KALQ – Now Faster Texting

KALQ – Now Faster Texting

Ever wondered, if QWERTY is typing made easy on a physical keyboard, than what should be the typing layout for touch screens? Well, as they say curiosity often gets the better of us. Something similar happened with researchers at Max Planck

Institute and the University of St Andrews and Montana Tech when they pondered over the thought of a keyboard layout which is more comfortable for two thumb texting.  And what evolved as a better and faster option is – KALQ.

What is KALQ?

KALQ is the latest development of a keyboard layout specially designed for two thumb texting. The research team worked on millions of different permutation and combinations before it finalized on the more superior of all – the KALQ layout.

It has made texting much faster than ever before on your touch screens. The trick to achieve this is to reduce the long sequences with a single thumb, says a researcher at Antti Oulasvirta. Reducing the sequence length meant minimizing the moving time of the thumbs.

The New Look- KALQ

KALQ has separated the letters in two halves. It has all vowels, except ‘y’ on the right side and KALQ in the bottom row, while the left side has more keys. There are 16 keys on the left side compared to 12 keys on the right each side including a ‘space’ key.

Typing Made 37% Faster

Today’s generation knows no waiting, and thus KALQ adapts to the faster generation enabling you to typing 37% faster than QWERTY keyboards. Your typing speed on touch screens today is significantly slower than your typing on a physical keyboard. It is because of the ease to tap on the letters is different when typed using all your fingers on a physical keyboard to using only your thumbs on a touch screen. According to researchers the average speed of typing on a touch screen using the QWERTY layout is 20 wpm, which will soon be replaced by a whooping 37 wpm.

Will the Legacy of QWERTY Finally Come To an End?

Now, the question that stands before us, with most of us switching over to touch screens is that will the legacy of QWERTY come to an end. I believe not, though KALQ is a great innovation and will definitely help us text faster yet there is time before QWERTY loses its sheen.

However, what would be really interesting to see is the speed by which we adapt ourselves to KALQ. Even though QWERTY is slower, it has now become habitual. Yet, KALQ provides great incentive to switch from QWERTY. So it might take some more practice before kids at schools and colleges can again start texting looking at the lecturer. Happy Texting the KALQ way!