Adaptive Soft Keyboard Layout for Touchscreen Displays
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current soft keyboard designs for touch screen displays are limited by screen size and require calibration routines, which can be inconvenient for users, as they do not adapt to individual hand characteristics or preferences, and do not allow for dynamic resizing of keys or keyboard layouts without explicit calibration.
Innovation Solution
The system dynamically renders a custom soft keyboard layout based on user-specific hand and finger characteristics, allowing for automatic sizing and placement without a separate calibration routine, enabling the display of different keyboard types and sizes, including single unitary or segmented layouts, and optional feedback for user interaction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a standard soft keyboard layout is displayed on a touch screen, then the keyboard can be used for data input, but it does not adapt to individual user hand characteristics or preferences
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically detects user hand characteristics and configures the keyboard layout without requiring explicit calibration input from the user. The keyboard adapts to individual users by monitoring their natural hand placement and finger positioning on the touch screen, allowing the system to self-adjust to each user's preferences and physical characteristics.
Solution Approach 2:
The keyboard layout is made dynamically adjustable based on real-time detection of user hand characteristics. The system continuously monitors user interaction patterns and automatically reconfigures key positions, sizes, and spacing to optimize for the detected user's hand size, finger length, and preferred positioning, creating a personalized experience that adapts as users change their natural placement.
2Adaptability or versatility
If a calibration routine is implemented to adapt the keyboard to user characteristics, then the keyboard can be personalized, but the user must remove or move hands from their initial position and perform explicit calibration exercises
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs keyboard adaptation in advance by automatically detecting user characteristics during the initial placement of hands on the screen, before any data entry begins. This preliminary detection and configuration occurs seamlessly as the user naturally positions their hands, eliminating the need for separate calibration routines and allowing immediate use of the personalized keyboard.
Solution Approach 2:
The calibration process is automated and performed without explicit user intervention. The system self-detects hand characteristics, finger spacing, and preferred positioning by monitoring the user's natural hand placement on the touch screen, then automatically configures the keyboard layout accordingly, removing the burden of manual calibration from the user.
3Ease of operation
If the keyboard layout is fixed to mimic a standard hard keyboard, then familiar typing patterns are maintained, but the keyboard cannot be dynamically resized or reconfigured for different user preferences
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard layout transitions from a static, fixed design to a dynamic, adaptive configuration. The system detects user hand characteristics and naturally adjusts key positions, sizes, and spacing while maintaining recognizable QWERTY patterns. The keyboard can be reconfigured in real-time based on user preferences and physical characteristics, allowing familiar typing patterns to be preserved while adapting to individual needs.
Solution Approach 2:
Different portions of the keyboard can be independently adjusted to optimize for user characteristics. The system allows selective modification of key sizes, spacing between hands, and positioning of specific key groups while maintaining the overall familiar layout structure, enabling localized adaptations without completely redesigning the entire keyboard.
4Area of stationary object
If the keyboard size is increased to utilize larger screen real estate, then more screen space is available, but individual keys become smaller relative to the overall keyboard size
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts multiple keyboard parameters including overall keyboard size, individual key dimensions, and spacing between keys based on detected user characteristics. By changing these parameters in coordination, the system can expand the keyboard to utilize available screen space while simultaneously maintaining or increasing individual key sizes through intelligent scaling and spacing adjustments optimized for the user's hand size and finger spacing.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are disclosed for rendering soft keyboard layouts for a touchscreen display that are based on the unique finger characteristics of different individual users by taking into account and accommodating unique hand characteristics of different individual users and/or different user preferences for positioning of the user's two hands on the touch screen. The disclosed systems and methods may be implemented in one example to render a custom soft keyboard layout for a user on a touch screen display having a touch display area that is larger than a standard keyboard layout.