How fast are people getting? [Archive] - Fingerworks Support Forums

declarke

01-29-2004, 05:50 PM

I've had my TS for about a year and I find my speed is improved in theory, but my error rate is still high -- which of course diminishes overall speed as I am constantly backspacing to correct.

At first it was utterly frustrating, then it got a bit better, but improvement ceased at about Month 8 or so and I seem to have settled into a stable state of mediocrity, not nearly as fast as I was on previous kbrds.

The keyboard has solved some ergonomic problems for me -- namely shoulder strain from constand R hand repositioning from kbrd to trackball and back -- but straight typing still feels "sticky".

What I mean by that is that on my laptop kbrd I can type as naturally as speaking or reading, with no consciousness of "doing anything" between the thought and the text being typed. On the TS it is as if there's a layer of semiconscious struggling with the keyboard in between thought and text entry, so that I am forced to think more slowly (ugh) and I feel a bit crippled when writing yards of text, as if I were having to type in gloves :-)

The high error rate on keys o/p, n/m, g/t also contributes to the feeling of struggling rather than thinking in a smooth stream. For my hands the TS is just slightly too big, whereas my laptop kbrd is just right, so on the TS I have forever the feeling of "reaching" and never being able to have my hands in the right place for all keys. Certain keys force me to "drift" the hand a bit off home position and then returning is a nuisance. Even after a year I sometimes get disoriented and find myself typing gibberish :-)

For mousing and X11 interactions however it is just the reverse -- the TS mousing metaphors (and my small vocab of useful gestures) became 2nd nature after only a few weeks. It now feels like the only proper way to point and click, and I hate using any other mousing device! have even found myself absentmindedly scrubbing my R hand across the laptop keyboard trying to point and click :-)

It seems to me (with small hands and stubby little fingers) that the TS' major defect is its fixed physical scale. Early on I asked the vendor a few times whether it wouldn't be possible for the configuration s/w to permit a "scale factor" that would relocate and resize the virtual keys for various sized hands. More ideally I would like the device to learn from the user's typing pattern, i.e. the user would type a special training text and the device would locate the keys where the user's fingers really fall, thus customising itself to the user's neural image of a keyboard :-) analagous to training a voice recog app.

They may have implemented some kind of scaling by now, I haven't been paying attention the last few months.

After a year I retain a love-hate relationship with my TS. It is like riding someone else's very, very good bicycle that is just a size too big for me. I can feel that it's excellent technology and admire it, but it never will quite *fit* my hands. I tend to save up lengthy` text typing chores for the laptop at home, but I love the TS for doing GUI development (hours of pointery-clickery) at work.

The TS Mousepad is not a compromise solution as it would require me to return to shifting the R hand to switch bt mousing and typing, and probably re-awaken the shoulder pain. What I really want for my b'day is a TS just one size smaller.

blowery

01-29-2004, 07:14 PM

So I take it that post was typed on the laptop at home? :)

I'm actually seeing pretty steady improvement. I think it's just about the right size for me. I totally agree about the error rate btw. It's substantially higher with the TS, but getting better every day.

declarke

01-29-2004, 07:24 PM

Originally posted by blowery
So I take it that post was typed on the laptop at home? :)
In

<grin!>

no it was typed at work, tsk tsk. but it took a bit longer than it would have if typed on the laptop at home.

the error rate contributes (for me) to a general feeling of frustration and irritation -- subliminal perhaps, but it makes me feel a slight sense of unwillingness (I wouldn't go quite so far as to say "dread") when contemplating typing more than, say, a page of running text. if I have an important memo to write, a paper to draft, or email that requires a long answer I tend to save them up for the laptop.

btw I tried switching at work between a laptop-format USB keyboard and the TS but this was a complete disaster. there is apparently some gestalt at work here -- the sitting position, arm position and many other subtle cues seem to switch my neural programming from one kbrd to another, so that it was very disorienting to try to use the laptop layout in the office setup :-)

touch typing is often like that verse about the bug that can walk on water:

If he ever stopped to think
How he does it, he would sink!

blowery

01-29-2004, 07:45 PM

Too true. I finding the less I think about how I'm typing, the better I do. Recentering after every sentence also seems to help out. Anyway, thanks for the experiences.

