Strokeboard: Can touch screen be better than HW QWERTY?

So the time has come! :-) I would like to present my keyboard design to the wide public (or more probably to the few reading this blog). If you are not interested in history go to the end of the post to try how the keyboard works! If you want more information contact me via email wessan@email.cz

The keyboard I would like to show you was designed by me about 3 years ago when developing a Flash-based game. The game was never finished and the keyboard wasn't used for a long time.
Until the semester last school year. I had a subject called "Human Computer Interaction", in which we had to do some usability testing. Unfortunately I accidentally (email was marked as spam by my email client) missed a meeting for project assignments and I had to think of a project of my own. I had about a day to think it over and I remembered the old idea. I implemented first experimental version of the keyboard and performed some usability testing.
So I had the first version (you can see on the first picture) and asked few friends to use the keyboard for the first time. The first version was designed for stylus and usability testing showed that unexperinced used can type about 45 characters per minute with stylus. However the keyboard was quite unusable with fingers.

First version for the usability testing with stylus:
Second version with eliminated less-often used keys:
Third version with larger buttons for typing with fingers:
Screenshot of current version being prepared for next round of usability testing:I'm looking forward for comments and critics, whether positive or negative. But please remember that this is just a mokup application for future usability testing (the button for special symbols and BACKSPACE do not work and SHIFT work like CAPS LOCK yet). Also remember that this version is designed to be controlled by fingers on a PDA-like device.

If you would like to get more information about the keyboard or want to use it in you application or device, please inform me via email wessan@email.cz

Now enjoy the keyboard (flash demo):

How to use the keyboard?

• click into the text field above the keyboard to start typing
• letter in the middle of any box is written simply by clicking mouse button in the box
  
• start writing a letter by pressing the mouse button anywhere in the box containing the letter
• while holding the mouse button perform a stroke to the direction in which the letter is from the center of the box - move mouse to up-left to write 'A', up to write 'B', up-right to write 'C' etc.
• you can leave the box when performing the stroke - you don't have to stay in the box at all cost :-)
• release the mouse button and you are done writting a letter
• ask in comments if something goes wrong :-)
  

You can notice that the letters are clustered by 9, so only 3 buttons are enough for whole English alphabet. Compared to QWERTY keyboards the buttons are much bigger. Every letter is then written by touching the button containing the desired letter and performing a stroke to the direction in which the letter is from the centre of the button. The letter in the middle can be written by simply touching the button without performing a stroke.

Sounds difficult? Try demos and you'll see how easy is it. But remember it's just demo developed for usability tests and it's not fully working. However it should give you an idea how to use the keyboard.