ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005
(Main)Information technology — Future keyboards and other associated input devices and related entry methods
Information technology — Future keyboards and other associated input devices and related entry methods
ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005 is aimed at both the users and manufacturers, and intends to present the user requirements regarding keyboards and associated devices and methods, at time of its publication. ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005 covers the different input requirements catering for national and international practices and support of cultural and linguistic diversity; the recognition of requirements regarding comfort of use (for any user, including children, elderly and disabled people), and improved user productivity related to inputting data; enhancements of keyboards and related input devices and methods required for new emerging phenomena such as Internet, multimedia, virtual reality; virtual input requirements; labelling issues (soft [LCD] and hard, permanent and temporary labels), function symbols and icons.
Technologies de l'information — Claviers futurs, autres dispositifs d'entrée associés et méthodes d'entrée liées
General Information
Relations
Standards Content (Sample)
TECHNICAL ISO/IEC
REPORT TR
15440
First edition
2005-07-15
Information technology — Future
keyboards and other associated input
devices and related entry methods
Technologies de l'information — Claviers futurs, autres dispositifs
d'entrée associés et méthodes d'entrée liées
Reference number
ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005(E)
©
ISO/IEC 2005
---------------------- Page: 1 ----------------------
ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005(E)
PDF disclaimer
This PDF file may contain embedded typefaces. In accordance with Adobe's licensing policy, this file may be printed or viewed but
shall not be edited unless the typefaces which are embedded are licensed to and installed on the computer performing the editing. In
downloading this file, parties accept therein the responsibility of not infringing Adobe's licensing policy. The ISO Central Secretariat
accepts no liability in this area.
Adobe is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Details of the software products used to create this PDF file can be found in the General Info relative to the file; the PDF-creation
parameters were optimized for printing. Every care has been taken to ensure that the file is suitable for use by ISO member bodies. In
the unlikely event that a problem relating to it is found, please inform the Central Secretariat at the address given below.
© ISO/IEC 2005
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and microfilm, without permission in writing from either ISO at the address below or
ISO's member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
Case postale 56 • CH-1211 Geneva 20
Tel. + 41 22 749 01 11
Fax + 41 22 749 09 47
E-mail copyright@iso.org
Web www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii © ISO/IEC 2005 – All rights reserved
---------------------- Page: 2 ----------------------
ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005(E)
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of
ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees
established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC
technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental
and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work. In the field of information
technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1.
International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International
Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as
an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the national bodies casting a vote.
In exceptional circumstances, the joint technical committee may propose the publication of a Technical Report
of one of the following types:
type 1, when the required support cannot be obtained for the publication of an International Standard,
despite repeated efforts;
type 2, when the subject is still under technical development or where for any other reason there is the
future but not immediate possibility of an agreement on an International Standard;
type 3, when the joint technical committee has collected data of a different kind from that which is
normally published as an International Standard (“state of the art”, for example).
Technical Reports of types 1 and 2 are subject to review within three years of publication, to decide whether
they can be transformed into International Standards. Technical Reports of type 3 do not necessarily have to
be reviewed until the data they provide are considered to be no longer valid or useful.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent
rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
ISO/IEC TR 15440, which is a Technical Report of type 2, was prepared by Joint Technical Committee
ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee SC 35, User interfaces.
© ISO/IEC 2005 – All rights reserved iii
---------------------- Page: 3 ----------------------
ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005(E)
Introduction
This Technical Report, supported by the history of information technology keyboards during the last two
decades, lists current and anticipated problem areas as seen by users, and tries to pave the way to foreseen
work items in JTC1 for solving keyboard-related issues of the user interface.
iv © ISO/IEC 2005 – All rights reserved
---------------------- Page: 4 ----------------------
TECHNICAL REPORT ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005(E)
Information technology — Future keyboards and other
associated input devices and related entry methods
1 Scope
This Technical Report covers
the different input requirements catering for national and international practices and support of cultural
and linguistic diversity;
the recognition of requirements regarding comfort of use (for any user, including children, elderly and
disabled people), and improved user productivity related to inputting data;
enhancements of keyboards and related input devices and methods required for new emerging
phenomena such as Internet, multimedia, and virtual reality;
virtual input requirements;
labelling issues (soft [LCD] and hard, permanent and temporary labels), function symbols and icons.
This Technical Report does not cover implications of biometric input (e.g. fingerprint-, iris-pattern-, or face-
shape-based) devices for access and security.
This Technical Report is aimed at both the users and manufacturers, and intends to present the user
requirements regarding keyboards and associated devices and methods at the time of publication of this
Technical Report.
2 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated
references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced
document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO/IEC 9995 (all parts), Information technology — Keyboard layouts for text and office systems
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO/IEC 9995-1 apply.
4 Benefits and disadvantages of current keyboards and data entry devices on the
market
The benefits and disadvantages are as follows.
Most existing desktop keyboards on the market follow ISO/IEC 9995-1 and ISO/IEC 9995-2. This helps
for education and training.