Tigger

01-30-2004, 06:50 AM

I've had my TouchStream for about three months now. I have to agree with the feelings expressed by declarke -- when typing at the TouchStream, it feels like there is some sort of barrier between me and what I am trying to type.

I usually use my TouchStream at work. I sit at an "ergonomic" workstation that has an adjustable keyboard shelf in front of the desk surface. The TS sits on this shelf and is attached to a laptop sitting on the desk behind it. I love using the TS for gesturing, but I find that if I have to type more than a few words or a sentence, I end up reaching for the laptop's keyboard.

The coworker that first got me interested in the Fingerworks products originally got a TS keyboard. He decided he couldn't adjust to typing on it and traded it in for two iGesture pads - one for work and one for home. I keep plugging away at the TS hoping my typing will start to feel more comfortable, but sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off doing the same thing my coworker did.

FWIW, I made a conscious point of typing this whole post on the TS. Towards the end it felt more comfortable than at the beginning. Maybe I just need to stop reaching for the crutch (laptop's keyboard). I also recently turned off the autocorrect feature, and feel much more comfortable without it.

cyrulnik

01-30-2004, 10:00 AM

I have to agree with some of the posts here. Although I made a serious effort over a number of months to use the Touchstream for all typing, it was just too much of a struggle. I did see noticeable improvement over the course of the frst few months, both in accuracy and speed, but even after that improvement, I was still sending out emails with too many typos, and every document I worked on had insidious minor mistakes that were very frustrating.

I am now working with a regualar wireless keyboard (the new Logitech DiNovo), which I used for typing, and I have a Fingerworks Mini Keyboard which I use for gesturing. Having used the Touchstream I now think that the ideal setup is having a wireless keyboard than be placed off to the side when no serious typing is going on, and a Fingerworks Mini for all gesturing and mousing and even small touch-up editing, where all that need to be changed is formatting, punctuation or a letter here and there.

blowery

01-30-2004, 10:19 AM

One thing I have found to really be useful is to practice typing with a program. I've heard some people talk about using Mavis Beacon, but I prefer TypingMaster ( http://www.typingmaster.com ). It has this little satellite that watches you type during the day and then recommends practice on things it sees you doing poorly. Since my initial post, I've gotten substantially better, and I attribute some of that to TypingMaster (and a good half hour of practice a night).

As of now, my typing is good enough to not upset me during the day. Hopefully it just keeps getting better. :)

JerryKnight

01-30-2004, 11:57 AM

I agree with blowery. How can you expect to improve if every time you type for extended periods, you reach for another keyboard? I understand time critical tasks where you can't afford to be learning and practicing, but that is what a typing tutor or some leisure-time typing is for. Practice whenever it is not critical that the typing be as fast as possible.

It is analogous to when I switched to dvorak. I luckily decided to switch during a time when I didn't have much important stuff to type. That way, I could concentrate 100% on perfecting the new skill, rather than having to revert back to the original skill for getting something done - sort of a hobbyist switch. If all the TS is is a pointer/gesture device and a hobby typing device, then you'll never improve.

[edit:]

Forgot to add that if you do have alot of important things that need to be typed efficiently and comfortably, then go after the tutor programs or just find something to type in the off times. That's why it is so hard to switch anything relating to typing when you have a big workload.

Good luck.

declarke

01-30-2004, 12:13 PM

Originally posted by JerryKnight
That's why it is so hard to switch anything relating to typing when you have a big workload.

Good luck.

it's kind of a catch-22 for the FW folks, isn't it. their best market is people who type for a living -- I'm a s'ware engineer, there isn't a day in my life except hols and weekends when I don't type all day long. and yet those are the people who have the hardest time switching because they are least able to tolerate the reduced productivity during the period of neural dissonance and disorientation.

this is why I say again that ideally the device would learn where the user thinks the keys are -- this would make it able to adapt to the thousands -- millions? -- of self-taught but very fast hacker typists out there.

a voice rec system wouldn't sell well if it required all users to speak RADA English. I wonder why we are still hooked on the idea that an alpha num input device has to have a fixed, quasi-mechanical key layout... when there's no reason it could not be completely customised to the user's hand geometry and typing habits.

de

Tigger

01-30-2004, 12:34 PM

Originally posted by JerryKnight
How can you expect to improve if every time you type for extended periods, you reach for another keyboard? I don't want to start another flame war like what happened in that other thread, but not everybody can stand the frustration and lowered productivity long enough to get over the learning/retraining hump. That's exactly why my coworker friend traded in his TS for two iGesture pads, and why sometimes I wish I had done the same thing. If Fingerworks really wants to gain a significant foothold in the marketplace, then I think they a need to figure out how to help people get over this loss of typing productivity hump. Like declarke said, "It's kind of a Catch-22 for the FW folks." Maybe the learning keyboard is the answer -- I don't know.

