MessagEase

MessagEase Logo

MessagEase is an input method and virtual keyboard for touchscreen devices. It relies on a new entry system designed by Saied B. Nesbat, formatted as a 3x3 matrix keypad where users may press or swipe up, down, left, right, or diagonally to access all keys and symbols.^[1] It is a keyboard that was designed for devices like cell phones, mimicking the early cell phones' limited number of 12 keys.^[2]

The large letters contain the most common letters, and these letters are accessed by a tap. The small letters contain less common letters, and these are accessed by a slide. There's a green trail that shows the path of the finger.^[3] The keyboard supports multiple user dictionaries, used for word prediction and correction.^[4]

The software is developed and patented by ExIdeas, based in Belmont, California. It was first released in 2002 for the Palm, along with a paper in 2003.^[5]

Layout

Default keyboard

The keyboard layout has a 3x3 matrix that allows for full-text entry. The letter placement is optimized for minimal movement distance between letters, allowing for faster typing.^[6]

The layout is 67% faster than a standard QWERTY software keyboard, and 31% faster than a multi-tap keyboard, when typing is modeled with Fitt's law. A big part of this is that 9 letters can be accessed by using the central key, which is O.^[7]

Software

The keyboard is currently available for Android devices, iOS devices and the Apple Watch.^[8]

Currently supported languages:

• Arabic
• English
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hebrew
• Italian
• Japanese Katakana
• Japanese Hiragana
• Korean
• Persian
• Russian
• Spanish
• Urdu

History

MessagEase was released in 2002 for the Palm. It was also originally a competitor to the T9 predictive input method, on a 12-button phone, with 9 number buttons. In this first iteration, each of the 9 primary characters needed to be pressed twice in a row, and secondary characters were entered by first pressing the main button, and then pressing one of the remaining 8 buttons.^[9] In this first iteration, because many letters required two presses, it was not significantly faster than the Multi-tap input method.^[10]

MessagEase is now exclusively for touch screens, and no longer has physical 12-button support. All characters are now entered by tapping or swiping.

External links

• Official site
• Copy of "A System for Fast, Full-Text Entry for Small Electronic Devices"

References

1. Bozorgui-Nesbat, Saied (2003). "A system for fast, full-text entry for small electronic devices". Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces - ICMI 2003. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: ACM Press. pp. 4–11. ISBN 1-58113-621-8.
2. Khalil Ibrahim, Ismail (30 September 2008). Handbook of Research on Mobile Multimedia (Second ed.). Information Science Reference. p. 777. ISBN 978-1605660462.
3. "Four funky Android keyboards". Retrieved 27 December 2015.
4. "Android FAQ". Retrieved 19 March 2015.
5. Lomas. "As Mobile Devices Morph Into Wearables, Keyboard Maker MessagEase Wants Your Fingers To Settle On Its Qwerty Killer". TechCrunch.
6. Bozorgui-Nesbat, Saied (2003). "A system for fast, full-text entry for small electronic devices". Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces - ICMI 2003. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: ACM Press. pp. 4–11. ISBN 1-58113-621-8.
7. Alkhalifa, Eshaa (31 May 2012). Cognitively Informed Intelligent Interfaces: Systems Design and Development (1st ed.). IGI Global. p. 30. ISBN 978-1466616288.
8. "MessageEase". Retrieved 19 March 2015.
9. Paternò, Fabio, ed. (2002). Mobile Human-Computer Interaction - 4th International Symposium - Mobile HCI 2002. Pisa, Italy: Springer. p. 208. ISBN 3-540-44189-1.
10. Chi Connect 2004: Conference Proceedings: Conference On Human Factors In Computing Systems. Vienna, Austria: ACM Press. April 2004. p. 352. ISBN 978-1581137026.