Usability of curved keyboard design on the large smartphone: An empirical study

Yincheng Wang; Junyu Huo; Di Wu; Tong Lin; Xinrui Li; Jibo He

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2023.104013

Usability of curved keyboard design on the large smartphone: An empirical study

Appl Ergon. 2023 Nov:113:104013. doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2023.104013. Epub 2023 Jul 7.

Authors

Yincheng Wang¹, Junyu Huo², Di Wu³, Tong Lin⁴, Xinrui Li⁵, Jibo He⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, PR China.
² School of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, PR China.
³ Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, PR China.
⁴ Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, PR China.
⁵ School of Software and Microelectronics, Peking University, Beijing, PR China.
⁶ School of Education and Psychological Science, Sichuan University of Science & Engineering, Zigong, Sichuan, PR China; Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, PR China. Electronic address: hejibo@pku.edu.cn.

PMID: 37422987
DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2023.104013

Abstract

The curved design is ubiquitous, with a vast user base due to its similarity with in shape to human physiological structure. The curved QWERTY keyboard layout was proposed for one-handed usage on smartphones with ambiguous effects. This study evaluated whether the curved QWERTY could optimize the user experience and input performance on large smartphones better than the traditional straight QWERTY layout. Eight measurements were used to evaluate the usability of each design, six suggesting curved QWERTY failed to achieve outstanding typing performance or subjective user experience, while the other two indicators showed that curved QWERTY had advantages in touch dispersion and touching offset, indicating the possible higher usability it could reach. The results also investigated the potential application of curved designs and provided insights into the optimization methods.

Keywords: Curved design; Keyboard input; One-handed use; QWERTY; Smartphone.

MeSH terms

Equipment Design
Hand
Humans
Smartphone*
Touch
Upper Extremity* / physiology