CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Significance of the Keyboard

The keyboard has undoubted become a literary skill as important as reading and writing. Ten to fifteen years ago most executives and professionals didn’t need to type but in today’s workplace, the ability to be able to operate a keyboard properly is essential. The keyboard is the main standard input device for the computer, and is expected to remain so until around 2050 when voice recognition software is expected to become a viable technology. At home, people now use the PC an average of 11 hours a week, most commonly for e-mail, the Web, games and educational purposes, as a Gallup survey found^[1]. The majority of users also report using the PC at home for work-related reasons. The average worker now uses the PC for 22 hours per week. It is therefore imperative that the keyboard be optimized for comfort, typing speed, error rate, fatigue, muscular strain, and usability.

1.2 Current Arabic Keyboard Layouts

The most pervasive Arabic keyboard layout used is the Arabic (101) keyboard layout, which is used on most IBM and IBM-compatible PCs (see figure 1-1), used by roughly 95% of Arabic users. The second most common is the keyboard layout used by Apple computers (see figure 1-2). This paper will focus primarily on the Arabic (101) keyboard layout.

Figure 1-1a: The Arabic (101) Keyboard Layout[2]

Figure 1-1b: The Arabic (101) Keyboard Layout with the Shift key

Figure 1-2a: Apple Arabic Keyboard Layout (Normal)[3]

Figure 1-2b: Apple Arabic Keyboard Layout (with Shift)

Figure 1-2c: Apple Arabic Keyboard Layout (with Option)

Orientation of the Arabic script is from right to left, with the exception of numbers, which are laid out left to right as in English. Switching to the Arabic input language is usually done by pressing Right Alt+ Shift. Switching again to the English input language is done by pressing Left Alt+ Shift. Since Arabic is written from right to left, the text is usually aligned to the right. This can be done with the keyboard Right Ctrl+ Shift.

1.3 Problems with the Current Standard Arabic Keyboard Layout

There is a common perception among Arabic keyboard users that it is much easier to learn to type English than Arabic. Although the Arabic language has 28 basic letters, it does not differentiate between upper and lower case figures. But it does have, in addition to the basic letters, 8 different variations of several letters (ؤ ء ئ أ إ آ ة ى), and 8 diacritical marks[4] ( ُ  ٌ  َ  ً  ِ  ٍ  ْ  ّ), which are rarely used (unless to clarify similar sounding words). Thus, the total number of letters that an Arabic user uses while typing in Arabic is 28+8+8=44 letters. In contrast, a user typing on an English keyboard would use 26 lowercase + 26 uppercase = 52 letters, i.e. more letters than Arabic. I have excluded characters that are used in both languages (.  , ; ? / etc.) and the kashida[5]. 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 premise of this study is that the locations of the following letters on the standard Arabic keyboard are problematic for the following reasons:

The following are frequently repeated characters located in the hard-to-reach areas of the keyboard:

1. The period (.) is in the same location of “>” character in the standard English keyboard, on the bottom row, accessed with the right ring finger while pressing the Shift key. This is not practical since almost every sentence ends with either a period or a comma. It also causes confusion for users who type both in English and in Arabic. While typing in English they frequently press Shift to access the period, and forget to press Shift to access it while typing in Arabic. This typing error still persists frequently with me after five years of typing in both languages.
2. The comma (،) is typed with the right middle finger while pressing the Shift key. Its location corresponds to the K location in the standard English keyboard, home row. This is not practical since almost every sentence ends with either a period or a comma, it should not be with the Shift key. It also causes confusion for users who type both in English and in Arabic, since it is not in the same location of the comma on the standard English keyboard (with or without the Shift key). It would make more sense to have both the comma and period in the same location on the keyboard for both English and Arabic.
3. The letter (د) is a fairly frequent character. It is the 15^th most frequent character in Arabic according to Appendix A. Yet its location on the keyboard is on the far right of the top row accessed by using the right little finger (pinkie), corresponding to the “]” character in the standard English keyboard. Since the little finger is shorter, it has to go further to reach its keys.
4. The letter (ج) is a fairly frequent character. It is the 22^nd most frequent character in Arabic according to Appendix A. Yet its location on the keyboard is on the top row second to last from the right, accessed by using the right little finger, corresponding to the “[“ character in the standard English keyboard.
5. The letter (ذ) is a basic letter. It is the 25^th most frequent character. Yet its location is on the far left of the numbers row (i.e: not within the basic layout).

