A Practical Pressure Sensitive Computer Keyboard

A Practical Pressure Sensitive Computer Keyboard
Paul H. Dietz, Benjamin Eidelson, Jonathan Westhues and Steven Bathiche

The designers built a keyboard with can detect how hard you push the keys. They used several different levels circuits laid out in a grid matrix. By pushing the key down, you completed different circuits, which is how they measured how hard the keys were pressed. This is notable because they keyboard has really not changed much since it was first widely used in the typewriter. In the paper, they describe how similar technology has been used in electronic music keyboards and other methods, however it has not been applied to the standard qwerty keyboard. From the user studies, they reported that many people would be interested in a keyboard which can expand user input.

I think this could be very useful for input other than conventional text from keyboards. The designers mentioned that in gaming that it could control how fast you move. That would be very useful as with conventional keyboards only send a discrete true/false type response. However, I don't see that this would be very useful in just typing/drafting papers. I don't mind holding the shift key to do a capital letter, and in some ways that would be easier in my opinion than pushing the key harder.

Virtual Shelves: Interactions with Orientation Aware Devices

Frank Chun Yat Li, David Dearman, and Khai N. Truong

In this paper, the writers used sensors to capture movement by the user. This was then translated to a mobile device as a proof of concept. The idea is to use the measured motions similar to a mouse to select objects/choices on a mobile phone. Motions were tracked by motion cameras, so for a production, it would need to be configured to use accelerometers built into the device. The idea is to use muscle memorization instead of forcing the user to push a series of buttons to select a choice. After testing, they found that after a bit of practice the testers like the idea.

I think this is a great idea and definitely worth looking into. *Finish

CommunityCommands: Command Recommendations for Software Applications

CommunityCommands is a plug in for AutoCAD which monitors user input and makes recommendations on commands which the users may benefit by using. The plug in first records all the users commands. Typically, all the users in an organization will use the system. After a set amount of time, a algorithm will compare all the users most commonly used commands. Then the add on will offer suggestions to the users of commands unobtrusively, so as not to interrupt the work flow. Commands were analyzed to try to make sure they were "good" by being useful to the user and not "bad" by being irrelevant or obsolete. This system was tested small scale and found typically favorable results.

To be honest, I've never really given much thought to making suggestions to the user. Typically with software you see the "tip of the day" or a suggestion quickly read or ignore it. It can being annoying if it inconveniences you. This is very unique idea which allows you to get feedback at your leisure.