<p>The number of text messages sent from mobile phones, has increased dramatically over the last few years. Along with that, we are witnessing a lot of new mobile portal services currently being developed. Many of these services rely on an ability to input text efficiently. The traditional phone keypad is ambiguous because each key encodes more than one letter. At present, the most common way to deal with this problem is using a stored dictionary to guess the intended input. </p><p>This thesis presents a new text entry strategy called Qtap. Instead of using a stored dictionary to guess the intended word, this method uses probabilities of letter sequences. New features that come with Qtap are the usage of the viterbi algorithm to decode input sequences and a non-alphabetic keypad. How the strategy and the keypad used by Qtap were developed, is described throughout the thesis. </p><p>Qtap is also compared to a dictionary-based method, t9, on a non-user level. The results show Qtap is performing well in many senses. The conclusion from this is that a further development of Qtap is motivated. </p><p>A discussion of various modifications and additions to the design, that may yield a performance improvement, is also included.</p>

The number of text messages sent from mobile phones, has increased dramatically over the last few years. Along with that, we are witnessing a lot of new mobile portal services currently being developed. Many of these services rely on an ability to input text efficiently. The traditional phone keypad is ambiguous because each key encodes more than one letter. At present, the most common way to deal with this problem is using a stored dictionary to guess the intended input. This thesis presents a new text entry strategy called Qtap. Instead of using a stored dictionary to guess the intended word, this method uses probabilities of letter sequences. New features that come with Qtap are the usage of the viterbi algorithm to decode input sequences and a non-alphabetic keypad. How the strategy and the keypad used by Qtap were developed, is described throughout the thesis. Qtap is also compared to a dictionary-based method, t9, on a non-user level. The results show Qtap is performing well in many senses. The conclusion from this is that a further development of Qtap is motivated. A discussion of various modifications and additions to the design, that may yield a performance improvement, is also included.

This study attempts to build a foundation for future research about a particular direction in user interface design for VR. More specifically, this paper first investigates different approaches to text input interfaces in VR and further examines a circular peripheral text input interface in order to investigate peripheral user interfaces in VR. Current research indicates that interfaces should be designed with different levels of attention taken into account, so that a user may shift attention between the interface and the result it produces fluidly whilst interacting with it. In this paper, a way to achieve this in VR is proposed, by placing interactive elements of a user interface in the users peripheral vision. Through the implementation of text-input with a peripheral based interface design, the study finds that peripheral user interfaces have potential as a foundation for designing intuitive VR user interfaces and further suggests ways of improving the research in future studies. / Denna studie ämnar ligga till grund för framtida studier om utformandet av gränssnitt i VR med särskilda egenskaper. Mer specifikt undersöker studien olika gränssnittslösningar för textinmatning i VR, för att sedan undersöka ett cirkulärt gränssnitt med element i användarens periferi. Ändamålet är att undersöka brukskvaliteten för gränssnitt i VR med interaktionselement placerade i användarens periferi. Rådande studier tyder på att gränssnitt bör utformas med olika nivåer av användarens uppmärksamhet i åtanke: användaren skall flytande kunna skifta sin uppmärksamhet mellan gränssnittet och resultatet som det producerar under interaktion. I denna studie föreslås ett sätt att uppnå detta genom att placera interaktiva element av ett gränssnitt i användarens perifera synfält. Genom implementeringen av ett gränssnitt för textinmatning med perifera interaktionselement finner studien att perifera gränssnitt har potential som en princip för utformandet av gränssnitt i VR. Studien föreslår slutligen framtida åtaganden för framtida forskning.

This thesis discusses handwriting as a possible text input method for Virtual Reality (VR) with a goal of comparing handwriting with a virtual keyboard input method. VR applications have different approaches to text input and there is no standard for how the user should enter text. Text input methods are important for the user in many cases, e.g when they document, communicate or enter their login information. The goal of the study was to understand how a handwriting input would compare to pointing at a virtual keyboard, which is the most common approach to the problem. A prototype was built using Tesseract for character recognition and Unity to create a basic virtual environment. This prototype was then evaluated with a user study, comparing it to the de facto standard virtual keyboard input method. The user study had a usability and desirability questionnaire approach and also uses Sutcliffe's heuristics for evaluation of virtual environments. Interviews were performed with each test user. The results suggested that the virtual keyboard performs better except for how engaging the input method was. From the interviews a common comment was that the handwriting input method was more fun and engaging. Further applications of the handwriting input method are discussed as well as why the users favored the virtual keyboard method. / Virtual Reality (VR) applikationer har olika tillvägagångssätt för textinmatning och det finns ingen tydlig standard hur användaren matar in text i VR. Textinmatning är viktigt när användaren ska dokumentera, kommunicera eller logga in. Målet med studien var att jämföra en inmatningsmetod baserad på handskrift med det de facto standard virtuella tangentbordet och se vilken inmatningsmetod användarna föredrog. En prototyp som använde handskrift byggdes med hjälp av Tesseract för textinmatning och Unity för att skapa en virtuell miljö. Prototypen jämfördes sedan med det virtuella tangentbordet i en användarstudie. Användarstudien bestod av uppmätt tid samt antal fel, en enkät och en intervju. Enkäten grundades på användarbarhet, önskvärdhet och Sutcliffes utvärderingsheuristik av virtuella miljöer. Resultatet visar att det virtuella tangentbordet presterade bättre, handskriftsmetoden presterade endast bättre på att engagera användaren. Resultatet från intervjuerna styrkte också att handskriftsmetoden var roligare och mer engagerande att använda men inte lika användbar. Framtida studier föreslås i diskussionen samt varför användarna föredrog det virtuella tangentbordet.