Keys to a better life

The ‘gesture keyboard’, a keypad-stylus protope designed by HP Labs India, promises to make computing easy for vernacular users

HP Labs collaborated with Bang Design to explore and create several physical prototypes of gesture based interfaces. There were two observations that drove this configuration – first, vast arrays of written characters in most Indian languages are essentially modifications of a relatively small subset of consonants and vowels. Second, a majority of Indians—especially in smaller towns and villages, as well as government departments—even today prefer handwritten communication. Full text of the article is below. You can read the original article here

A QWERTY keyboard is an innocuous computing tool for most of us, so we can scarcely imagine the trepidation of a villager with little or no knowledge of English walking into a rural Internet kiosk to get some vital crop information. A simple task like keying in a price query can become intimidating because of the unfamiliar English-based keyboard. And local language alternatives (like the INSCRIPT keyboard developed by C-Dac) require proficiency.

Dr KSR Anjaneyulu of HP Labs explains: “PC penetration in India is directly correlated to the knowledge of English and the reason is that inputting an Indian script (which is phonetic with many hundreds of characters) on to a desktop or a notebook isn’t easy.

Currently, all local language keyboards in India are QWERTY overlays i.e. stickers are placed on top of the English keyboard and you have to hit two or three keys to input a single character. The process is further complicated by the fact that the local language character sticker on the keyboard bears no resemblance to its English-sounding counterpart.

To address this problem and create a simple user interface, a team at HP Labs, headed by Dr Shekhar Borgaonkar, worked for a year to come up with what they call a ‘gesture keyboard’, which is essentially a pen-based inputting device. This innovation is an outcome of two general observations: firstly, vast arrays of written characters in most Indian languages are essentially modifications of a relatively small subset of consonants and vowels. Secondly, a majority of Indians—especially in smaller towns and villages, as well as government departments—even today prefer handwritten communication.

“We combined both these elements and came up with a stylus-based prototype where all the base characters (consonants and vowels) are arranged alphabetically on a digitised keypad. To input a base character, all you have to do is tap the key with the stylus. And if the base character needs to be modified (to add a maatra, for example), you just draw the modification on the base character key with the stylus—the handwriting recognition software reads your drawing and shows the modified character on your computer screen.

This hybrid approach to data inputting, using a keypad and a stylus, allows users to input characters in a familiar and natural sequence. “The process is similar to the way writing is taught in school,” notes Borgaonkar, adding that the latest version of the product comes close to 98% accuracy. Interestingly, the stylus also doubles up as a mouse, enabling ease of use.

User-friendly solution

If official statistics can be relied on, it takes only 10-15 minutes for a user to become familiar with the ‘gesture keyboard’. And with a little practice, one can input 20 words per minute! Apparently, when pilot tests were conducted at Baramati in Maharashtra, IT kiosk operators reported a manifold increase in usage (and, hence, their income). “One operator told us his daily income from online farmer queries (for Rs 10, a farmer can get expert advice for any query he inputs) had gone up from Rs 40 per day to Rs 140-150 per day. And earlier, he would have to assist these farmers in inputting their query, but now they do it on their own,” quips Borgaonkar.

Anjaneyulu believes the ‘gesture keyboard’ (currently available in Devanagari script that covers Hindi and Marathi, as well as Kannada, Bengali and Tamil) will allow people who have never used a PC before to start inputting into a PC. So, whether it’s filling an e-application in a local language, getting information from a rural IT kiosk, browsing the web or even emailing in a local language—the product can do it all. “This opens up a whole new market for hardware manufacturers, as well as service providers,” he adds.

In fact, online companies like Rediff and Yahoo! have frequently stressed on the need for easy-to-use local language keyboards to enhance Internet penetration in India. Can HP’s ‘gesture keyboard’ be the answer? It’s early days yet. Official marketing for this product is yet to begin, but the company has started bundling it with some government hardware procurement orders.