Touchpad Sensitivity Adjustment for Typing Accidental Inputs
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Solution Overview
Problem
Touchpads in computing devices often register accidental inputs during typing due to proximity to keyboards, leading to unintended cursor movements in graphical user interfaces.
Innovation Solution
A system that includes modules to detect typing-intensive tasks based on key-press events and adjust touchpad sensitivity according to typing speed, filtering out accidental touches by adjusting the responsiveness of the touchpad based on typing characteristics and application profiles.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the touchpad maintains high responsiveness to improve cursor control, then cursor movement precision is improved, but accidental inputs during typing increase
Solution Approach 1:
The touchpad responsiveness is made dynamic by adjusting sensitivity based on detected typing activity. The system transitions from a static sensitivity setting to a dynamic one that adapts to user behavior, reducing accidental inputs during typing while maintaining high responsiveness during normal cursor control tasks
Solution Approach 2:
The sensitivity parameter of the touchpad is changed based on detected typing patterns. By monitoring key press events and typing speed, the system adjusts the touchpad's input threshold parameter to filter out accidental touches caused by typing, thereby resolving the contradiction between responsiveness and accidental inputs
2Object-generated harmful factors
If the touchpad sensitivity is reduced to filter accidental touches, then accidental inputs are reduced, but cursor control responsiveness deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Rather than using a fixed reduced sensitivity setting, the system dynamically adjusts the touchpad sensitivity based on real-time detection of typing activity. When typing is detected, sensitivity is temporarily reduced; when typing is not detected, sensitivity returns to normal levels, thus preserving cursor control responsiveness
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary detection of typing activity through keystroke monitoring before adjusting touchpad sensitivity. This preliminary action allows the system to proactively reduce sensitivity before accidental touches occur, preventing the need for permanently reduced responsiveness
3Measurement precision
If the system monitors key-press events to detect typing tasks, then typing-intensive task detection accuracy is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses the keyboard's existing event generation capability to detect typing activity. Rather than adding complex monitoring hardware, the system leverages the keyboard's self-generated key press events, which are already part of the normal input stream, to detect typing patterns and adjust touchpad sensitivity accordingly
Data Source
AI summary
The subject technology discloses a system for filtering out touches on a touch sensitive input device (e.g., touchpad) during a typing-intensive task. A typing task detection module receives key-press events and computes the typing speed in terms of keys per second in combination with a determined amount of typing based on a number of received key-press events. When input speed and amount of continued typing are higher than a threshold, the typing task detection module then determines that the user is performing a typing task. The typing mode and other characteristics of user's typing activity are used to adjust the responsiveness of touchpad. The subject technology further includes a touchpad responsiveness adjustment module. This module receives the determined typing speed and amount of typing from the typing task detection module, and adjusts the input sensitivity (which controls the responsiveness) of the touchpad to filter out accidental finger touches.