Looking for people interested in testing iPad keyboard with VoiceOver support

Hey Jake,

can you send me an eMail address so that I can add that to the TestFlight beta?

It is funny that you mention "chorded keybords".
My first foray into iPad keyboards (unfortunately without accessibility support) had 8 keys and users had to press up to three keys to enter a letter.
But the idea was, that there was one key for each pinky, pointer, ring and middle finger.
I only later learned about chorder keyboards and kind of blamed the name for it (-;

So Zwei - the name of the new keyboard - was developed with that experience in mind.

Here is the current version of the app description:

<blockquote>Zwei is an iOS keyboard extension with only two keys.
You can still enter all letters of the alphabet as well as numbers, punctuation and stuff, though.
But instead of a dedicated button per character, what you do with Zwei is use multiple fingers and swipe gestures on the two keys to get to a specific character.

The motivation behind this is that, once learned, you do not have to look down at the keys anymore. In fact, I am developing this keyboard with accessibility in mind so that blind people can use it just as well. For all users, Zwei will hopefully improve the text input experience on a touch surface.

So how does it work?

A tap with one, two or three fingers on the left key will enter the letter 'a', 'e' or 'i' respectively. A tap on the right key will enter 'n' for one, 's' for two and 't' for three fingers.
While a key is being pressed, the current character is previewed in the selected textfield and - if activated under the accessibility settings - VoiceOver will announce this character. You can still change the character by e.g. adding or removing fingers. But once you lift your fingers, the current character is confirmed and the next one can be entered. VoiceOver will play a confirmation sound, here.
Swipe gestures have to be used to enter the remaining letters of the alphabet. Here are two examples:
1. Tap the left key with one finger and swipe to the right to enter the letter 'd'
2. Tap the right key with two fingers and swipe to the left to enter the letter 'u'
As long as at least one fingers keeps being pressed down, you can swipe around and add or remove fingers to change the current character. So feel free to test it out.
If you want to cancel the current input, just swipe over the edge of the key (top or right edge for the left, top or left for the right key). VoiceOver users will hear a cancel sound, here.

Standard iOS keyboard operations such as 'Delete', 'Space', 'Enter' and 'Next Keyboard' are also implemented, but through a different approach:
While one of the two keys is being pressed, the other one changes into a function key.
So to delete the last character, hold down on the right key and then tap the left.
To enter a space, hold down the left key and then tap the right.
To keep function keys simple, they only require single finger taps and no swipes.
They change their function based on the number of fingers pressed down on the first key.
To enter a new line, use three fingers on the left key and then press the right.
And to switch to the next keyboard, hold down three fingers on the right and tap the left key.

So what happens when the function key is tapped for a two finger press and hold on either the left or right key?

In its standard mode, Zwei is set for lower case letter input as well as some standard punctuation (period, comma, exclamation and question mark).
The other modes are "upper case letters", "numbers and more", "numbers and maths" and "diacritics".
The former two can be selected in standard mode through the before mentioned combination:
The left key, two finger press and hold plus right function key tap activates the upper case mode. When any other mode is selected, it reactivates lower case mode.
The right key, two finger press and hold plus left function key tap switches to and between the two modes for numbers.
To get into the diacritics mode, you first have to change into a numbers mode. Here the option to switch to the next keyboard is not available. Rather, the right key, three finger press and hold plus function key tap turns on lower case diacritics. And when in this mode, the same combination activates the upper case diacritics mode. I really hope you do not have to use this that often (-; </blockquote>

Hope this helps!

Hey Jake,

I am new to this forum, but I think the best way to message someone is to use the contact form when you click someones user name.
I just did it, so you have an eMail waiting.

Regards,

André

Hey Jake,

thanks for the first impressions.
I was afraid that the first steps might be confusing or unclear.
So it is good to know you found your way.

The speech queue you write about would truely be something nice.
I looked for something like this but was not able to find anything.
Currently, there is also a difference when VoiceOver calls out a character like 's' - which the system does automatically - and when I tell VoiceOver to say 'delete'.
I do the latter via a so-called announcement.
These can be timed, though, so there might be a solution.
What is strange is that when I switch VoiceOver to German, the automatic calling of characters does not happen.
I will have to test this for other languages, as well.

From my typing experience I have to say that switching to upper case mode and then back to lower case mode takes quite long.
I am currently working on improving this by adding a two finger tap for the function keys.
This gives me more options so I can add a 'upper case for one letter only' mode.
It makes function keys a bit more complicated, but I hope it is worth it.

Looking forward to new feedback.

Thanks again for the effort!

André

Hello everyone!

As mentioned before, I was experimenting with the system automatically calling out typed letters like 's'.
It took some over night thinking, but I thought about Jake's initial impressions and about the key echoes he mentioned.

At first I was not sure what he was talking about.
But in combination with my problem, it occurred to me:
There must be an option to tell iOS to speak out characters.
It is what Jake meant with key echoes.
I went through the VoiceOver settings and discovered 'typing feedback'.
It can be set to 'none', 'words' and 'characters'.
I tried the former two and, sure enough, when I typed a letter with Zwei, it was not called out anymore.

I have to find out if I can ask programatically, which mode is activated.

I think for Zwei users, the current letter should always be called out in some way.

What do you think?

Best regards,

André

Hey Jake,

the motivation behind the letter 't' and why it breaks the pattern is that it is the most common letter in English as well as in many other languages.
So I wanted to have it accessible without swipe gesture.
An earlier version did this with the letter 'r' as well.
So on the right side I had 'r' for a one finger tap, 's' for a two fingers and 't' for three.
On the left it works out in alphabetic order as I added the periode and the comma.
Now the most common letters 'a', 'e' and 'i' are accessible without swiping.
In the end I changed the 'r' back to alphabetic order as 'n' is also a frequent letter and because single finger swipes are hopefully easy enough.
So now we only have the 't' left out of order.
Would be nice to hear what other people think, as well.

As for your second, third and forth point:
I think you will enjoy the update I am working on.
As mentioned before, I will extend the function keys with a two finger tap.
This way I can make single and all caps, the minimize function and diacritics/accents always available.
I hope I can finish the this over the weekend.

Last, but not least: The bug you mentioned.
I have not seen this behaviour, but I will look for it.

Best regards,

André

Hey Jake,

I just wanted to check if you had any success at fixing the issue with the function keys?

For starting the review process, I had to re-build the app.
The previous versions were built with a Mac OS beta, which apparently was a problem.
Maybe that caused the error as well.

Well, by now the app has been approved and I could send you a promo code to see if that fixes the problem.
I have not yet released the app as I am trying to find some media outlets interested in writing about Zwei.
But the promo codes should work, already.

Best regards,

André