Oktodon keyboard and world record

Good day to all!
My name is Evgenia Panasova, I’m the Oktodon project manager, I’m also responsible for PR. According to the basic education linguist.
We were going to write the history of the project in order, but then it suddenly happened that we just can not tell you! If you already know what the keyboard for Octodon smartphones is, I hope you share our joy. If not, it is better to first see the first blog post , without this it may not be completely clear.

And now the actual subject - we broke the world record!


Initially, we conceived the Octodon not only as a convenient keyboard (although this is primarily), but also as a speed keyboard - it seemed to us that the principles underlying the development would provide not only convenient text input to smartphones, but also the quickest. The logic here is simple: there is no need to move the fingers + tactile feedback + 1 symbol for 1 movement = maximum speed.
The main competitors in speed were, of course, dictionary input methods and, above all, Swype. Now I can’t find out where I have this information, but it seems that the Swype creators successfully used this technique as a product promotion: they set a world record for the fastest text input on a smartphone. Wikipedia tells us that the record speed was 270 characters per minute, a new record was mentioned at Habré - 370 characters per minute, and the official website indicated a modest, but close to reality, “more than 200 characters per minute (CPM)” (“40 words per minute ”- they think in WPM, but this is a model of a spherical horse in a vacuum (WPM = CPM / 5), so I translated it into absolute units).
Until recently, the most steep achievement in dialing speed on Oktodon was 220 characters per minute, which is actually very cool - this is the normal dialing speed on a full-sized QWERTY.

But it does not pull the world record. And why? Because we had different methods for measuring speed. The whole world measures the speed of typing on smartphones by typing a phrase about piranhas with a length of 160 characters.

Then the speed of typing this phrase is translated into characters per minute or in WPM - and hung in a frame on the wall. This correlates with the actual speed of dialing on a smartphone, but it is not even in some approximation - as one repeatedly rehearsed short phrase is typed.
We have always proceeded from the fact that Octodon will be demanded primarily by those who are typing long texts, and therefore measured the speed of recruitment with 3-minute "marathons" and even on various randomly selected texts. The difference from the "sprint" method is obvious. Our way is much more vital - but understandable, it did not give those record-breaking results.
However, a unified phrase is good because it really allows you to compare different input methods - otherwise the differences in typing speed would be due to the peculiarities of different phrases. Therefore, finally, we decided to measure the speed in the way that is common in the whole world: AlexLysenko typed text about piranhas, wrote the dialing process on video and then calculated time and speed. He set himself a goal to keep within 29-30 seconds (320-330 characters / min.) - he had already achieved such a result. But, unexpected for himself, Alexey typed a phrase about piranhas in 24 seconds (that is, at a speed of 400 characters / min.), Breaking the official world record of Swype.
Honestly, we ourselves are shocked :)

Since the question of comparing Octodon with chord input arises constantly, I note that we do not know anything about at least some close results of any chord input method.
')
For the objectivity of the picture it is worth noting that the unofficial record of one Singaporean on the Swype set on a smartphone is 416 characters per minute.

The unofficial video record of MessagEase is 23.83 seconds or 403 characters per minute, and their website contains a record of 21.79 (440 chars. / Min.) - they have a special application in which you can train speed, it was recorded achievement.

There is also Keymonk - a sort of two-handed swipe - and you can find a video illustrating the speed of an absolutely incredible 527 characters per minute.

But we are not very upset.

Our result would be an absolute record before August 2012 - that is, quite recently. The first record of the same Swype was, as stated above, not at all like that, and we beat him for a long time and without really straining. But let's see how Swype record was improved by 12 seconds? We found that the new Swype world records were not quite fair. In any method that uses macros, there is always the possibility to make it so that the one and only necessary phrase will fly out with just a whistle. What, in fact, was done:

Gaining 5 characters of the word "razor", you get 14 - cool, right? Thank you, though not the whole phrase to the end.
The hyphen in the svayp is located on the numeric keypad and is not typed in one motion, so that when you type words through the hyphen, the speed drops noticeably ... except for "razor-toothed". Being a linguist, I simply cannot believe that the words “razor-toothed”, “Pygocentrus” and “Serrasalmus” (which fly out the only option and immediately with a capital letter) are such straightforward frequencies in English. Maybe the creators of Svayp met biologists and hammered the names of all kinds of animals in Latin? Alas, no ... "Octodon Degus" svayp does not know by default; but we taught.
Keymonk also knows the words "Pygocentrus" and "Serrasalmus" right out of the box, although they have a hyphen and more accessible.

So the speed competition remains fair only with MessagEase. Their record holder is great, there are no questions, but the logic “someone typed on such a keyboard faster than you mean their keyboard faster” is not correct. The speed of typing depends not only on the capabilities of the method, but also on the typesetter: experience, nervous system characteristics, responsiveness, and fine motor skills. For example, when I recruit, I am less nervous than our record holder, Alexey (he says that “the years of fundraising and bootstrapping do not help strengthen the nervous system”). In addition, Alex is not the fastest typesetter and QWERTY - even in our team. But about 24 hours (just something!) Set on Oktodon make it still the fastest oktodonschikom in the world. It is clear that there will be monsters that will surpass his record. Or he himself will improve it by spending another total day behind the Octodon.
MessagEase has> 100,000 downloads, while judging by the data from their own application, there are only 2 people in the world who are typing more than 400 characters / min. (80 WPM) on MessagEase.

The absolute record comparison of the input method used by hundreds of thousands of people with the input method used so far by units does not, of course, give an accurate picture. None of the teams has a flattened learning curve, which means that the infinity of 400 characters per minute is not the limit.

Well, and most importantly - the speed is not the determining criterion when typing texts on a smartphone. There is still convenience. More precisely, it is not yet. And on Oktodon (hopefully) it will be not only fast, but also convenient.