Efficient Special Character Entry on a Virtual Keyboard by Hand Gesture-Based Mode Switching

The need to support efficient text input in virtual reality continues to attract significant research attention. However, much of this research understandably focuses exclusively on core text input tasks involving the entry of standard alphabetic characters. The less common though still critical task of entering special characters is often ignored. In this paper we focus on this niche use case as chiefly encountered when entering passwords. Current commercial virtual keyboards allow users to switch between different layers of the keyboard in order to access capital letters, numerals and special characters by pressing an explicit mode-switch button. We propose a new method of switching between layers of a virtual keyboard using hand gestures. Critically, these hand gestures are seamlessly performed in conjunction with key selections to deliver an efficient and intuitive interaction. We report on a user study with 16 participants entering standard passwords comparing our gesture-based mode switching approach to a conventional button-based baseline. We find that with practice our proposed method results in significantly faster entry rates without any deterioration in accuracy. Feedback from users also indicates that our technique is considered efficient and comfortable to use.