Eric's Wonderful Keyboard

Typing feels natural to most of us whether it’s on a computer or a smartphone. But for Eric, who uses a wheelchair and has limited hand mobility, it’s a different story. He uses a stylus to tap each key on his phone, which works fine until he’s on public transport. The constant movement makes it nearly impossible to type accurately. That’s why Eric reached out for a solution to make typing on the go easier for him.

CSS
HTML
Javascript

"Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating." - Don Norman

More Information

Project Content

Research & First Ideation

To design a custom keyboard for Eric, I first needed to understand which parts of a standard keyboard were difficult for him and which features he actually found useful. After our initial meeting, I explored various input methods but concluded that a touch keyboard would still be the most practical solution. From there, I focused on single-touch keyboards and developed a first prototype. This prototype includes the 12 most commonly used keys in the Dutch language. Each time a key is pressed, it’s added to a word creation bar, allowing words to be formed one letter at a time. Moving forward, I plan to add a word suggestion feature to speed up sentence creation and improve usability.

User test and modifications

With my first prototype in hand, I joined Eric for a test ride on the Amsterdam subway to see how the design worked in a real-world setting. When Eric needed letters outside the 12-key selection, he could switch to a full keyboard but the keys were very small, which made the larger, easier-to-press keys less effective. To improve this, I began experimenting with adding more letters to each key. While adding letters wasn’t difficult, figuring out how to switch between them was a challenge. My first idea was to use double taps, but during testing, we discovered that this conflicted with Eric’s phone’s zoom function, which also relies on double taps.

More Key types & Layout change

fter further user testing with Eric and my fellow students, I realized the layout of the button groups needed to be reworked for better flow. The bottom group would be for selecting letters or symbols, just above that the four function buttons to control word selection, then the letter or symbol type selector above them, and finally, at the top, the area for constructing full sentences.

Final edits

After presenting the keyboard to Eric, he was very happy with the solution and even joked about when it would be ready for real use. I’d love to keep in touch with Eric moving forward to help tackle more digital challenges he faces. For the keyboard project, I initially created my own word library, but I later discovered a Dutch language resource called “OpenTaal.” They provide a text file with all Dutch words, as well as a separate list of the most commonly used words. I plan to prioritize searching through the common words first to make word suggestions more efficient. Additionally, my teacher was impressed with the solution and asked me to adapt it for display on the minor course website, so others can see the project and its potential.

I'm sorry

This part of the website is still under construction, move to another page or change the device to visit this website!