Leveraging typing phenomena to design one-handed wearable keyboards

Design practice in the HCI tradition often focuses on developing requirements from a task-based model of behavior. Touch typing is a complex task involving the translation of language into psychomotor rhythms acting on a spatial topology. An accurate model with appropriate emphases is difficult to construct; however, we may not need to construct the model if we can directly leverage the patterns of language and the innate tendencies of the human typist. This paper describes a design approach that leverages the phenomena of typing to inform the design of one-handed keyboards for wearable use. A reconfigurable keyboard is constructed and used in conjunction with a phrase set representative of the English language in a user study. The study resulted in various keyboard topologies and information about one-handed keyboarding relevant to design.