Text Input on a Smart Watch

Although smart-watches let users receive many forms of communication, there is usually no direct way of replying. We introduce an interaction design and an optimized alphabetic layout for smart-watch text entry and present an evaluation using a working prototype. Text entry is a key component of many smartphone applications. The recent release of smart watches has met considerable interest, but without text entry, interaction is frustratingly limited—users can see posts, short messages, and emails but can’t reply using the watch. As part of our ongoing work, we outline a text entry approach for smart watches, describe our initial prototype, and discuss the outcomes of our lab-based evaluation of the prototype. Text Entry on Small Devices Before the widespread adoption of touchscreen smartphones, 12-key physical-keypad phones were the most common text entry method on small devices. Predictive technologies interpreted the ambiguous keys (usually three or four letters per key) and suggested.1,2 This approach was shown to achieve speeds of approximately 10 words per minute (wpm) for novices and 20 to 25 wpm for experts in controlled studies.3 In a previous study, we investigated this approach using a reduced number of keys for text entry o