Dynamic Soft Input

• US 20120047454A1
• Filed: 07/31/2011
• Published: 02/23/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Erik Anthony Harte
• Original Assignee: Erik Anthony Harte
• Inventors: Harte, Erik Anthony
• Application Number:
  US13/194,975
• Publication Number:
  US 20120047454A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/773
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus

Abstract

Devices and methods are disclosed which relate to improving the efficiency of text input by dynamically generating a soft input based upon current context information. In some embodiments the dynamic soft input may comprise a reduced set of input areas (e.g., keys), which may be sized and/or positioned according to their relative probability of being selected as the next user input. In addition, in some embodiments the probability that an input will be selected may be determined by comparing the current context (e.g., user inputs) to an input model, such as a language model.

Claims

1. In a computer system having a graphical user interface, a method of enhancing a soft input or soft keyboard, comprising the steps of:

(a) providing a soft input manager;

(b) displaying an initial representation of a soft input, having fixed keys of traditional size and location;

(c) receiving input information from the user;

(d) obtaining a set of tuplets of predicted probabilities and keys from a language model based on input from the user;

(e) determining a reduced set of keys from the most likely of said tuplets;

(f) determining the sizes for each key in said reduced set of keys;

(g) determining the shapes for each key in said reduced set of keys;

(h) determining the locations of each key in said reduced set of keys;

(i) displaying a second representation of a soft input with said reduced set of keys, each of said keys having said determined size, shape and location whereby said soft input will display said set of likely next keys at said locations on the soft input and with said sizes and shapes, and a user can select the next key from a smaller group of possible keys with the most likely keys being presented larger and grouped together on the display.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the soft input manager selects a reduced set of keys from said set of likely next keys based on a predetermined threshold expressed as a minimum probability value.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the soft input manager selects a reduced set of keys from said set of likely next keys based on a predetermined threshold expressed as a a maximum number of keys to display.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said user context is based on the current position within the sentence of the word being entered.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said user context is based on the number of characters entered so far within the current word.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said input model is a language model built from a corpus obtained via current popular social media tools such as Facebook or Twitter.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said second representation displays said reduced set of keys with the most likely keys being placed optionally based on user choice in the upper left or upper right of said soft input when said soft input is oriented vertically.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said second representation displays said reduced set of keys with the most likely keys being placed in the upper right and upper left of said soft input when said soft input is oriented horizontally.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the soft input includes at least one key which will cause the soft input to display said initial representation rather than said second representation.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said user context is based on the current application being utilized by the user.

11. A text-entry device for generating a soft input or soft keyboard comprising:

(a) a processor;

(b) a memory in communication with the processor;

(c) a touch screen in communication with said processor;

(d) a soft input manager stored on the memory;

wherein the soft input manager;

displays an initial representation of a soft input having a plurality of visible keys and respective footprints of traditional size and location;

generates a set of tuplets of predicted probabilities and keys from a language model after receiving user input from the soft input;

determines a reduced set of the most likely keys from said set of tuplets;

displays a second respresentation of the soft input comprising each of said reduced set of keys, with each key'"'"'s size, shape, and location being based on its likelihood;

whereby said soft input will display said set of likely next keys at said locations on the soft input and with said sizes and shapes, and a user can select the next key from a smaller group of possible keys with the most likely keys being presented larger and grouped together on the display.