HYPA Keyboard

This keyboard is a tactile gesture keyboard which makes it possible, for a given writing system, to select a writing symbol of this system by a gesture specific to the way it is written or pronounced. This specific gesture is designated by the neologism of "traceme" which we will call here a "trace". Each "traceme" is therefore, in a specific writing system, a sort of avatar for selecting the symbol of this system.

The current version thus makes it possible to select, by a tactile gesture, each time specific to a given symbol for a given system, traced on the sensitive tactile surface, the writing symbols of three distinct systems: the letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers, and Chinese characters. In addition, specific gestures also exist for the main punctuations and functions (Space, Enter, Delete etc.).

Unlike the usual keyboards in which the selection of a symbol is made by touching the corresponding key, this "keyboard" works more like a compass. The gestures are therefore performed not on the keyboard itself but next to it: either on its right (if the user is right-handed), or on its left (if the user is left-handed).
You can switch from "right-handed" mode to "left-handed" mode by selecting the corresponding key in the installation parameters. The default keyboard installation mode is right-handed.
Each "traceme" is made up of segments whose direction is determined when the mobile central ball, indicator of the movements carried out on the side, has touched one of the peripheral circles, a circle called "petal". Each petal thus touched generates the birth of a new keyboard which details the petal reached and allows the user to continue his gesture by choosing a new direction.

A “traceme” is considered finished when the user ceases his contact with the sensitive tactile surface. The symbol appearing in the center of the compass keyboard is then selected and appears at the location of the cursor in the writing space.

The central ball is blue when the system targets numbers, orange when it targets Latin letters, yellow when it targets characters. For Chinese, the French translation of the character also appears where the gesture to perform it was selected. A summary of the directions of the different segments of the "traceme" which has just been carried out then also appears at the bottom.

After each Chinese character thus selected, in the center of the petals can appear characters likely to form with the one preceding it specific words. These characters can then be selected by a "traceme" of a single direction: the one by which the user selects it. The translation of the word thus selected then appears on a gray background at the top of the execution surface of the "path" while the translation of this second character appears below. The series of directions of the different segments of the "traceme" which appears in this case at the bottom corresponds on the other hand to all the segments of this second character if it had to be traced alone and not by a single segment.

The first two directions (1) (2) of a "traceme" of a Chinese character correspond to its "initial pinyin component" adapted to the system; the next two (3)(4), if necessary, to its "final pinyin component"; the next two again in its key (5)(6), according to a system-specific distribution system, and finally the last two in a spatial location in a pentagon or an octagon.