Most accurate/least error prone textual input device?

xenophile

10 Oct 2021, 00:16

Hello!

I hope this is the right place to ask this but I figured someone on here may have some interesting input on this topic.
I've been thinking about textual input device accuracy, reducing/minimizing human error and just humane interfaces in general and was curious on what is considered the most accurate or least error prone textual input device (if that's even a thing)? In other words what textual input device is the easiest to type or enter text more accurately with less/minimal possible error (hitting the wrong key accidentally)? Considereing any kind of textual input device (keyboard, datahand, speech recognition and stenotype etc). I hope that makes sense lol.

Thanks!

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Muirium
µ

10 Oct 2021, 13:29

It's a fair question.

The trouble is getting an objective ranking. These things need to be put to the experimental test, on a variety of users, who are hopefully well trained at the stranger ones. Difficult!

What you'll hear on a keyboard forum like this is most of us saying our favourite keyboards make us type better. Simple human psychology! I feel that way myself. Standard layout keyboards are where I type the fastest, and the most often. I notice myself making more mistakes (which need corrected in the moment, so slow me down) when I've just switched from one keyboard to another one, especially if they have different key-profiles. My hands need a bit of time to adapt between flat keys (my MacBook Air) and profiled keys (my HHKB) let alone tall ones (my IBM 3276 beamspring and anything with SA caps on it). Consistency is where I keep the best accuracy and speed.

The one major exception is typing on touchscreens. I've used Apple's for over a decade and still make the same kind of mistakes. Without the tactile feedback of keycaps beneath your fingers, I find there's inherently less certainty so more mistakes when typing on glass, no matter the hours of practice. Touch matters, and touchscreens ironically don't have it!

I've also had lots of experience with speech recognition. It has improved over the years, but it's still very bad. My mild Scottish accent maybe doesn't help. :lol:

Back to physical keys: training is vital. I remember how furious I'd get when I was still learning to type… in the 1980s! It all comes back to me when I occasionally try learning a new layout, like Colemak. Argh! So painful! You really have to be typing without consciously thinking about it, or it's a horrible experience. And that's why people learn one layout and stick with it for life.

Similar story for alternative methods like steno and the DataHand. You really have to be thrown into needing those to make it through the learning curve. So they remain obscure.

Findecanor

10 Oct 2021, 15:20

I think it's a trade-off. The most accurate would probably be something like the Maltron Expanded Keyboard, which was made for people with disabilities. Extra large key spacing, and you'd have to press your finger through a hole so it's not at all easy to press the wrong key. You'd also get audio feedback and sticky shift keys.
But typing on that can't be fun, or particularly fast.

As to regular keyboards, there have been several scientific studies that have shown that:
- audio feedback is great
- tactile feedback is great
- Big-Ass Enter is easier to hit than ANSI or ISO.
- key tops should be dished and not wider than the finger

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raoulduke-esq

10 Oct 2021, 16:34

The most accurate/least error prone is the one you practice on enough such that you develop the muscle memory to not make mistakes.

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hellothere

10 Oct 2021, 17:10

Standard disclaimer: I type with one or two fingers on my right (dominant) hand and three to four fingers on my left. I do 60 words or so per minute, on average.

Muirium mentioned that our favorite (FTFY :P) keyboards make us type better. I don't think that's necessarily the case. I type pretty darn fast on the aluminum Mac keyboards, but I definitely don't like them as much as, say, my Kailh Box Jade keyboard. However, if you want accuracy, any one of the "stiffer" key switches, like the Jades I mentioned, ups my accuracy level, but greatly reduces my overall typing speed.

I'm currently really enjoying typing on this keyboard, an old logo Dell with Alps salmon tactile switches. On my work computer, I'm currently enjoying my SteelSeries Apex Pro with linear Hall Effect switches.

I do think that raoulduke-esq has a point and I probably could upgrade my accuracy on any one KB, but I have so many of them and at least a half dozen I like to revisit every couple weeks. I also switch out the KB on the computer I currently have the Dell connected to to a keyboard I've repaired to make sure everything's working before I sell it.

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Muirium
µ

10 Oct 2021, 20:13

Yeah, that’s what I meant by simple psychology: ask us what we type best on and we’ll tend to be biased in our answers towards what we like best. They’re not necessarily the same thing! Typing should be tested.

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paperWasp

10 Oct 2021, 22:19

Spell-check engines. They're getting better. From dumb checking words for presence in their dictionary, they check entire sentences if they're grammatically correct. This way they can detect doubled, missing or swapped words - this happens if you can type fast but you're thinking on what you want to say.

Next level: Let the AI read and understand all your text. Sometimes it's not your fingers or lips what makes typos. It's your brain, unable to tell a story in the right order, skipping important facts etc. Let the AI ask "what did you mean by...?".

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Muirium
µ

10 Oct 2021, 22:21

Oh really? How bout I just left on my phone here and let it figure me out, without going back for an editing pass before I read the submit button. This’ll be worth a chucks.

