Effects of input methods on inter-key press intervals during continuous typing.

Two popular input methods for Chinese typing, Microsoft New Phonetic and Boshiamy, were compared in terms of hand and finger loading, key-pressing speed and typing efficiency. Sixteen subjects typed an English and a Chinese text for 30 min each during two test sessions and all keystrokes and their inter-key press intervals were recorded by electronic activity monitoring software. Typing with Microsoft New Phonetic and with Boshiamy was found to have equal hand loadings, but typing with Microsoft New Phonetic was associated with a higher proportion of keystrokes at the number row.

Temporal change in bimanual interkeypress intervals and self-reported symptoms during continuous typing.

Introduction: Continuous typing is likely to induce mental and/or muscular fatigue, which contributes to musculoskeletal discomfort. Our goals were to describe the temporal changes in symptoms and interkeypress intervals (IKIs) of each hand during continuous typing. The effects of demographic characteristics and time on the IKI were examined.