Soft key hot spot activation system and method

A device which includes an operating system that operates on an operating system level and one or more software applications that operate at an application level above the operating system level, the device comprising:

• a display for presenting application-specific user interactive information, a plurality of applications configured to, when running at the application level, present at said display one or more display locations each associated with a user input selection;
• one or more soft keys disposed adjacent to said display and configured to be acted upon by a user to generate input signals to said operating system independent of any one application configured to run at said application level;
• and
• a control module for processing instructions and configured to receive said input signals from said one or more soft keys, map and transmit said input signals to a corresponding user selected display location of an application running at the application level to provide an application-related input.