User interface for character entry using a minimum number of selection keys

#A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

#Manual alphanumeric or symbolic data entry is commonly accomplished employing an array of keys representing characters comprising alphanumeric characters, a spacebar, and symbols that are manually activated by the user in selecting text, or otherwise entering data. In personal computers and workstations, such selections are translated by word processing or spreadsheet applications, for example, and displayed or printed as the text is composed or data is entered. The keys of a keyboard are typically depressed in a time sequence to formulate words from individual alphabet characters or to enter numeric values. An application can provide for special cases requiring simultaneous depression of two or more keys to format text or for other control features, i.e. a Shift key. However, in general the keyboard keys and associated characters are visually and tactually distinguished only by their physical, fixed position in the keyboard array.

#Current Roman alphabet computer keyboards retain key size, spacing and alphanumeric character layout of earlier mechanical and electrical typewriters in large part to accommodate persons trained in usage of the QWERTY keyboards to perform long taught typing methods at speeds on the order of 75 words per minute. As new keys have been required, this traditional keyboard has been further enhanced using special keys like “Ctrl” and “Alt” whereby a different ASCII character from ‘x’ is perceived by the computer when ‘Ctrl’ and ‘x’ are pressed at the same time. Furthermore, full point-and-click menu systems have been invented for other special characters. Generally, speed and accuracy of typing using traditional methods decrease as key size and spacing are compressed. Thus, personal computer keyboards are relatively large and in many cases exceed the size of earlier typewriter keyboards typically due to added special purpose keys or splitting apart of keys depressed by the right and left hand fingers..

#FIG. 1 is a representative illustration of an embodiment of the present invention displayed in accordance with a personal digital assistance device;

#FIG. 2 is an illustrative example of one manner of dividing a collection of characters into a plurality of character groups for display in accordance with the present invention;

#FIGS. 3A-3F display specific implementations of the character selection tool embodiment in accordance with the respective character groups of FIG. 2;

#The present invention will be described in connection with a preferred embodiment, however, it will be understood that there is no intent to limit the invention to the embodiment described. On the contrary, the intent is to cover all alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

#For a general understanding of the present invention, reference is made to the drawings. In the drawings, like reference numerals have been used throughout to designate identical elements. The present invention is intended to be implemented in any device enabling or requiring data entry wherein a user selects characters to formulate text or mathematical expressions or the like to convey information, formulate operating code, make a telecommunication connection or for any other reason. Thus, data entry devices comprise personal desktop and portable computers, personal digital assistants, portable web access devices, telecommunications devices, digital watches, calculators and the like. For convenience, the preferred embodiments of the present invention are described herein in the context of entering text into a personal digital assistant (PDA) as generally illustrated in FIG. 1.

#As used herein, the term collection of characters is intended to represent various categories (e.g. alphabetical characters, numerical characters, punctuation, QWERTY keyboard characters (upper and/or lower case), symbols (e.g., wingdings), functions, etc.), or combinations thereof that may be selected or desired for selection by a user inputting character data. While the term category is intended to represent a set of related characters, collection is intended to represent the possibility of one or more categories of characters or subsets of one or more categories, etc.