Bending the keyboard can improve bare-hand typing in virtual reality

This experiment proposed a half-curved (HC) keyboard that combined flat and curved surfaces, and compared its input performance and subjective evaluation with a flat keyboard. It also investigated the relationship between different types of keyboards, keyboard portion, and the performance of different users. In the experiment, 29 participants were recruited to perform text input tasks on HC keyboards and flat keyboards. The input results showed that HC keyboard can effectively reduced the user’s keystroke reaction time (KRT) (F \(_{\varvec{(1,28)}}\) $_{\mathbf{(}\mathbf{1}\mathbf{,}\mathbf{28}\mathbf{)}}^{}$ =5.901, p=0.022, part \(\varvec{\eta }^{\varvec{2}}=0.174\) ${\mathit{\eta }}^{\mathbf{2}}=0.174$ ) and improved the user’s words per minute (WPM) (F \(_{\varvec{(1,28)}}\) $_{\mathbf{(}\mathbf{1}\mathbf{,}\mathbf{28}\mathbf{)}}^{}$ =7.396, p=0.011, part \(\varvec{\eta }^{\varvec{2}}=0.209\) ${\mathit{\eta }}^{\mathbf{2}}=0.209$ ). To investigate the reasons for the improvement, the keyboard was split into curved (left) and flat (right) partitions. The results showed that the half-curved keyboard exhibited a more balanced input speed between the left and right partitions, whereas the flat keyboard demonstrated a significantly slower input speed on the right partitions compared to the left partitions. In addition, the advantages of the HC keyboard were more pronounced for participants with lower input performance, as the design of the curved portion significantly enhanced their input speed (p=0.019). Therefore, the curved keyboard could serve as a practical means to improve user input performance.