For a majority of the Indian population,
a vernacular is preferred for informal, communication,
especially so within families. Even when English is
used, it is often liberally sprinkled with words from
an Indian language for greater effect. This is quite
common in direct and telephonic conversations, and even
in written communication, but not on a computer. This
is because, typing Indian languages on the computer
keyboard is complex, and current schemes for feeding
text in Indian languages are not adequately usable.
Hitherto, there have been many solutions for 'Text Input
in Indian Languages' (TIIL) such as Inscript, Traditional
Typewriter, ITR, Desha, Phonetic, and Transliteration,
which are based on the currently used QWERTY keyboard
designed for the Roman script. Further, they have essentially
been limited to running a piece of software 'on top
of the existing operating system and applications.
Indic scripts
have a different structure from the Roman ones. A typical
syllable is formed by placing a vowel symbol above or
below a consonant, or by a conjunction of two or more
consonants. Moreover, most Indic scripts need more primitives
(a minimum of 52 for Devnagari, as compared to 26 for
English).
Hence, none of the above commercially
available keyboards are usable by a majority of Indian
people.
As a solution to this problem, Prof.
Anirudha Joshi and his team at the Industrial Design
Centre (IDC) have worked on designing alternative mechanisms
for text input in Devnagari. What began as a student
project was later incorporated into a project in the
'Interfaces for All' group of the IIT Bombay hub of
Media Lab Asia. Amongst several alternatives, a keyboard
called Key-Lekh was developed with a goal to enable
persons familiar with Devnagari to use it without instructions.
For example, on a ticket vending machine at a railway
station, literate passengers should be able to 'walk
up and use' this keyboard to type their name, destination
and other details to buy train tickets. The underlying
concept of the design of Key-Lekh is based on the 'Varnamala'-the
well-structured Indian alphabetic system. Studies on
a prototype have proven that the Key-Lekh is an efficient
'walk-up-and- use' keyboard, and can also work as a
desktop keyboard. The prototype has been subjected to
extensive tests by users in various age-groups through
road shows and competitions held. on the campus. The
initial feedback suggests that Key-Lekh is the easiest-to;
\earn keyboard yet developed for Indian scripts. Presently
its performance is being tested more rigorously. Key-Lekh's
design is being further improved to make it sufficiently
robust and useful as a commercial product.