JerryKnight

01-30-2004, 04:51 PM

"I don't want to start another flame war like what happened in that other thread, but not everybody can stand the frustration and lowered productivity long enough to get over the learning/retraining hump."

I hope I am not becoming a magnet for such "heated" discussion! :)

I completely understand, and the point of my statements was not "suck it up and type all the time on it" but rather "do what you must to be productive, but spend some time if you can practicing when it is not critical." Does that make better sense? I know those who type for a living (FW's primary market) often cannot afford to be floundering on the keyboard for potentially a month. But that doesn't mean they lack the capacity to learn the keyboard on their own time, eventually phasing out the mechanical keyboard.

"That's exactly why my coworker friend traded in his TS for two iGesture pads, and why sometimes I wish I had done the same thing."

That may be the thing to do. However, I find the biggest benefit of the LP is that I don't have to move my hands from one device to the other... yadda yadda you know the story.

"If Fingerworks really wants to gain a significant foothold in the marketplace, then I think they a need to figure out how to help people get over this loss of typing productivity hump."

I agree mostly from a business standpoint. It needs to be sufficiently possible for customers to switch, otherwise too many people will give up. But this is a "power user" device, not meant for the average Joe computer user. Right now, this is a device for people who are willing and able to make the switch and survive the transition. Maybe with a form of keyboard learning behavior that could change. :)

Syzygies

01-31-2004, 03:06 PM

I'm about ten days in. I see the pros and cons but simply cannot imagine life without a TouchStream. Going back to a great conventional setup (Kinesis Advantage with Logitech Marble Mouse trackballs set up mirror image on each side) is like going back from a telephone to Morse code. Trying to use the trackpad on my notebook, I'm a deer in the headlights trying to figure out why it doesn't respond.

Some touch typists look at a source document, though this is increasingly rare. More look at the screen. It is very little effort to correct mistakes, but one doesn't know one made them without looking at the screen, making the TS unsuitable for typing from physical sources. The Kinesis, on the other hand, has a better sense of "where did my fingers go?" than a regular keyboard. I can type for long stretches on a Kinesis with my eyes closed, making and correcting mistakes by feel, and end up with a perfect document. This is simply not possible with the TS.

I find that I stay registered on my TS by feeling the raised dots on home row as I type, without rest visits. This surprised me at first, but I also never understood how people could read braille. I wish sometimes for raised dots on every key.

I brought my TS to a panel where 16 people worked together using laptops, and got to watch many of them try the TS. It was like watching a rodeo, nearly everyone was thrown within a minute, one or two kept riding without incident until I needed it back. Then a group of mathematicians started discussing the design, and noted that having little depressed dimples for each key would not interfere at all with gesturing, much as we have a blind spot where our optic nerve meets our eye but it doesn't interfere with seeing. This reminded me of a radical cell phone keyboard I saw described, where there was a similar context:ground swap, sometimes the phone keys were what you pressed, sometimes the space around them was what you pressed.

It was generally agreed that the TS would pick up an order of magnitude of market share with the addition of slight physical dimples for tactile key feedback, everyone who had given up would have stayed with it. THIS should be called the "retro" keyboard, if dimples aren't pure enough for the designers. The feedback would be far more immediate and rich in information than key clicks.

Meanwhile, I can't get out of my head the idea of carving two wooden orbs with little closely spaced holes like a martian wind instrument, placing a proximity sensor in each hole, and patching the whole thing into a standard keyboard's USB circuitry. These should be carved like orthotics for each person; I want very closely spaced holes with "frowning" curves to the rows to match my curled hands. Then I'd get dueling gesture pads to keep nearby.

dxtr

02-01-2004, 01:53 AM

I like the dimple idea. So what would happen if I took my dremel and gently made a dimple on each letter? The cover is lexan? and would not mar the letters. Although I do not find the present setup too difficult, but then again I never was to fast any way. Switching between the LP and the NT is somewhat interesting. Just enough difference to make itself known. Not enough to make me have any thoughts of giving either up though :D

Syzygies

02-01-2004, 07:36 AM

You would probably destroy the keyboard.

