SwipeRing: Gesture Typing on Smartwatches Using a Segmented Qwerty Around the Bezel

Gulnar Rakhmetulla, Ahmed Sabbir Arif

Keywords: Shape writing, statistical decoder, virtual keyboard

TL;DR: This paper presents a ring-shaped segmented keyboard that maintains a resemblance to Qwerty and divides the layout into seven zones for comfortable and smartphone-like gesture typing to facilitate skill transfer.

Abstract: Most text entry techniques for smartwatches require repeated taps to enter one word, occupy most of the screen, or use layouts that are difficult to learn. Users are usually reluctant to use these techniques since the skills acquired in learning cannot be transferred to other devices. SwipeRing is a novel keyboard that arranges the Qwerty layout around the bezel of a smartwatch divided into seven zones to enable gesture typing. These zones are optimized for usability and to maintain similarities between the gestures drawn on a smartwatch and a virtual Qwerty to facilitate skill transfer. Its ring-shaped layout keeps most of the screen available. We compared SwipeRing with C-Qwerty that uses a similar layout but does not divide the keys into zones or optimize for skill transfer and target selection. In a study, SwipeRing yielded a 33% faster entry speed (16.67 WPM) and a 56% lower error rate than C-Qwerty.

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