Ergonomic motion detection for receiving character input to electronic devices

A method of analyzing human gestures to recognize character input to an electronic device, the method comprising:

• discerning one or more finger contacts on one or more multiple finger contact regions on a first surface, each finger contact region associated with a separate finger of a user's hand and positioned relative to the other finger contact regions in an ergonomic arrangement enabling the user to simultaneously contact all finger contact regions with the associated fingers without moving the heal of the user's hand on or from a second surface that is maintained stationary with respect to the first surface;
• determining for each finger contact which finger contact region received the finger contact and whether the finger contact was a sliding or a non-sliding contact, the sliding contact not requiring the user to move the heal of the user's hand on or from the second surface;
• determining the direction of the sliding contact for each sliding contact;
• maintaining an association of each character of a complete alphabet with a unique finger contact or a unique set of simultaneously-discerned two or more finger contacts;
• and
• using the association of characters to finger contacts to recognize character input based on the indicated regions of finger contacts and the indications of sliding/on-sliding contact.

A machine readable storage medium containing instructions that when executed cause a processor of an electronic device to discern input characters by:

• receiving an indication of finger contact on one or more finger contact regions on a first surface, each finger contact region associated with a separate finger of a user's hand and positioned relative to the other finger contact regions in an ergonomic arrangement enabling the user to simultaneously contact all finger contact regions with the associated fingers without moving the heal of the user's hand on or from a second surface that is maintained stationary with respect to first surface;
• receiving an indication for each contacted region of which region or regions received a finger contact and whether the finger contact was a sliding or a non-sliding contact, the sliding contact not requiring the user to move the heal of the user's hand on or from the second surface;
• receiving an indication of the direction of the sliding contact for each sliding contact;
• maintaining an association of each character of a complete alphabet with a unique finger contact or a unique set of simultaneously-entered two or more finger contacts;
• and
• using the association of characters to finger contacts to recognize character input based on the indicated regions of finger contacts and the indications of sliding/non-sliding contact.