Effects of common keyboard layouts on physical effort : implications for kiosks and Internet banking

Abstract

This study investigates the effect common keyboard layouts have physical effort. First, alphabetic keyboard layouts are experimentally compared to the QWERTY layout. Second, the number row often found on QWERTY keyboards are experimentally compared to numeric keypad layout. Our study shows that users operate more effectively using a QWERTY layout than an alphabetical layout. Moreover, users operate more effectively using a numeric keypad compared to a row of number keys. Implications for two important application areas in society, namely touch-based self-service kiosks and numeric input in context of Internet banking are discussed.