Keystroke Saving in a Language with Highly Transparent Orthography

This paper proposes a pseudo-syllabic soft keyboard for the Croatian language. The orthogonal keyboard layout makes it possible to improve typing efficiency in terms of keystroke saving, and is based on a highly ordered arrangement of pseudo-syllabic keys. The positions of the consonant and vowel graphemes that constitute a pseudo-syllable are used to access it orthogonally and independently of each other. This allows the user to input a pseudo-syllable with a lower cognitive load than with non-orthogonal 2-D layouts. Moreover, due to the almost perfect transparency of the language, a pseudo-syllable to be input can be accessed fast and with a reduced cognitive load starting from its phonetic sounds. The results of the present study show that the obtainable keystroke savings are comparable with those scored by word prediction tools with one suggestion, i.e., those requiring only a moderate cognitive load by the user.