Investigating Performance and Usage of Input Methods for Soft Keyboard Hotkeys
This addresses the lack of efficient command selection on touch-based devices, offering a practical solution for users, though it is incremental in applying desktop hotkey concepts to mobile interfaces.
The paper investigated using soft keyboard hotkeys (SoftCuts) as a command selection mechanism for touch-based devices, finding that they are appreciated by users and support rapid command selection across different conditions, with no performance drop while walking using the Once input method.
Touch-based devices, despite their mainstream availability, do not support a unified and efficient command selection mechanism, available on every platform and application. We advocate that hotkeys, conventionally used as a shortcut mechanism on desktop computers, could be generalized as a command selection mechanism for touch-based devices, even for keyboard-less applications. In this paper, we investigate the performance and usage of soft keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys (abbreviated SoftCuts) through two studies comparing different input methods across sitting, standing and walking conditions. Our results suggest that SoftCuts not only are appreciated by participants but also support rapid command selection with different devices and hand configurations. We also did not find evidence that walking deters their performance when using the Once input method.