UNIT - VI

Interaction Devices
 Contents

1. Keyboard and function keys

2. Pointing devices
3. Speech recognition digitization and
generation
4. Image and video displays
5. Printers.
 Keyboards and Keypads

 The primary mode of textual data entry is still the

keyboard.
 For beginners is generally less than 1 keystroke

per second,
 Average office workers is 5 keystrokes per

second (approximately 50 words per minute).

 Some users achieve speeds of up to 15

keystrokes per second (approximately 150 words

per minute).
Qwerty Keyboard
 Rapid data entry can
be accomplished by
chord keyboards.
 Courtroom recorders
regularly use chord
keyboards to enter
the full text of spoken
arguments, reaching
rates of up to 300
words per minute
Keyboard layouts
Dasher keyboard for Android phones
 By the 1870s, Christopher Latham Sholes's design was
becoming successful-it had a good mechanical design and a
clever placement of the letters that slowed down the users
enough that key jamming was infrequent. This QWERTY layout
put frequently used letter pairs far apart, thereby increasing
finger travel distances.
 The Dvorak layout, developed in the 1920s, supposedly reduces
finger travel distances by at least one order of magnitude,
thereby increasing the typing rate of expert typists from about
150 words per minute to more than 200 words per minute, while
reducing errors.
 A third keyboard layout of some interest is the ABCDE style,
which has the 26 letters of the alphabet laid out in alphabetical
order. The rationale here is that non-typists will find it easier to
locate the keys.
Keys
 Modern keyboards with 1/2-inch-square keys have been refined
carefully and tested thoroughly in research laboratories and the
marketplace.
 The keys have slightly concave surfaces for good contact with
fingertips, and a matte finish to reduce both reflective glare and
the chance of finger slips.
 The key presses require a 40- to 125-gram force and a
displacement of 3 to 5 millimeters.
 Certain keys, such as the space bar, ENTER key, SHIFT key, or
CTRL key, should be larger than others to allow easy, reliable
access.
 Other keys, such as CAPS LOCK and NUM LOCK, should have
a clear indication of their state, such as by physical locking in a
lowered position or by an embedded light.
 Discrete color coding of keys helps to make a pleasing,
informative layout.
 A further design principle is that the "home" keys- F and J in the
QWERTY layout-may have a deeper concavity or a small raised
dot to reassure touch typists that their fingers are placed
properly.
 Many keyboards contain a set of additional function keys for
special functions or programmed functions.
 A special category of function keys is the cursor-movement
keys, which have become more important with the increased
use of form-filling and direct manipulation interfaces.
 There are usually four keys: up, down, left, and right.
 Most keys have an auto-repeat feature; that is, repetition occurs
automatically with continued depression
Keyboards and keypads for small
devices
 Pointing Devices
Pointing devices are useful for six types of interaction tasks
1. Select: Users choose from a set of items. This technique is used
for traditional menu selection, identification of a file in a
directory, or marking, for example a part in an automobile
design.
2. Position: Users choose a point in a one-, two-, three-, or higher-
dimensional space. Positioning may be used to create a
drawing, to place a new window, or to drag a block of text in a
figure.
3. Orient: Users choose a direction in a two-, three-, or higher-
dimensional space. The direction may simply rotate a symbol on
the screen, indicate a direction of motion, or control the
operation of a robot arm or other device.
4. Path: Users rapidly perform a series of positioning and
orientation operations. The path may be realized as a curving line
in a drawing program, a character to be recognized, or the
instructions for a cloth-cutting or other type of machine.

5. Quantify: Users specify a numeric value. The quantify task is

usually a one dimensional selection of integer or real values to set
parameters, such as the page number in a document, the velocity
of a ship, or the amplitude of a sound.

6. Text: Users enter, move, and edit text in a two-dimensional

space. The pointing device indicates the location of an insertion,
deletion, or change. Beyond the simple manipulation of the text are
more elaborate tasks, such as centering, setting margins and font
sizes, highlighting (boldface or underscore), and page layout.
 Pointing Devices types

