standard vs. curved) on two phone sizes (4.0-inch vs. 5.5-inch displays) was investigated in this study. The effect of hand posture was also investigated (one- vs. two-thumbs). Results show users typed the slowest when using one thumb with the curved keyboard on the small phone (15 WPM), and the fastest when using two thumbs with the standard keyboard on the large phone (24 WPM). Typing performance with the curved keyboard on the large phone size (19 WPM) did not differ between typing with one thumb using the standard keyboard on the large or small phone, or with two thumbs using the standard keyboard on the small phone. Error rates were higher when using the curved keyboard, regardless of phone size. Subjectively, the curved keyboard was rated inferior for both phone sizes in comparison to the standard layout.