© ISO/IEC 2005 – All rights reserved 1
---------------------- Page: 5 ----------------------
ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005(E)
The situation with regard to portable computers is less clear, as confusion very often exists between
function and alphanumeric keys; some dedicated keys like the portable Fn key are either not “seen” by
software or are used in different fashions between different manufacturers’ equipment. Different cursor
and editing functions interfere with character data entry. Because of the reduced size of the keyboard,
row A in particular is really confusing: the location of the function keys varies from model to model and is
not really well thought out (for example, the Insert key is sometimes placed immediately next to the
Delete key, which is extremely error-prone for the user). Blind or visually impaired persons have specific
problems, particularly with portable computers: the variation in the placement of the different keys due to
the lack of strictly defined international standards for common functions. Because of this, no clues exist to
help them finding the location of these functions. Even though the functions are not universal, a survey of
the different functions should be conducted among the devices available on the market, and it would be
desirable to reserve a location relative to each one in an international standard.
Most keyboards misinterpret some parts of ISO/IEC 9995. For example, the decimal separator is not used
as a function but rather as an alphanumeric key (this creates problems in countries in which the decimal
separator is multiple [this function should not depend on output representation]). Another case in point is
the function terminology that is multiple and does not always respect ISO/IEC 9995-7.
5 Comfort of use and productivity considerations
Comfort of use and productivity considerations are as follows.
No major improvement in the comfort of use has been made since 1995 except some innovative, albeit
sometimes very specific platform-oriented tools for multimedia and Internet use working with very specific
drivers.
Standardization of placement and functionality of common functions would appear to be possible as
technology is stabilizing (e.g. Print Screen function could be selectable at the platform level as either an
application-dependent function or as a “hard-wired” feature that prints the screen independently of the
application running under a given operating system).
Placement and functionality of functions such as Select Level 3 and Group Select have yet to be fixed
(American keyboards, for example, typically do not have a Level-3 select function, and Group Select,
when available, is done in different ways owing to lack of guidance in the first edition of ISO/IEC 9995).
One important drawback of current keyboards is that no software can be made “aware” of the actual
geometric layout as it is seen by the user, nor of the actual engraving seen by the user. If standard
(de facto or de jure, even OEM) keyboards were registered and assigned a worldwide-fixed number, then
the keyboard could identify itself (i.e. the actual engraving and geometry) to the software on request and
then the software could better display actual mapping to character sets additional to those engraved on
the keyboard. This is of particular importance in an ever-more global and multilingual environment. Such
a scheme would not necessitate a change in the actual “scan-code” technology used today.
Comfort of use is highly dependent on the actual work done by a specific user. Reassignment of keys
allows user productivity to be improved; this is possible only if the software is aware of the actual
placement of keys of which it “sees” the “scan codes”. Keyboards should ideally be designed according to
human ergonomics but this is rarely the case. As an example, the common square keyboard is not
ergonomically designed according to the function of normal hands and arms.
Reassignment of actual “scan codes” of the physical keyboard by software would be desirable (up to now,
such reassignment has been very difficult at the keyboard-driver level, if possible at all); for example, to
allow the use of a 7-8-9 layout on a 1-2-3 numeric keypad. Currently hard-wired “scan codes” can be
interpreted differently by software, but that advantage becomes at the same time a problem if “keyboard-
scan-code-aware” programs do not all use the same interpretation of these “scan codes”. Such a
reassignment would greatly improve software compatibility while serving the end-user and innovative
application needs.
2 © ISO/IEC 2005 – All rights reserved
---------------------- Page: 6 ----------------------
ISO/IEC TR 15440:2005(E)
An New Project is desirable to standardize the minimum set of keyboard software-driven functions that
should be made available by an operating system (and optionally, by an application), standardizing
placement of the involved function keys at the same time.
6 Keyboard classification (linear keyboards, segmented keyboards, mono-handed
keyboards, keyboards and input devices for disabled persons, specific keyboards for
general [e.g. fixed and mobile telephones] and/or specific [banking, healthcare,
trade, etc.] applications, virtual keyboards)
Disabled and elderly persons can have many different problems with using a keyboard. These can be divided
into, for example, problems with recognizing the wanted key, problems with controlling the movement of the
arms and fingers, difficulties with the mouse movements without trembling, possibility to use only one hand.
This may result in different types of equipment to solve the problem.
Tactile identifiers are mentioned in ISO/IEC 9241-4 but not exactly specified. ETSI has produced a standard
on specifying in detail the conventional “touch-type” marking on alphanumeric keys F and J and on the
numerical keyboard part key 5. One problem with the numerical keyboard is that the tactile identifier on key 5
does not distinguish between the “1-2-3” or “7-8-9” layout. It has been mentioned that the keyboard itself
instead of the keys could be marked to tell which it is. Austria has proposed to have different marks.
7 Data entry methods for graphic character sets, numerical or non-numerical, use
of numeric keypads, pen-based movements, alphabetic data entry using telephone
keypads
Some mobile telephone systems (e.g.GSM) give the possibility to send text with the help of the telephone
keypads (numeric keyboard). ISO/IEC 9995-8 assigns the letters A to Z to the digit keys. Additional characters
are generally implemented and accessible through repeated pressing of the keys. The characters are then
displayed in the window of the phone. A better and standardized way of doing this would be desirable to
improve the usability of text input on small keyboards and to replace the variety of proprietary techniques in
use in the industry.
8 Logical
...
Questions, Comments and Discussion
Ask us and Technical Secretary will try to provide an answer. You can facilitate discussion about the standard in here.