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Open problem: optimal calculator keyboard layout based on key usage statistics
05-28-2018, 10:28 PM (This post was last modified: 05-28-2018 10:41 PM by emece67.)
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RE: Open problem: optimal calculator keyboard layout based on key usage statistics
(05-28-2018 02:08 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  To understand the meaning and applicability of this data, can you explain how you "used" the emulator once you had it instrumented to log key use, e.g. for what applications?

Everyday use at home and at work (EE). I suppose it means not much very high/low numbers (specially at home), so light usage of EEX and, also, not much negative numbers. The big total of keystrokes was around 7000.

What surprised me was the high number of / against *, - and +. I also didn't expect at all + being the less used basic operation. Another unexpected (to me) result was the very low use of the stack down key.

Concerning the Benford's law, I still think that the measured digit frequencies are related to it. At least, it is likely that the first digit of each entered number distributes according to it, so the final measured frequencies must have some resemblance to this distribution. Even more when, as it is my case, I do not use to enter numbers with much digits, but as much as 4 to 6 digits.

Does anybody have a clue about how to locate an "optimal" key layout from frequencies. My first approach was to compute the centroid of the 1-9 digits (from the "standard" layout and taking into account the frequencies of each digit), and then add the next most-frequent key as near as possible to that centroid. Compute the new centroid and iterate until key exhaustion. But I'm not sure at all that such naïve approach ensures minimal finger flight time.

Regards.

Edit: well, the ratio between EEX and ENTER keystrokes was about 1:7, so I think that approximately one of each seven entered numbers needed and exponent. Not sure is such is exactly a lower than expected ratio.

EDIT 2: There were other keys with high keystroke counts that I have not included in the listing as I do not think about them as "basic" keys. They were: OFF (2.04 %), Sigma+ (1.02 %. Yes, I was doing some regression analysis) and 1/x (0.91 %).
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RE: Open problem: optimal calculator keyboard layout based on key usage statistics - emece67 - 05-28-2018 10:28 PM



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