STRAYER UNIVERSITY

 

ALTERNATIVE LAYOUTS FOR THE ARABIC KEYBOARD: OPTIMIZING USABILITY, SPEED, COMFORT, ACCURACY AND LEARNING CURVE

 

A DIRECTED STUDY PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS

 

TO DR. E. MANSOUR

 

BY LINA MALKAWI

ARLINGTON CAMPUS

SUMMER 2002

 

 

 

To my parents who have done so much for me and have always been a source of my inspiration

 

ABSTRACT

There is a common perception among Arabic keyboard users that it is much easier to learn to type English than Arabic. This research paper presumes that the difficulty perceived in learning and using the Arabic keyboard is not due to characteristics in the Arabic language but to a poor design of the Arabic keyboard layout.

The paper proposes two alternative designs:

1- An optimum design (Most common characters are in the home row, and the stronger fingers do most of the work).

2- An optimal design that remedies certain problematic characters (· ، ذ  د  ج).

This study favors the second option because the possibility of its success is far greater than that of the first. History has shown that for reasons of path dependency, market inertia, and resistance to migration and retraining, alternative layouts that are radically different than the current standard rarely succeed.

The research uses the methodology used by Dr. August Dvorak in designing the Dvorak English layout. Dvorak’s design improved efficiency by placing most frequent letters on the home row and also making the stronger fingers do most of the work. A corpus of Arabic texts from different disciplines was analyzed by counting the frequency of each Arabic character.

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Significance of the Keyboard 1.2 Current Arabic Keyboard Layouts 1.3 Problems with the Current Standard Arabic Keyboard Layout 1.4 Objectives of the Study

CHAPTER II: THE EVOLUTION OF ARABIC KEYBOARD

CHAPTER III: ALTERNATIVES LAYOUTS FOR THE ENGLISH QWERTY KEYBOARD

3.1 The Origin of the Modern Computer Keyboard 3.2 The Dvorak Alternative 3.3 The Successes and Failures of the Dvorak Layout

CHAPTER IV: CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ARABIC TEXTS

4.1 First Design (Optimum) 4.1.1 Subjects 4.1.2 Tools 4.1.3 Procedure 4.1.4 Limitations of the Study 4.1.5 Design Methodology 4.1.6 Analysis and Design 4.2 Second Design (Optimal) 4.2.1 Design Methodology

CHAPTER V: DESIGN IMPLICATIONS AND PROJECTED IMPEDIMENTS

CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

Appendix A Appendix B