The following are infrequently repeated characters located at easily accessible areas of the keyboard:

6. The letter (ؤ) is an infrequent letter. It is the 50^th most frequent character and the least frequent letter. Yet its location is easily accessible, corresponding to the location of the letter “c” on the standard English keyboard typed by the left middle finger.
7.  The key corresponding to the letter “b” on the standard English keyboard is occupied by a combination of two letters (لا). This key serves as a shortcut but is rarely used, as the two letters can be easily typed since they are at the home row accessed by the two index fingers (both letters correspond to the letters “g” and “h” respectively on the standard English keyboard). Therefore, this easily accessible key is not utilized efficiently, at the expense of more frequent characters located at hard-to-reach keys. This ligature was originally designated in the Arabic typewriter because of the absence of contextual analysis. Since computer contextual analysis redraws these two letters to look like (لا) rather than (لـا) the purpose of this key is obsolete.
8. The letter (ء) is an infrequent letter. It is the 38^th most frequent character. Yet its location is fairly accessible, corresponding to the location of the letter “x” on the standard English keyboard.
9. The letter (ز) is an infrequent letter. It is the 35^th most frequent character. Yet its location is fairly accessible, corresponding to the location of the period on the standard English keyboard, typed with the right ring finger.
10. The letter (ئ) is an infrequent letter. It is the 39^th most frequent letter. Yet its location is fairly accessible, corresponding to the location of the letter “z” on the standard English keyboard, typed with the left little finger.

In addition to the difficulty in learning and using the Arabic keyboard that is caused by these problems, it is likely that the design increases the risk of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). “Repetitive Strain Injuries occur from repeated physical movements doing damage to tendons, nerves, muscles, and other soft body tissues. Occupations ranging from meatpackers to musicians have characteristic RSIs that can result from the typical tasks they perform. The rise of computer use and flat, light-touch keyboards that permit high speed typing have resulted in an epidemic of injuries of the hands, arms, and shoulders. The thousands of repeated keystrokes and long periods of clutching and dragging with mice slowly accumulates damage to the body: another name for the condition is Cumulative Trauma Disorder. This can happen even more quickly as a result of typing technique and body positions that place unnecessary stress on the tendons and nerves in the hand, wrist, arms, and even the shoulders and neck. Lack of adequate rest and breaks and using excessive force almost guarantee trouble”.[6]

“RSI is a single health problem that has soared from 18 percent of all workplace maladies to 56 percent in less than 10 years. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reports that RSI now accounts for over half of all worker's compensation claims. Over 2.5 million "computer athletes" are afflicted with this overuse syndrome.”[7]

The Dvorak keyboard is now gaining popularity, as repetitive stress injuries continue to cripple high-volume English typists. Studies on RSI in the Arab World are rare. It might not yet be an epidemic due to the fact that most Arab users are among the young generation (Older workers are more at risk because the body's ability to repair from constant wear and tear decreases with age). Since there is greater finger movement in the standard Arabic keyboard than there is in the standard English keyboard, RSI is expected to be worse in the Arab world in the upcoming decades as the Information Industry flourishes, especially among those who type more than 8 hours a day.

1.4 Objectives of the Study

This paper proposes two alternative designs:

1- An optimum design which would be completely different from the current pervasive design (Most common letters are in the home row (the middle line of alphabetic keys, where your fingers rest naturally), and the stronger fingers do most of the work).

2- An optimal design that moderates the severity of the current design in terms of the following characters (· ، ذ  د  ج).

This study will favor 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. Those that offer minor changes in exchange for superior improvement have a much better chance.

In developing an alternative layout, the research uses the methodology used by Dr. August Dvorak in designing the Dvorak English layout. The Dvorak keyboard failed to gain popularity for reasons of market inertia, personal preferences, and compatibility. But the pretext for assuming that a proposed alternative to the current design of the Arabic keyboard would be more successful than the Dvorak design is that the current English keyboard –although not optimum– is not as problematic as the current Arabic keyboard layout (particularly as it relates to ten problematic characters). Also, the layout that this paper recommends does not differ greatly from the status quo, thus is not as susceptible to the resistance experienced by radically different layouts such as Dvorak. This paper analyses a corpus of Arabic texts from different disciplines by counting the frequency of each Arabic character. The research then attempts to design two different keyboard layouts based on the results and the Dvorak methodology.

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