Evaluation and improvements of on-screen keyboard for television and Set Top Box

In this paper, we propose an on-screen keyboard for television and Set Top Box (STB) users which allow them to type with reduced number of key-strokes using a remote control and thus improves users´ over-all experience while using services like Internet surfing, short message service (SMS) and Instant Messaging (IM). The faster typing is made possible with novel on-screen keyboard layout that facilitate hierarchical navigation. This work enhances users´ experience of browsing Internet from television by allowing users to type easily and quickly through this on-screen keyboard architecture. It also brings up the enhanced user experience at reduced cost by eliminating the need for a separate physical keyboard. Thus it extends the reach of Internet to newer audience by making it easy and less costly. This work adopted iterative design cycles, where users´ feedback were collected and analyzed in each cycle, and those have led to user-driven usability improvement. In this paper, the complete design cycle is outlined and user study data is presented to show the improvements achieved from user experience perspective.