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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-learn 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. A patent application and
design registration applications have been filed for this
invention.
Contact: Prof A Joshi
anirudha@iitb.ac.in
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