I have since found this exact debate in other threads, it is an idea that keeps coming around. The present algorithms distort mouse movements slightly near the raised dots, dimples would need software support, just as our brain fills in our blind spots in our vision.

A pragmatic option is to place tiny disks made of removable labels, offset to match any adjustments in key positions. One could do this just for difficult pinky reaches.

As the resolution of these devices naturally increases over the years, I'm hoping the key layout can be collapsed to match the accuracy a given typist can consistently inflect differences in position. No one who gets good at typing on one of these is looking at their fingers, and the present pattern is like putting your foot in a rectangular shoe. (I'm not advocating a return to the slanted columns needed by mechanical keyboards; I have other straight column keyboards, and I adjusted to typing on the TypeMatrix, for example. I'm advocating a more cupped layout like the Kinesis Advantage, with a tighter pattern so one can type with palms planted on gel pads without developing new varieties of pinky RSI.)

We laugh that QWERTY is based on the dated need to keep typewriter hammers from jamming, but the present keyboard layouts printed on TouchStreams should look to the trained eye like fake fireplace logs. There is simply no need for the keys to look like keys as we expect. There are more efficient ways to heat a house, but not if you're selling to a market that expects fireplaces.

ken

02-02-2004, 08:41 AM

Does anyone know how a court reporter's dictation machine works? They seem to be able to go pretty fast....

nomaded

02-02-2004, 02:35 PM

Originally posted by blowery
Hi there,

Just curious, but how fast are people getting with their TS keyboards? Back to your pre-TS speeds? Past them? Approaching?

I'm about 60wpm with a natural kb. After having the TS for a weekend, I'm up to about 35 for simple stuff, but anything with p, o, z or c is killing me. :)

Just curious if I can expect to return to my previous speeds, or if these kinds of speeds are just a pipe dream with this board.

thanks...

I think I may be an unusual customer for "alternate" keyboards. I don't have any physical need to find a better input system. I just wanted a good way to not need to move my hands off the keyboard in order to mouse point.

Now to the question at hand (no pun intended), on a regular QWERTY keyboard, I was doing anywhere between 45wpm to 60wpm, when I was doing a lot of typing. After 2 years of using 2 different TouchStream keyboards, and also using regular QWERTY keyboards, I find that I can easily get 40-45wpm. I don't think I could get anywhere near 60wpm, because of my hands and how the TouchStream keyboards work.

If anything, the TouchStream keyboards have caused me to type better on a regular keyboard. I need to make sure I use correct fingering, and I need to make sure I float my hands over the keyboard more, to make sure I hit the correct keys.

I never got into the "return to home row after each word" method of learning to type, as suggested by the FingerWorks team. I used the more visual, glance up at the screen and down at the keyboard, for quite a while, to get used to the layout (I still do it now, from time to time).

I didn't find the straight columns to be much of an issue at all. I didn't even realise it was an issue til someone complained in a different thread. I find the keys are where my fingers expect them to be, from using a regular QWERTY keyboard. Yes, I will miss and typo certain keys, but I can quickly correct them with a couple backspaces, or I ignore them and correct them later.

I learned to type on a TouchStream on a Stealth, which is similar to an LP, but the pads are glued to the frame. I find the distance and the angle of the frame to be perfect for my hands. It works even better with the keyboard on my lap.

But back to the original point, because of the technology/software, I really don't think 70wpm is an achievable goal (the FingerWorks team may argue with me here). If you find yourself excessively frustrated by only being able to type at around 30-45wpm, then I don't think this keyboard is for you. It's a great keyboard/technology, but like everything else in the world, it may not be for everyone.

declarke

02-02-2004, 04:27 PM

Now to the question at hand (no pun intended), on a regular QWERTY keyboard, I was doing anywhere between 45wpm to 60wpm, when I was doing a lot of typing. After 2 years of using 2 different TouchStream keyboards, and also using regular QWERTY keyboards, I find that I can easily get 40-45wpm. I don't think I could get anywhere near 60wpm, because of my hands and how the TouchStream keyboards work.
. . .

