WP7 Virtual Keyboard: How Typing Became So Easy
April 29, 2011 No CommentsMicrosoft put out a very interesting article yesterday on how the Windows Phone’s virtual (soft) keyboard came to be. I for one was very hesitant in purchasing my HD7 at launch since it had no physical keyboard. I used other ‘all screen’ devices before and they just felt so alien to me. When I first picked up the Windows Phone device and started typing, I was shocked to find how easy it was.
Microsoft Research and the Windows Phone team worked together to bring a really solid virtual keyboard and the best I personally have ever used. They did this with a lot of math/ geometry and user data. By guessing at what the user is trying to type and actually making the ‘guessed’ next letter’s key area bigger.
By combining statistical models of language patterns and touch points, the keyboard dynamically changes the virtual size of the likely next letter, so that it has a larger target area—the area where tapping the keypad results in a particular letter, symbol, or number.
“We don’t show that visually,” Paek says. “It all happens behind the scenes.”
The keypad software analyzes what a user is typing, decides which letter is most likely to be typed next, and enlarges the virtual key area, so that hitting a “T” results in a T, not a Y or an R.
[smartads]
In upcoming releases, the keypad even will take into account the speed at which a person is attempting to type.
“When you’re typing really fast with two thumbs, the touch patterns are sloppy,” Paek says, “so you have to make the target area even bigger.”
This is pretty interesting stuff and I am glad they put in all that work because typing on the Windows Phone without a physical keyboard is a breeze. Also future improvements like taking account how fast your actually typing is very exciting news.
Here is the whole article: Microsoft Research
News