Performance evaluation of QWERTY keyboards on foldable smartphones: keyboard layout and phrase complexity
Mengya Dai, Jun Zhang, Ningyi Dai, Ke Liang, Le Du, Qi Chen · 2023
Recently, foldable smartphones have won attentions. QWERTY keyboard as the main input method contains two layouts: standard and split. Performance comparison of two layouts is lacking. This research studied how standard and split layout affected performance of QWERTY keyboard input on foldable smartphones, with phrase complexity and language difference under consideration. 16 testers were requested to text in 80 different phrases that covered all influencing factors above. Input time per phrase, words per minute, corrected errors, uncorrected error rates, and perceived usability were five criteria under analysis. It turned out that split layout lowered error rate at the cost of significant loss in input speed in Chinese. The reduction in error rate was more pronounced for simple sentences, while the loss in input speed was not affected by text complexity, both of which showed significant performance. These findings are to contribute optimizing text input design on foldable smartphones.