But back to the original point, because of the technology/software, I really don't think 70wpm is an achievable goal (the FingerWorks team may argue with me here). If you find yourself excessively frustrated by only being able to type at around 30-45wpm, then I don't think this keyboard is for you. It's a great keyboard/technology, but like everything else in the world, it may not be for everyone. [/B]

Hrrm. Seems to me that if the TS is inherently slower than an old fashioned mech kbrd, then we need to stop sneering at the old fashioned mech kbrd and ask ourselves how such a clunky, primitive technology manages to be so much faster :-)

in theory, the zero force typing [btw, how many people are really typing zero-force on their TS and how many are thumping it a bit too hard -- like me -- and after several hours feeling some finger-pad fatigue?], ergonomic layout, built in mousing should all make the TS a *faster* input device than the old style kbrd. if it is in practise inherently slower, then my beady little engineering mind suggests that this means there's something wrong that could be fixed. if you eliminate key travel, surely typing should get faster not slower.

in my case I believe I could rip along at my old speeds or better, if only I didn't make so damn many typos that I have to go back and correct. so perhaps the issue is that the mech kbrd provides some kinds of feedback or clues that enable the user to avoid typos. I suspect that feeling near-mishits -- by means of the fingertips detecting off-centre hits on the dished keycaps -- is a major feedback mechanism by which the hands are subtly repositioned and the brain reoriented when using the trad keyboards. out on the flat, featureless Siberian plain of the TS keyboard it is easy for me (for one) to get "lost", even with the tiny nubs for L hand orientation.

any texturing of the pad surface however risks messing up the smooth, beautiful pointing interface. I'm not sure how to get around this, but am pretty sure that the "disoriented" feeling of typing blind on the TS is due to not receiving that continuous stream of tactile feedback about hand and key position. it was very rare for me to type "off by one row" or "off by one column" on a mech keyboard, but it happens far more often on the TS as my hand can drift slowly off position during a stream of typing. typing lengthy SSH pass phrases blind (as one must) is very challenging.

I wonder if audio feedback could compensate for the lack of tactile feedback. let's suppose that a dead-center typing action maintains a very quiet continuous hum, almost subliminal (so it doesn't annoy us); then that drifting off causes a slight volume increase, and that L/R is represented by some tonal variation like sawtoothiness L and square waviness R, away from a pure sine tone, and that U/D deviation causes pitch bending.
heck, this is probably ridiculous and likely to scramble our overworked brains, but it seems to me some kind of feedback might substitute for the familiar fingertip sense of orientation in QWERTY or Dvorak-land.

maybe the new colour changing LEDs could be embedded in the kbrd frame so that in our peripheral vision we saw lights whose colour and intensity gave a clue as to our accuracy -- a soft muted green glow that shifts to different colours as we drift off in different directions?

all this sounds pretty far-out, but the TS is a pretty far-out device. my office mates are frightened of mine :D

de

ken

02-02-2004, 04:38 PM

Well, in order to avoid the hand-drift, I switched to Dvorak about a month before my LS showed up. Since it is built to make you move much less it seemed like it would go hand-in-hand with the LS.

The bad part about that is that I wouldn't really be able to compare the speeds very well untill I felt comfortable with the Dvorak.

nomaded

02-02-2004, 05:41 PM

Originally posted by declarke
Hrrm. Seems to me that if the TS is inherently slower than an old fashioned mech kbrd, then we need to stop sneering at the old fashioned mech kbrd and ask ourselves how such a clunky, primitive technology manages to be so much faster :-)

Well, I believe one of the things the FingerWorks team was trying to do was to help alleviate hand strain/fatigue, and one of the ways that this was done was by forcing people to type slower (someone, please correct me if I'm wrong here).

out on the flat, featureless Siberian plain of the TS keyboard it is easy for me (for one) to get "lost", even with the tiny nubs for L hand orientation.

...

I wonder if audio feedback could compensate for the lack of tactile feedback. let's suppose that a dead-center typing action maintains a very quiet continuous hum, almost subliminal (so it doesn't annoy us); then that drifting off causes a slight volume increase, and that L/R is represented by some tonal variation like sawtoothiness L and square waviness R, away from a pure sine tone, and that U/D deviation causes pitch bending.
heck, this is probably ridiculous and likely to scramble our overworked brains, but it seems to me some kind of feedback might substitute for the familiar fingertip sense of orientation in QWERTY or Dvorak-land.

