I thought this was a joke when I saw it. I'm still not entirely convinced it's not the most elaborate hoax web site of the year.

This is a bit like the Fastap keyboard that John highlighted a few weeks ago: it seems to address a need for one-handed typing. Personally, I'd take one of the Nokia-style mini-qwerty keypads any day. So long as it's small enough to fit in my coat pocket, with keys big enough to do two-handed thumb-typing, that's good enough for me to tap out small notes, text messages, etc. If I want to do any real writing, I'll wait until I've got a full-size keyboard in front of me.

Has anyone seen the Alphasmart Dana, by the way? Now that's something to drool over.

(Oh, and when they say that the Half Keyboard leaves "your other hand free for other things," what immediately springs to mind is not using the mouse, or drawing on a touchpad.)

Posted by: Martin on December 17, 2002 05:21 AM

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In the UK, there is currently an advert with a picture of a business man sitting on his briefcase on a train platform. It's a sunny day. The tagline goes "15 minutes wait for the train. Would you rather do nothing, or be checking your email?" Doing nothing on a sunny day seems like a pretty good option to me, but then again maybe I'm not the target audience for these 'wire your brain up to the closest lamp-post' devices.

Posted by: James Tuddenham on December 17, 2002 05:53 AM

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I'm with you Martin. I was convinced that this was a "con" but after downloading the demo and attempting to perform with only half my keyboard, I've realized that these people are serious. Seriously crazy if they think people will go to the trouble of relearning how to type in order to save a couple ounces of weight.

Posted by: boysen on December 17, 2002 10:09 AM

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I prefer the microwriter chord keys for one handed blind typing:

Posted by: Mac on December 17, 2002 10:23 AM

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Well, had anyone bothered to Google, they would have found the article I wrote many years ago on the software-only predecessor of Half-QWERTY, which was in fact tested on actual users. It took not very long to retrain for one-handed typing, and one subject reached something like 80% of her two-handed typing speed. I was functional, albeit slow, immediately.

So no, this isn't a hoax. It's backed up by solid human-factors research, so give us a break, would yez?

Posted by: Joe Clark on December 17, 2002 11:04 AM

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http://www.halfkeyboard.com/research/index.html

Posted by: on December 17, 2002 12:35 PM

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I'm wondering who the audience is for this? Personally, I find my full-size Palm keyboard quite useful for intensive data-entry tasks away from the computer. It folds up very small and light and has always worked flawlessly. I can't see relearning how to type in order to save some weight or to avoid having to unfold the keyboard. I don't see myself ever needing to do the two-handed entry I've seen in their examples, either. I don't have that kind of time pressure on my life. I do like the convenience of being able to lay your Palm flat on the desk rather than having to stand it up; seems like a more natural arrangement. Not compelling enough for me to switch, but a good feature.

Posted by: Lydia on December 17, 2002 12:42 PM

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Fair point, Joe. Searching for "Half Keyboard" does indeed show up a lot of results, and a bunch of interesting research. For disabled users, and in other specialist markets, its utility is clear. But by emphasizing how it will leave you one hand free to do other things, the halfkeyboard.com web site is clearly marketing the thing at an able-bodied audience, who want to use a keypad for their PDAs. The initial reactions in the comments here may indicate that they'll have an uphill struggle on their hands to get people to look past the strangeness of the product.

Your research showed that it took average users 10 hours to get up to 50% of their two-handed typing speed. But what was a typical user's typing speed after just two minutes? Because that may be all the time they'll spend playing with it when they're in a store, with an eager sales assistant by their side. And then there are those lovely Blackberries, and the shiny new Nokias with their qwerty keyboards, both just a few feet away...

If customers can see an immediate benefit from using the half keyboard, they'll buy it. With the payoff 10 hours of practice away, it will only appeal to a minority. The usability may be grand, but it's not everything. In marketing terms, this looks like a nightmare--or maybe just a novelty.

Posted by: Martin on December 17, 2002 12:42 PM

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Of course it's marketing. That's usually what companies do when they have a great product. If I were making the same thing, I'd market the hell out of it. It doesn't claim to be better or even equivalent to the QWERTY keyboard, but it fills a need that many users have - typing with one hand - and does so with reasonable success (see Joe's comment above). With handwriting recognition coming more into play with PDAs and Tablet PCs, I can see a tool like this being very useful in the future.

Posted by: Joshua Kaufman on December 17, 2002 01:17 PM

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Does this mean you only do half the work in half the time?

Posted by: Daniel Szuc on December 18, 2002 07:55 AM

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