Re: Half-QWERTY keyboard minor mode

[Xah <xahlee@gmail.com>]

Corey Foote wrote:
«For details on the half-QWERTY keyboard see:http://www.billbuxton.com/
matiasHCI96.html#c2»

half-QWERTY seems ill conceived.

If you check the author, it's his university thesis and the design
Patented in US and Europe by his own company.

It compares something he cooked up “half-dvorak” and chalk it up to
use in single handed typing devices in wearable computer.

For comparison, on standard keyboard, if you only have one hand,
there's already Single handed Dvorak, one version for left and and one
version for right hand.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard

So, if you are handicapp'd and can only use one hand to type on
standard PC keyboard, single handed Dvorak would probably be much more
efficient. (the article don't mention it)

Now, if one is thinking of keyboard input devices that must be
designed for single hand use, as stated in the article, such as some
future vision of wearable computer on the forearm, then there's no
good reason to limit the physical design of such input device to
something like cutting up existing to half of standard PC keyboard.
There are, for example, numberous design of chorded input devices for
single hand that are actually in use.

As for ease of transition of learning, as cited in the article as a
major reason... there are lots problems. For example, first of all,
majority of people who use a PC keyboard do not touch type. So, he's
presumed ease of transition is useless. Even, suppose we limit the
subjects to people who already touch type qwerty, then, learning the
half-QWERTY is not necessarily faster than learning a single hand
dvorak. (the simply doesn't mention single hand dvorak)

...

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