Actually, I think this might work fairly well. One of the things that I did after I got a MacNTouch for my TiBook was to enable key-clicks in the OS - the MacNTouch's layout is slightly different than the one that's on the Stealth/LP, so my fingers were doing what they were supposed to on the Stealth, but they didn't quite work right on the MacNTouch. I found that it helps, subconsciously to have the key clicks going on as I hit keys, even if I don't hit the right keys because of drift or whatever. Though, interestingly, I don't find that I need the key clicks on my Stealth which is connected to a Windows box.

Once the SDK is finalized, it would be awesome to have an app cause clicks when your fingers hit the 95th-percentile area of the key, and change tone as you hit further and further out from the middle of the key.

Or even better, tie that to a learning game, to help people get accustomed to typing on a zero-force keyboard.

Syzygies

02-02-2004, 05:59 PM

It would be interesting to have a game that offered various mixes of typing, mousing, and command sequences, as a way of benchmarking human interfaces, the way we now calibrate machine speeds.

The premise of this thread is skewed, in its focus on typing speed. Typing could be a bit slower, mousing is certainly slower and less precise than a Logitech Marble Mouse trackball, but one saves on all the transitions. Moreover, this is the most powerfully programmable keyboard out there. Spend a third of the time others spend futzing with their hand held organizers, futzing with programming the TS, and one achieves amazing speedups in productivity. I program, and doing anything but typing words is the downfall of most exotic keyboards. The designers of the TS obviously tuned it for programming, and it shows. Moreover, the punctuation pad is a mere "serving suggestion", easily further customized.

In the end, I can type faster than I can think, whether composing English or code. I can do more than ever before one-handed, without really paying attention.

nomaded

02-02-2004, 07:47 PM

Originally posted by Syzygies
mousing is certainly slower and less precise than a Logitech Marble Mouse trackball

Now I find this to be an interesting comment. I have used and still use many different pointing devices. I don't find my ability to move the mouse pointer to be slower with the TouchStreams. Perhaps it's because I had used trackpads before on a few different notebooks. I think what it is the different meters that are adjustable in the MyGesture Editor. I was able to tweak my acceleration to my preferences. I can accelerate wildly, and I can also move very precisely. If anything, with the ability to roll the finger pads, I can get a lot more precision than with either a mouse or trackball.

Hm.

Well, I can see how one would find pointing to be slower, if the surface of the keyboard is kinda dirty, or non-smooth, so it's harder to quickly glide over the surface. *shrug*

Syzygies

02-02-2004, 08:50 PM

Exactly what numerical settings do you recommend as best for you? I'd love to try them. Mousing has to be solvable in software.

I'd love some new mousing paradigms. A left hand gesture sets up a "golf stroke", where the cursor jumps to the corresponding location on the screen matching the initial center of contact on the right hand pad. ("Teleporting", for anyone old enough to remember Doctor Who.)

Another left hand gesture slows the mouse for a precise landing. Yet others constrain the direction of travel, a la Adobe products. I'd trade some gesturing (control sequences are already easier on the TS than on other keyboards; the truly valuable gestures are those that postpone having to align one's hands) for an astonishing leap in the mousing paradigm.

nomaded

02-03-2004, 12:28 AM

Originally posted by Syzygies
Exactly what numerical settings do you recommend as best for you? I'd love to try them. Mousing has to be solvable in software.

Well, these are my settings on my TiBook with the MacNTouch (I'm not near my windows box with my Stealth at the moment):

The system mouse tracking speed is set to about 75%, with scrolling at 0%. Under the MyGesture Editor setting, mouse pointing speed is set to 100/high; dragging is 100/high; scrolling is 75/very high; and zoom is 5/medium. My TiBook's screen isn't that big (1280x854), but this allows me to quickly move from side to side, top to bottom, but also some fine precision movement with slow finger movement, or even rolling the pads of my fingers.

I'd love some new mousing paradigms. A left hand gesture sets up a "golf stroke", where the cursor jumps to the corresponding location on the screen matching the initial center of contact on the right hand pad. ("Teleporting", for anyone old enough to remember Doctor Who.)

Another left hand gesture slows the mouse for a precise landing. Yet others constrain the direction of travel, a la Adobe products. I'd trade some gesturing (control sequences are already easier on the TS than on other keyboards; the truly valuable gestures are those that postpone having to align one's hands) for an astonishing leap in the mousing paradigm.

