October 8, 2009

Zeta

Jan-Christoph Borchardt recently mentioned Zeta, a virtual keyboard for Android phones that is kind of similar to (but perhaps a bit less sophisticated than) Retype C. Zeta uses three large «buttons», each of which lets you select nine different keys using a gesture.

Zeta Layout

Alternative characters can be accessed by pressing and holding. To type a space or delete character, you do a swipe to the right or left, respectively. For return, you do a left-right-left swipe.

Zeta probably takes a bit of time to learn, but looks like a workable alternative for languages that don’t support auto-correction.

If you require a short url to link to this article, please use http://ignco.de/195

designed_for_use_small

If you liked this, you'll love my book. It's called Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web. In it, I cover the whole design process, from user research and sketching to usability tests and A/B testing. But I don't just explain techniques, I also talk about concepts like discoverability, when and how to use animations, what we can learn from video games, and much more.

You can find out more about it (and order it directly, printed or as a DRM-free ebook) on the Pragmatic Programmers website.