Alphanumeric text entry is a challenge for Virtual Reality (VR) applications. VR enables new capabilities, impossible in the real world, such as an unobstructed view of the keyboard, without occlusion by the user's physical hands. Several hand representations have been proposed for typing in VR on standard physical keyboards. However, to date, these hand representations have not been compared regarding their performance and effects on presence for VR text entry. Our work addresses this gap by comparing existing hand representations with minimalistic fingertip visualization. We study the effects of four hand representations (no hand representation, inverse kinematic model, fingertip visualization using spheres and video inlay) on typing in VR using a standard physical keyboard with 24 participants. We found that the fingertip visualization and video inlay both resulted in statistically significant lower text entry error rates compared to no hand or inverse kinematic model representations. We found no statistical differences in text entry speed.
The mainstream mobile phone touchscreen keyboard might be a good text entry option @cite_14 . It is portable, and can generate a relatively high text entry rate @cite_17 . While we do not investigate this small type of touchscreen keyboard in this paper, we do believe it has potential. Currently, a limitation with using a phone is its small size, which combined with the display resolution limitation does not generate a good experience.
@cite_14 @cite_17
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This chapter describes six different text input techniques and their evaluation. Two techniques stand out from the others. First, a mobile phone keyboard turn out to be a valuable option, offering high typing speed and low typing errors. Second, handwritten character recognition did not perform as good as expected. All findings from this and previous experiments are collected in a proposed guidance tool which will promote their application in future projects. We study the performance and user experience of two popular mainstream mobile text entry methods: the Smart Touch Keyboard (STK) and the Smart Gesture Keyboard (SGK). Our first study is a lab-based ten-session text entry experiment. In our second study we use a new text entry evaluation methodology based on the experience sampling method (ESM). In the ESM study, participants installed an Android app on their own mobile phones that periodically sampled their text entry performance and user experience amid their everyday activities for four weeks. The studies show that text can be entered at an average speed of 28 to 39 WPM, depending on the method and the user's experience, with 1.0 to 3.6 character error rates remaining. Error rates of touchscreen input, particularly with SGK, are a major challenge; and reducing out-of-vocabulary errors is particularly important. Both SGK and STK have strengths, weaknesses, and different individual awareness and preferences. Two-thumb touch typing in a focused setting is particularly effective on STK, whereas one-handed SGK typing with the thumb is particularly effective in more mobile situations. When exposed to both, users tend to migrate from STK to SGK. We also conclude that studies in the lab and in the wild can both be informative to reveal different aspects of keyboard experience, but used in conjunction is more reliable in comprehensively assessing input technologies of current and future generations.