I know both have been suggested before, but not together. People have wanted absolute positioning, to get something akin to what you'd get with a Wacom tablet. And people have wanted some gesture that allows a mouse speed modifier, such that you can quickly move some place with one gesture and then slow down the acceleration/speed incredibly with another. Actually, I think that was for the left-hand arrow movements, instead of the right-hand mouse pointer movement. I think having a way to set both would be extremely helpful. In my mind it would be something like the programmer's pad, but for the mouse pointer and/or the keyboard arrows.

How soon can we get something like this, FingerWorks guys? :)

declarke

02-03-2004, 01:55 PM

Originally posted by Syzygies

I'd love some new mousing paradigms. A left hand gesture sets up a "golf stroke", where the cursor jumps to the corresponding location on the screen matching the initial center of contact on the right hand pad. ("Teleporting", for anyone old enough to remember Doctor Who.)

Another left hand gesture slows the mouse for a precise landing.

something -- the only thing -- I miss about my old MouseTrak mouse, which had a big heavy cueball type trackball, is the ability to "hurl" the pointer to a distant location (my desktop is 3 hi-res screens in physical width). this was done by giving the trackball a violent spin in the right direction, then applying braking action (sharply or gently) as the pointer reached the destination. it was kind of fun, too :)

this "hurling" action s/b very easily implemented with a device as smart as the TS -- a LH gesture or cluster that would mean "keep the mouse moving on its current heading", with some kind of scrubbing motion for speed?

de

resonance

02-04-2004, 03:18 PM

Well, to actually answer the original post in this thread, I've just done a few (unscientific) tests and I average about 60-70 words a minute typing (copying text from another window). I did three rounds, one had one mistake, another had three, the third had none. I typed casually, not as if I was in a race.

On a regular keyboard I get about 80, maybe, and the text I was copying had heavy use of parentheses. I have a hard time getting anything that involves numbers and/or punctuation on the upper row.

I'm a very happy touchstream customer, not only for the fact that the TS saved my wrists and my neck/shoulders, but for the new way it's given me to interact with my computer. I think it's important to think of the TS not just as a replacement keyboard, but more universally as a replacement computer/human interaction device, and in that light the sheer typing speed becomes just part of a larger picture.

Sure, it's not for everyone. One probably needs a much higher than average degree of manual dexterity to get comfortable with the keyboard. And even if one gets comfortable with the TS that doesn't guarantee they'll like it.

I'm contemplating a MacNTouch for my new 12" PowerBook and it's really hard to think of why I shouldn't get one. Just one person's opinion, of course.

Smeggy

02-05-2004, 03:28 PM

Crazy as it may seem, my typing speed and accuracy have both increased greatly on the touchstream. I'm no touch typist though, just a reasonably quick 'pecker'. I found the flat surface of the TS allows me to hit keys somewhat inaccurately, but still the correct one for the most part. Mechanical keyboards don't allow this. Inaccuracy inevitably leads to hitting two keys and it's anyone's guess which one or if both keys will appear on the page.

Same reason why I'll never be a kbd musician.. I cannot consistantly hit single keys, even when looking! I have the hand-eye coordination of a fish. The TS has really made me faster D

Probably the only time in my history where being a crappy typer has payed off :cool:

hillbilly

02-07-2004, 09:38 AM

I think Smeggy has hit the nail on the head.

I see that some posts indicate that FingerWorks keyboards are being targetted primarily at mega typists who live their days inputting data. However I would have thought the ideal market to woo is exactly the opposite in terms of typing prowess. The people who would most benefit from these keyboards are the majority of average Joe Mac users whose typing skills put them into the category of mediocre typists. These masses get by OK turning out a few emails and posting to chat rooms using a couple of fingers and a lot of unconventional technique. So a few extra words a minute would be welcome from any new keyboard, but in the scheme of things extra wpm when you type maybe 500 words a day is no real biggy and no justification for spending the sort of money being asked for Fingerworks products.

However, where the masses really need real help, and these keyboards seem to be the answer, is in completing the other core tasks that make using a mac so appealing - burning music, making slideshows, preparing keynote presentations...

