How to bring forward the community?

[EdorFaus]

On 02/29/2012 06:50 PM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> Am 29.02.2012 um 18:05 schrieb Gerald A:
>> Some people like it.
>
> Yes, I know and want to better understand why. It looks as if they like
> them because they feel better than on-screen keyboards.

I think this is precisely it, actually. Maybe you just haven't realized 
how important feel actually is for this kind of thing, at least for some 
people.

When I type, either on a (closer-to-)full-size keyboard like on my 
netbook, or on a smaller mobile keyboard like on my NanoNote or E51, I 
do it mostly by feel - I slide my fingers across the keyboard, feeling 
each key as I pass it (or maybe more accurately, the edges between 
them), and then stop at the right key and apply more pressure, until I 
feel it has been clicked (there's usually a threshold).

All of that is done in my fingers, by touch/feel, which means they can 
fairly easily learn how to do it more or less by themselves - leaving my 
mind free for the task at hand (maybe except for the rarely used keys 
that my fingers haven't learned yet).

Contrast with an on-screen keyboard, where I have to hover my fingers 
above the screen instead of sliding across, and touch the screen to 
"click" a key - which provides no tactile feedback for which key I'm 
currently above, and no threshold that tells me when the key is clicked.

That forces me to look at the keyboard instead of at what I'm doing with 
it, and spend some concentration on the typing itself - and doesn't 
allow my fingers to rest on the keyboard.

On-screen keyboards also tend to be even smaller than physical ones, 
even if only because you have to also see what you're actually working on.

Another thing is that on small keyboards like my NN, I don't always need 
to move my fingers to hit two separate keys - since my thumbs are larger 
than the keys, I can stop my thumb near an edge, press on one key, then 
just tilt the finger a bit and press the other. Since I can feel both 
the edge and which key was pressed, that works fairly well, with little 
thought.

Now, the NN's keyboard is hardly the best ever - but it still works 
better for me than on-screen keyboards, where I usually have to resort 
to a stylus to have much chance of getting things done with any speed.

-- 
Regards,
Frode

P.S. I'm actually buying a GTA04 anyway - I'm already in the Group Tour 
- as the keyboard isn't *that* important to me personally, as long as I 
don't need to do too much typing on the device itself.