The typing performance and preference costs of reducing tactile feedback and tactile landmarks in tablet keyboards

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of tactile landmarks and tactile feedback on keyboard typing under real-world conditions. Four keyboards were tested, representing a range of tactile landmarks versus no landmarks, tactile feedback versus no tactile feedback, and the ability to rest the fingers on the keys vs. keys that triggered when simply touched. Participants completed a typing task on each of the keyboards while their performance and preference was collected. The conventional keyboard with tactile landmarks, tactile feedback, and the ability to rest the fingers was significantly better than the other options both in terms of performance and preference. The capacitive keyboard, which had tactile landmarks but no tactile feedback, nor the ability to rest fingers on the keys without triggering them performed the worst in terms of accuracy and preference, showing that tactile landmarks alone do not ensure good performance.

Neuromechanics of a Button Press

“…We simulated presses with four common button types (linear, tactile, touch, mid-air). We report simulation results for (1) displacement-velocity patterns, (2) temporal precision and success rate in button activation, and (3) use of force, comparing with effects reported in empirical studies [7,36,42,46,48,53,54,59,66,69]. Over the simulations, we find evidence for the plausibility of the optimality assumption.…”

“…That touch buttons are inferior in tasks requiring temporal movement control is in line also with other findings. For example, touch buttons have been found to be inferior in typing [14,53]. In NEUROMECHANIC, these differences are partially due to higher variation in the finger starting height: the possibility of keeping the finger on top of the physical button eliminates one source of timing uncertainty.…”

“…This paper contributes to study of buttons as input devices [1,14,23,25,33,36,41,42,46,51,53,58,71]. A button is a transducer that registers motion of a finger, changes the state of a machine, and returns to resting state.…”