I think that certainly in my case as an average Joe typist and all round user of iLife and beyond, I am more interested in the potential time savings and ease of use that these keyboards can offer for everything BUT inputting reams of text. When I am surfing the web and researching material for projects, I want to cut out the need to jump from keyboard to mouse and back in order to copy and paste or navigate between pages. When I am putting a web page together, I want to get more hands on with what is going on on the computer screen and use that XWindow? function that enables me to move windows around with my hands. I am currently a big fan of cocoa gestures for editing and tarting up raw text, but I hate having to "set myself up" into gestures mode to combine a mouse with a modifier keyboard key to achieve a short cut.

I have the impression that these keyboards would in fact be better marketed as the all-in-one ultimate ergonomic control panel - keyboard, mouse, gesture pad and trackpad genuinely rolled into one - rather than coming across as a "concept keyboard for professionals". Have I got the correct impression of what these products can do? If so, put me down for one. If not, what am I missing?

JerryKnight

02-07-2004, 12:27 PM

Well perception is in the eye of the beholder, but there are many "nails" as well.

I perceive the main benefit marketed is the all-in-one-ness aspect - the ergonomic benefit of not having to move around to mouse and keyboard.

Gestures are another nail - they use a different and arguably more natural part of the brain to remember. That, and they can save time by being easier to execute than keystrokes.

I think the "power-user" aspect has to do with the ability and willingness to relearn typing skills. Most people are very resistent to "fix" something that isn't broken. That is why there is generally a great resistence to switching to Dvorak. The "mediocre" mac typers you talk about would probably have the greatest resistence to such a change in typing.

Once zero-force typing is learned, though, it is considerably easier on the fingers, since it requires no effort to push down any keys. That doesn't make any sense to the fundamentalist IBM "M" model users. Oh well.

So your impression is not inconsistent with what I think is the main niche this keyboard belongs in. I just think that the typing change is a challenge that has to be accepted before committing - hence the power user marketing.

(Edit)

I also think that if such a keyboard were to become extremely widespread, the Mac paradigm that you're (rightly) so keen on would be even more the way things are done. I think overall I use the mouse more than I did before, so a point and click environment would be the logical environment for this type of input. Personally, I'm too stuck in linux, though.. :)

Syzygies

02-07-2004, 02:48 PM

To put it differently, we're experimenting with the future. We may not be the best or the worst typists, just the most curious, brought together by a combination of injuries and general frustration with the prospect of living an entire life the same way. FingerWorks and Canesta are the beginning of the end for keyboards as we know them; there is no fundamental reason for moving parts in the human :: computer interface. Look around; the glaciers are receding, all other moving parts are vanishing at an astonishing pace. Computers a century from now will communicate by intently observing us. Any physical objects they present us for this purpose will simply be a useful crutch to help us gesture consistently, but as software rapidly advances it will be far easier to simply figure out what we meant.

Once registration and alignment issues vanish in software, the printed or projected key layout will soon follow. We won't be debating Dvorak versus QWERTY; we'll be debating implants.

We're amphibians working our way from water to land, like those "Far Side" fish looking at their baseball that bounced up onto the beach. This is like the advent of writing; I pray that the market is flexible enough for the current pioneers to survive, rather that going the way of the Phaistos Disk pictured in "Guns, Germs, and Steel."

So why do we use TouchStreams? Because they work astonishingly well for such primitive precursors of what is to come. Because I know I'll be dead then, and I want to play now.

hillbilly

02-07-2004, 03:30 PM

Interesting answers, thanks. Maybe the evolution towards input nirvana could go on two levels. To the masses who wont necessarily take onboard too much radical change all in one go, market the FW keyboards on the lines that as Qwerty keyboards they work without conventional "keys" thus making typing easier on the fingers and no additional strain on the brain- and the mega benefit of the transition to these "wierd" smooth surface boards is that it is a cinch to integrate gestures seamlessly into the work flow, and gestures are not a great brain strain for sure, even though they are radically different. As I said, I am sure speedy navigating is far more marketable in the digital hub age that is blossoming than speedy typing.

For the power users or the curious who know that qwerty is to typing what MS Windows is to GUI, continue offering the rad option that is currently being pitched.

The more people who used them the quicker they could be developed. It would be such a shame to see these sorts of keyboards marginalised for years. Don't adopt the old Apple style of marketing which would keep a great idea so precious that the majority never "got it" until years later when it was popularised and branded with an MS logo.