PRODUCT DESIGN | DESIGN HACKATHON 🥉 | MAR ‘24
A Better Devanagari Keyboard
Solo
UX Researcher · UX Designer · Usability Tester
Figma
3 days
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The problem statement
Secondary research
Understanding the difference between English and Hindi typing experience.
Understanding the existing Hindi keyboards
Primary research
Insights
Solution
Future scope
Achievement
The current phone Hindi keyboards are slow to use. A lot of people prefer using English to Hindi transliteration keyboards when they need to write something in Hindi.
Admittedly, a reason for this also can be that people use Devanagari script very rarely in day to day life. However there is scope for improvement in current designs.
Design a keyboard for a smartphone which can help users type in Hindi.
Keyboard was natively invented in English, while the Devanagari keyboard is much younger (~1980).
English has only 26 alphabets while Hindi has 33 consonants and 13 vowels, when the Sanskrit language is concerned, the size of varnamala increases.
Generally, words in English are shorter while Hindi is longer words, and putting maatras increase the task time.
Users have learnt typing on the Qwerty keyboard, hence position of the letters are in users’ muscle memory whereas Key positions are difficult to remember due more letters in the Hindi Varnamala.
Predictive texts and autocorrect are more developed for English words but the case is weaker in case of Hindi.
Glide typing and input methods of this sort make typing in English even more convenient while Glide typing is difficult to develop for hindi due to मात्रा and a large dictionary of homonyms in the Hindi dictionary.
Eg.: अचार(pickle) and आचार(conduct).
Typing abbreviations and acronyms in English is super easy, again increasing typing speed while typing abbreviations in hindi take a lot of time.
GBoard
All the consonants, vowels and essential elements are accessible at once (@page 1/4).
Has a set of composite letters in the next pages of the keyboard (@page 2/4, 3/4 & 4/4).
Keys are in the order of varnamala, making the user move its thumbs a lot, especially while putting maatras, decreasing the typing speed.
iOS
Half the letters are in one page (odd number positioned) and half (even number positioned) appear after pressing shift.
Composite letters can be typed only by using ्.
User is more prone to making spelling mistakes due to constant changing of the keyboard. Like: परन्तु --> परतुन्
I talked to 5 people of different age groups about their experience in typing in Hindi, and found their are two types of people.
the Avid Hindi Typer (Baby Boomers)
Uses Hindi to communicate on WhatsApp ~60% of the times.
Occasions
Wishing messages during festivals
Condolence messages
In general communicating in Hindi
Pain points
No new words are suggested by the keyboard (curbs creativity)
spelling corrections can be done only by omitting the word completely
Doesn’t change the grammar according to the gender
B. the Casual Hindi Typer (millennial and the GenZ)
Uses Hindi to communicate on WhatsApp and write captions on social media posts. (~10-20%)
Occasions
Communicating with parents/grandparents
Writing captions/personal notes
Sometimes for casual banter and slangs with friends
Pain points
Letters are difficult to find, esp. in iOS, since half letters can be accessed by shift
current keyboards struggle at composite typing
o ô ö can be accessed by long pressing but not कॆ कै का को कौ, etc.
Finding letters take some time since key positions are not very intuitive.
→ there is no standardised keyboard for typing Hindi like there is a standard QWERTY keyboard for English typing.
→ it is still a bit easier when the keys are arranged in the order of the Hindi Varnamala, only when the user remembers the hindi varnamala by heart.
→ the more the user has to move its thumbs to type a word, the more time it takes.
Predictive text needs to be optimised.
→ the keyboard needs to learn the Hindi Grammar and dictionary more to upgrade.
→ curbs creativity since it only suggests words that have been used earlier.
→ doesn’t customise the grammar according to context.
I explored papers which had done character frequency analysis for the Hindi alphabet.
I transliterated the English keyboard into Hindi alphabets because any casual typer is practiced in QWERTY keyboard, hence they don’t need to put extra efforts to search for the letters, access the maatras by long pressing the consonant keys, added 2 more rows due to the length of the Hindi Varnamaala, and added the very less frequently used letters in those two rows.
Finding some way as smooth and fast as glide typing.
Stood 3rd in the hackathon 🥉
Using enhanced hindi dictionaries & hinglish words to train the keyboard.
Context aware correction & word prediction. For eg.: वह सेब खाता है। वह सेब खाती है।
i.e., when in a chat user is typing words that address a female, then grammar prediction should be given for females when talking in second person.
Making English abbreviations available in Hindi also (will increase speed a lot).
Solving for finding the letters intuitively:
Most frequent keys at the home row.
Less frequent keys on the 2nd & 4th row
Vowels on the 1st row
Seldom/rarely used keys on 5th row
I’ve tried to keep the most used syllables, characters mostly used together closely, best suited for an Avid typer.
Solving for putting maatras faster:
On long pressing consonant keys, we can access the desired maatra.
While finding letters faster is a function of practice indeed, we can make it more intuitive, making it easier for the user to remember key position.
APPROACH 1
APPROACH 2
SOLVING FOR AUTOCORRECT AND PREDICTIVE TEXT
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On long pressing vowel keys, users can access the longer vowel, this has been done to shorten the number of keys.
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Last updated 10 May ‘24
Designed by Rashi Mishra
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