Direct control devices Indirect control devices

(easy to learn and use, but hand (takes time to learn)
may obscure display)
• Mouse
• Lightpen
• Trackball
• Touchscreen
• Joystick
• Stylus
• Trackpoint
• Touchpad
• Graphics tablet
 Novel devices and strategies
(special purposes) Criteria for success
• Foot controls
• Speed and accuracy
• Eye tracking
• Efficacy for task
• 3D trackers
• Learning time
• DataGloves
• Cost and reliability
• Boom Chameleon
~ Size and weight
• Haptic feedback
• Bimanual input
• Tangible user interfaces
• Digital paper
 Fitts's Law
 Fitts noticed that the time for hand movements was dependent
on the distance users had to move, 0, and the target size, W.
Doubling the distance from, say, 10 cm to 20 cm took longer, but
not twice as long.
 Increasing the target size, for eg. from 1 cm2 to 2 cm2, enabled
users to point at it more rapidly.
 Since the time to start and stop moving is constant, an effective
equation for the movement time (MT) for a given device, such as
a mouse, turns out to be
 MT =a + b log2(D/W + 1)
where a approximates the start/stop time in
seconds for a given device and b measures the
inherent speed of the device. Both a and b need
to be determined experimentally for each
device.
For example, if a were 300 milliseconds, b were
200 msec/bit, D were 14 cm, and W were 2 cm,
then the movement time MT would be 300 + 200
10g2(l4/2 + 1), which equals 900 milliseconds.
 Speech and Auditory Interfaces
Speech systems.
Opportunities
• When users have vision impairments
• When the speaker's hands are busy
• When mobility is required
• When the speaker's eyes are occupied
• When harsh or cramped conditions preclude use of a keyboard
Technologies
• Speech store and forward
• Discrete-word recognition
• Continuous-speech recognition
• Voice information systems
• Speech generation
Obstacles to speech recognition
• Increased cognitive load compared to pointing
• Interference from noisy environments
• Unstable recognition across changing users,
environments, and time
Obstacles to speech output
• Slow pace of speech output when compared to
visual displays
• Ephemeral nature of speech
• Difficulty in scanning/searching
 Displays-Small and large

The display is the primary source of feedback to users from the

computer. It has many important characteristics, including:
• Physical dimensions (usually the diagonal dimension and depth)
• Resolution (the number of pixels available)
• Number of available colors, color correctness
• Luminance, contrast, and glare
• Power consumption
• Refresh rates (sufficient to allow animation and video)
• Cost
• Reliability
Usage characteristics also distinguish display
devices.
Portability, privacy, saliency (need to attract
attention), ubiquity (likelihood of being able to
locate and use the display), and simultaneity
(number of simultaneous users) can be used to
describe displays.
Mobile phones provide displays for portable and
private interaction with the device.
 Display technology
Raster-scan cathode-ray tubes (CRTs).
Early CRT displays were often green because the P39 green phosphor has a
long decay time, permitting relatively stable images.
CRT sizes (measured diagonally) range from less than 2 inches to more than
30 inches; Once ubiquitous in offices, the bulky CRTs are becoming less and
less popular.
• Liquid-crystal displays (LCDs).
In LCDs, voltage changes influence the polarization of tiny capsules of liquid
crystals, turning some spots darker when viewed by reflected light.
LCDs are flicker-free. Bright active matrix LCDs with better contrast, improved
viewing from oblique angles, and more rapid adaptation to movement have
helped LCDs become the leading type of displays.
Even desktop users now frequently use flat display panels, as LCD resolutions
have moved up from the early 640 x 480 to the now common 1280 x 1024
displays. For a higher cost, higher resolutions such as 3840 x 2400 allow up to
2 double pages to be displayed at a 204-pixels-per-square-inch resolution.
• Plasma Display Panels (PDPs):
In PDPs, rows of horizontal wires are slightly separated from vertical wires by
small glass-enclosed capsules of neon-based gases.
When the horizontal and vertical wires on either side of the capsule receive a
high voltage, the gas glows.
Like LCDs, plasma displays have a flat profile, but they consume more electricity.
They are very bright and visible even from side locations, making them valuable
for mounted wall displays of control rooms, public displays, or conference rooms.
• Light-emitting diodes (LEDs):
In LEDs, certain diodes emit light when a voltage is applied. Early LEDs were
mostly red and were used in calculators and watches, but those small devices
now use LCDs.
Newer LEOs are available in many colors and are being used in large public
displays. The curved display used in New York's famous Times Square uses 19
million LEDs to give stock prices, weather information, or news updates with
bright graphics.
Manufacturers are actively developing new displays using organic light emitting
diodes (OLED). Those durable organic displays are energy efficient and can be
laid on flexible plastic or metallic foil leading to new opportunities for wearable or
roll able displays.
• Electronic ink:
New products are appearing that attain paper like resolution of
80 dots per inch (dpi), with prototypes demonstrating up to 200
dpi.
Electronic ink technology uses tiny capsules containing
negatively charged black particles and positively changed white
particles that can be selectively made visible. Display rates allow
some animation but no video displays.
• Braille displays:
These refreshable displays for blind users provide up 80 cells,
each displaying a character.
A couple of cells can be mounted on a mouse, and small
displays can fit above the keyboard.
Prototypes of refreshable graphic displays with up to several
thousand pins are being developed.