Liquid Keyboard : An Ergonomic, Adaptive QWERTY Keyboard for Touchscreens and Surfaces

Virtual touchscreen keyboards provide poor text input performance in comparison to physical keyboards, a fact, which can partly be attributed to the weaker tactile feedback, they offer. Users are unable to feel the keys on which their fingers are resting, and usually hover their hands over the keyboard, hitting each key individually. Consequently, users cannot use all ten fingers for typing, which decreases their input speed and causes hand fatigue. We present a keyboard prototype called LiquidKeyboard, which adapts to the userâs natural finger positions on a touchscreen and discuss options to allow for the fingers to rest on the screen while typing. When invoked, the keyboard appears directly under the userâs fingertips and is able to follow finger movements. As the positions of the surrounding keys are fixed in relation to each finger, users can find and touch the keys without tactile feedback. Additionally the user controlled positioning of the keys allows the keyboard to adapt to the physical specification of the userâs hand, such as the size of each finger.