Bye bye QWERTY,Hello KALQ

Wanna type 34% faster than now, then install KALQ keyboard for touch screen. Researchers claim to have developed a new keyboard for touchscreens that allows superfast thumb-typing. This latest challenger comes from Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Informatics and is aimed at speeding up thumb-centric typing on mobile touchscreen devices.

KALQ, the layout was devised by a research team led by Antto Oulasvirta using computational optimization techniques along with a model of thumb movement to search through millions of potential layouts. The team ultimately hit upon a split layout with 16 keys on the left and 12 keys on the right. All vowels, with the exception of the Y, which can sometimes be considered a vowel, are located on the right along with G, K, L, Q and J.

This design relies on user moving both thumbs simultaneously with one thumb moving towards its next target as the other is typing.The team conducted a survey and found that user could type 34% faster in this layout when compared to QWERTY layout.This  allowed users to reach 37 words per minute, which they claim is the best ever reported for two-thumb typing on touchscreen devices and significantly better than the roughly 20 words per minute regular users achieve on a split QWERTY layout.

Researchers said KALQ will be made available as a free app for Android-based smartphones at the beginning of May.