[Project-ideas] Proposal for "New keyboard layout specific to input on mobile devices"

[Suvonil Chatterjee]

>
> there are a couple of keyboard layouts/input methods available on the
> Android Market (Play). Have you had a chance to look at them ?

That was the very first thing I did. I downloaded the MultiLing
keyboard<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.klye.ime.latin&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5rbHllLmltZS5sYXRpbiJd>and
the Mayabi keyboard(which turned out incompatible with my SGS II). The
multiLing keyboard has a decent layout (with matras on one side and the
consonants on the other). However, I didn't understand the thought process
behind the location of the consonants. Some of the more used ones where at
a greater distance for the thumb as compared to other less used ones. Also,
the rendering of conjuncts was messed up (may be it's because of my phone).
The fast prediction system was pretty impressive. What I understood was the
need for a better layout, a more intuitive entry system and bigger keys.

  Additionally, did you include within your study time, any reading on the
> why and how of the currently available layouts for Bengali ?

Yes. I made it a point to read up as much as possible about Bengali (and
Hindi/Devnagri) keyboards and the design principles involved in each. The
keyboard layouts I read up about are Baishakhi Inscript Layout,
Uni-Geetanjali Layout, Samit Toptype Layout and WEBEL Layout and
also comparative studies on their performance. Apart from these, I also
went through soft keyboard implementations of popular English keyboard
styles (like Dvorak, Fitaly, Opti, Cirrin, Lewis etc.) in Bengali.

*Suvonil Chatterjee*
*Undergraduate Student, BITS Pilani <http://bits-pilani.ac.in>.*

*
*
*Design Intern, *Rovio.

*UI Architect, *Framebench(Previously Anaya Labs).

*Lead Design , *TunePatrol.


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Contact: 91 666 84 822



On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 8:27 PM, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <
sankarshan.mukhopadhyay at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Suvonil Chatterjee <suvonil at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi, I'm Suvonil, currently in my second year of Electronics Engineering
> @ BITS Pilani. I've been lurking around the mailing list and the irc
> channel for the last 10-12 days but didn't introduce myself till I had done
> some solid work. It's been really exciting to go through all the factors
> that are considered while designing a keyboard layout, the challenges one
> faces with Indic languages and brainstorming about the same with my
> friends. The small test runs with trying to render ASCII characters on the
> keys in Android served as a reminder that nothing worth doing is ever easy.
> Anyways, I finally submitted my proposal last night.
>
> I'll probably end up asking this and more on the proposal, but here's
> a preliminary query - there are a couple of keyboard layouts/input
> methods available on the Android Market (Play). Have you had a chance
> to look at them ? Additionally, did you include within your study
> time, any reading on the why and how of the currently available
> layouts for Bengali ?
>
> --
> sankarshan mukhopadhyay
> <http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/>
> _______________________________________________
> Project-ideas mailing list
> Project-ideas at lists.ankur.org.in
> http://lists.ankur.org.in/listinfo.cgi/project-ideas-ankur.org.in
>
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