The document proposes an on-screen keyboard for TVs and other devices that reduces the number of keystrokes needed for navigation and input. It arranges characters in a hierarchical block structure and enables selection with only 9 remote control keys. An algorithm is also described that optimally arranges a given number of characters into rows and columns to minimize the maximum distance between any character. The keyboard is intended to provide a low-cost typing solution for interactive TV applications.

1. September, 2009
Novel On-Screen Keyboard for
Hierarchical Navigation with
Reduced Number of Key Strokes
Arpan Pal, Chirabrata Bhaumik, Debnarayan Kar, Somnath
Ghoshdastidar, Jasma Shukla

2. May 17, 2015
Problem Statement
The world is witnessing phenomenal convergence in terms of content, access
technology and access device.
• Television is the best example
among all devices where contents
like voice, data and multimedia can
be converged and accessed in a
most cost effective manner.
• However it has been a challenge to provide cost-effective and easy-to-use keyboard
for accessing services like Internet and short message services from Television. A full-
fledged separate wireless keyboard adds up to the cost.
• A cheaper option is infra-red remotes with on-screen keyboard on TV screen.
However the available on-screen keyboards require a large number of keystrokes to
navigate which makes it cumbersome to use.
There is need for easy-to-easy on-screen keyboards customized for Infra-red
remotes

3. May 17, 2015
Proposed System
To achieve the stated goals, a system is proposed where an on-screen keyboard with
hierarchical character or symbol organization can be used.
The onscreen keyboard is displayed on the monitor of a Television, Computer or similar
device and is operated by a remote control to allow navigation with reduced number of
key strokes and enhanced user experience for using convergent services like internet
browsing, short message service (SMS), Instant Messaging (IM) on devices like TV
using Set Top Box obviating the need for separate physical keyboard.
On-screen Keyboard Layout Remote
The navigation and selection of character or symbols of the Onscreen keyboard is fully
operable with only 9 keys (orange color) of an remote control.
The onscreen keyboard presented
does not have numerical values
as those can be directly typed
through the remote it self thereby
reducing the character set .

4. May 17, 2015
The character set is organized in blocks with each block containing up to a maximum of 4
characters which are organized according to mathematical formulation
• Hierarchical navigation and selection method is used across
and within the specially organized character blocks to reduce the
number of key-strokes required for navigation and selection.
System Overview
Navigation
• Round robin navigation is used across each row and columns
of the specially organized character-blocks to reduce the number
of key-strokes further in some special cases.
• To reduce the typing effort even further, certain commonly used character sequence in a
particular domain like “www.” or “.com” is placed together in place of a single character, so
that selecting the sequence will type the whole sequence.
• Each of the individual portions in a key-block is called cell.
• The character sets like “www” or “.com” have an advantage that is the
complete character-set can be typed with a single selection reducing
the typing effort even further.
• Thus the key-block shown contain 4 cells and the cells contain a,b,g and h. A cell
can contain a single character, a symbol or a set of characters.

5. May 17, 2015
Typing Mechanism
Up Left Up Right
Down RightDown Left
Down OK
Left Right
Up
The Up, Down, Left and Right keys in the
remote-control is used to move across the key-
blocks in vertical and horizontal direction. As
these 4 keys are used to navigate across key-
blocks they are called Navigational keys.
The Up left , Up right , Down left and Down right keys are used to select the characters
a, b ,g, h respectively in the key block and are called Selection keys.
The on-screen keyboard is operated by remote control.
Along with the selection keys ,Ok key is used for selection in key-blocks like space-bar
www. , .com , caps and symbol.

6. May 17, 2015
Handling Capitals and Symbols
A key block can have fewer than 4 cells to give prominence to and ensure
greater visibility of some characters, symbols or character-sets.
In the Key block Up left , Up right keys will select Enter , Down left and Down right
will select Tab .
The cell has a special meaning in the sense that selecting it will bring forward the
upper case version of the on-screen key-board while the cell will bring forward the
Symbol screen.
The switching between Small letter screen, Capital letter screen, Symbol screen can also be
achieved through specially assigned hot keys in the remote control.
Symbols can have smileys which will type the corresponding ASCII character set – helpful in
messaging
The navigation and selection methods remain same for all three keyboards.

7. May 17, 2015
Input NumChars
numCharsSqrt = Square root of (numChars)
sqRootInt = Ceiling of(numCharsSqrt)
Is sqRootInt an even number
num1=sqRootInt +1num1 = sqRootInt
num2 = num1-2
C = num1 / 2
(num1*num2) >= numChars
R = num2 / 2 R=C
output R, C
STOP
No
Yes
Yes
No
Algorithm Flow for Choice of Optimal Layout
Algorithmic representation for
organizing a given numbers
of characters or symbols or character-
sets optimally
so that number of required keystrokes
is reduced.
The algorithm takes number of
Characters / Keys as Input : NumChars
Output of the Algorithm is Number of
rows (R) and columns (C) of the
keyboard

8. May 17, 2015
Algorithm Description
• Total Number of characters or symbols is represented by numChars .
• The algorithm determines the square number with even square root which is equal to
numChars or the next square number after numChars. The reason for locating the
square number with even number square root is that in each direction (vertical or
horizontal) 2 cells can be placed in each key-block.
• A given number of numChars total characters can be optimally organized into R rows
and C columns of key-blocks so that any character or symbol will be maximum (R+C)
keystrokes away.
• Square-Root based (R+C) is a significantly smaller number compared to number of
key-strokes required using linear organization.

9. May 17, 2015
Conclusion
The on-screen keyboard framework is seamlessly integrated with rest of the
applications, those it enables or co-exist with, both in appearance and interaction style
such that its use feels a natural extension of over all user interface.
Thus the current work describes a single user interface to tie a variety of applications
together. This way it enables seamless blending of the available broadcast TV content
with information and media content available in local storage and internet for doing value
added interactive applications on TV and various other media.
[1] Arpan Pal, Chirabrata Bhowmik, Jasma Shukla, Debnarayan Kar, “Inputting Device”,
Indian Patent Application No. 2035/MUM/2008
[2] Pal Arpan, Bhaumik Chirabrata, Shukla Jasma, Kar Debnarayan, Somnath Goshdastidar,
“Input Mechanisms”, Indian Patent Application No. 63/MUM/2009
References

10. May 17, 2015
Conclusion
The on-screen keyboard framework is seamlessly integrated with rest of the
applications, those it enables or co-exist with, both in appearance and interaction style
such that its use feels a natural extension of over all user interface.
Thus the current work describes a single user interface to tie a variety of applications
together. This way it enables seamless blending of the available broadcast TV content
with information and media content available in local storage and internet for doing value
added interactive applications on TV and various other media.
[1] Arpan Pal, Chirabrata Bhowmik, Jasma Shukla, Debnarayan Kar, “Inputting Device”,
Indian Patent Application No. 2035/MUM/2008
[2] Pal Arpan, Bhaumik Chirabrata, Shukla Jasma, Kar Debnarayan, Somnath Goshdastidar,
“Input Mechanisms”, Indian Patent Application No. 63/MUM/2009
References