I'm a contractor with Research Triangle Institute (
http://www.tri.org) and am evaluating a technology for a partner - the aim here is to determine whether the technology has commercial potential, and they should try to market it for license it, or is it old news, too niche, etc. I'd welcome any opinions on the subject.
The technology is an alternative keyboard layout, and a schematic is attached here.
This layout is designed to be more efficient than that of a conventional QWERTY keyboard, being more logical and ergonomic, thereby facilitating an increase in the average speed and accuracy of a user’s data-entry typing ability.
The keyboard may be implemented in physical form, either as a standalone or plug-in keyboard for a standard portable device (e.g. netbook), or as a soft (software) or virtual keyboard for devices such as cell phones, tablets and various other portable devices.
The keyboard layout arranges the alpha-characters (alphabet characters) in a unique geometric pattern with their positions based on their frequency of occurrence in the English language (other arrangements can be created for other languages). This layout reduces finger-travel since the most-used characters are more readily reachable and so faster typing is facilitated.
Tests have shown that the new keyboard’s alpha-layout can be learned by most people in 15 to 30 minutes. This makes self-taught touch typing a possibility for anyone as they will no longer need to look at the keyboard when typing.
The physical implementation of the new keyboard is considerably smaller than a standard desktop QWERTY keyboard, thus making it particularly well suited for netbooks, yet it maintains practical keycap size for the smallest keys.
Key size also varies advantageously, being larger for the weaker, less dexterous fingers.
The space key, one of the most frequently used keys, is placed in the center.
Because of its much smaller footprint size the new keyboard design advantageously allows for one or two handed typing.
Any thoughts on this would be welcome.