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paperWasp

10 Oct 2021, 22:44

Auto-correct sucks. As I said before "Let the AI ask"... that's as if another person (reviewer) read your text and underscored sentences they did not understand.

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Muirium
µ

10 Oct 2021, 22:59

iPhone autocorrect routinely (and infuriatingly!) replaces whole clauses (and sentences?) with ML powered “corrections” these days. That’s how I can drop real boobs when typing on glass, instead of the harmless tpypos yoi will occcasionaly see from me on a resl kyboarad. iOS “corrects” after you typed that whole group of words, when your eye is on the next part, with neither an undo nor an apology.

It would hurt less with an apology, Craig. Just saying.

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Yasu0

11 Oct 2021, 21:06

Agree auto correct sucks. What does "error" even mean to you though? I turn off all auto correction on my touch type devices (phones) and i just go with my typos. I do not correct them. If my text messages including all typos get my message across as intended are they even errors? The bigger error to me is when auto correct changes my message into meaning something which I did not intend it to mean..

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Muirium
µ

11 Oct 2021, 22:10

Speechos are even better. Siri likes to mischievously change the mood of my dictated texts entirely. A good one, while driving, is the classic switch: "Parking now." to "Fucking now." A subtle change of emphasis! Love having to explain myself in person after that…

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Yasu0

12 Oct 2021, 19:09

If you've ever seen a stenographer working away.. its hard to argue against that.

If you've ever seen a 100 or 150 wpm typist wailing on a qwerty, it seems somehow less elegant than steno.

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fohat
Elder Messenger

12 Oct 2021, 21:15

Muirium wrote:
11 Oct 2021, 22:10

Speechos are even better.
When I was setting up my cell phone, there was an extremely annoying fem-bot who kept making inane suggestions that didn't work.

Eventually she said "What do you want me to do?" and I said "Shut the fuck up"

She cheerfully replied "I can do that!"

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Palatino

12 Oct 2021, 23:53

xenophile wrote:
10 Oct 2021, 00:16
…what textual input device is the easiest to type or enter text more accurately with less/minimal possible error (hitting the wrong key accidentally)? Considereing any kind of textual input device (keyboard, datahand, speech recognition and stenotype etc).
You don’t mention speed in your question, but that must be the biggest other factor at play. If your life depended on making no typos, you could slow right down to one finger and 10wpm and get 100% accuracy, no matter what keyboard you were using. You could probably plot a graph of speed against accuracy for various input devices. Then it comes down to what you’re after: the fastest input system that maintains a preselected level of accuracy? Or the most accurate system that maintains a preselected speed? Or some blend? Speech to text is very fast and accurate, but the mistakes that do occur can be quite fiddly to correct, so perhaps that’s a consideration. Handwriting is not as fast as typing, but I make next to no mistakes writing, whereas I probably use backspace every sentence - but I still prefer typing, because it’s faster, and mistakes are quick to correct. Many things to consider, not least what your question really meant!

davkol

14 Oct 2021, 15:20

There are multiple layers to this, from cognitive to mechanical.

Just for the regular sort of computer keyboard, there are obvious issues with the physical layout (inconsistently offset rows) that make learning more complicated than it should be, and for example Dvorak et al. found a pattern in typos produced on their Simplified Keyboard, as opposed to QWERTY (basically no pattern, more typos). Different types of errors should be distinguished too (substitutions. transpositions,…) It's expanded, for example, in the research compilation Cognitive Aspects of Skilled Typewriting.

Personally, I often confuse, e.g., letters 'd' and 'b'; it has something to do with the fact that I'm left-handed and my writing was originally mirrored. This problem is naturally specific to the script, hence if I were to use a different kind of script, or even speech instead, it would disappear (only to be replaced by something else).

Findecanor

14 Oct 2021, 18:05

I think most of my typos are transpositions of letters because of missed timing between left and right hands and the thumbs.
But I often find myself typing a similar but different word entirely because of my confused brain knows that I use those more often. Examples are "internet" instead of "internal" and "area" instead of "are".

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Muirium
µ

14 Oct 2021, 19:18

Control + T is among my favourite correction techniques for the same reason. Transpose the characters left and right of the cursor.

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raoulduke-esq

14 Oct 2021, 19:20

Muirium wrote:
14 Oct 2021, 19:18
Control + T is among my favourite correction techniques for the same reason. Transpose the characters left and right of the cursor.
Today I Learned... thanks m8

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Muirium
µ

14 Oct 2021, 19:26

Yuo aer welcoem );

I’m adding more Control switcheroo magic via Karabiner, now I have a reliable way to program all my boards. Control T was my gateway drug.

Related: Does anyone else *know* they made a typo as they’re typing it (or in the immediate aftermath, before even the end of the word) and raises a mental flag to come back to it before it wrecks their chain of thought? I get that more often than not. My fingers relay it back to me. It’s like I’ve a second parallel process monitoring them.

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