WatchWriter: Tap and Gesture Typing on a Smartwatch Miniature Keyboard with Statistical Decoding
Open accessAbstract
We present WatchWriter, a finger operated keyboard that supports both touch and gesture typing with statistical decoding on a smartwatch. Just like on modern smartphones, users type one letter per tap or one word per gesture stroke on WatchWriter but in a much smaller spatial scale. WatchWriter demonstrates that human motor control adaptability, coupled with modern statistical decoding and error correction technologies developed for smartphones, can enable a surprisingly effective typing performance despite the small watch size. In a user performance experiment entirely run on a smartwatch, 36 participants reached a speed of 22-24 WPM with near zero error rate.
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Suggestions can be triggered automatically after short inactivity, gated by a utility function, or explicitly requested with a hotkey.
“Related work showed suggestions automatically after short inactivity [4,6] or gated by a utility function [24].Alternatively, recent work has also explored designs in which users explicitly request suggestions with a hotkey [7,17,26,41,48].”
From Choice Over Control: How Users Write with Large Language Models using Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Prompting (2023) · cites this paper as [17]
Single text suggestions can be shown inline, while multiple suggestions are shown as popup lists of about three to six entries.
“Single text suggestions can be shown inline [4,8,17,48], whereas multiple suggestions are shown as popup lists of about three to six entries [6,26].”
From Choice Over Control: How Users Write with Large Language Models using Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Prompting (2023) · cites this paper as [17]
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Phrase sets for evaluating text entry techniques
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Self-citationZoomBoard: a diminutive qwerty soft keyboard using iterative zooming for ultra-small devices
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Self-citationAnalysis of text entry performance metrics
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Text Entry on Tiny QWERTY Soft Keyboards
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Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Fat Fingers, Small Watches #chi4good, CHI 2016, San Jose, CA, USA
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Co-Writing with Opinionated Language Models Affects Users’ Views
Jakesch, M., Bhat, A., Buschek, D., Zalmanson, L., & Naaman, M. (2023) · Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3544548.3581196 · Cited by 265 · see citing works
“They suggest one to three subsequent words based on underlying likelihood distributions [40, 43, 49, 89].”
BackgroundA Design Space for Intelligent and Interactive Writing Assistants
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“Another ethical consideration is accommodating the needs and preferences of diverse users, including those from differently-abled, under-represented, and marginalized communities [1, 14, 103].”
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AI Writing Assistants Influence Topic Choice in Self-Presentation
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Text entry for the Blind on Smartwatches: A study of Braille code input methods for a novel device
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Braille text entry on smartwatches: an evaluation of methods for composing the Braille cell
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A One-Page Text Entry Method Optimized for Rectangle Smartwatches
Jang, R., Jung, C., Mohaisen, D., Lee, K., & Nyang, D. (2022) · IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing · doi:10.1109/tmc.2021.3057226 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
- Authors
- Gordon, M., Ouyang, T., & Zhai, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Rochester (US)
- Google (United States) (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2016-05-07
- Pages
- 3817-3821
- OpenAlex
- W2402790201
- Cited by
- 150
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 52 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 6
- FWCI
- 10.46
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Interactive and Immersive Displays
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Keywords
- touch typing, error correction, human motor control, typing speed
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