Data Entry

Numbers and Letters | Values

Touchscreens are not well suited for data entry. In addition, there are few touchscreens which provide an additional external numeric or alphanumeric keypad.

Numbers and Letters

Data entry is typically provided through virtual keypads or keyboards, which can be placed on the screen on demand.

For applications where numbers or letters are frequently entered, the virtual keypad should stay permanently on the screen.

Examples (permanent keypad): Front office, bar counter



Figure 1: Numeric virtual keyboards in keypad (left) and telephone layout (right)		Figure 2: A virtual alpha keyboard (from Information Kiosk Systems)

For more information on keypads, see Interaction.

Values

Entering values can become very tedious on touchscreens. Value entry should be restricted to few values. The basic interaction modes are:

Clicking on predefined values (options) = selection
Clicking repeatedly on certain controls (e.g. to increment or decrement values)
Dragging sliders or similar controls
Entering digits or numbers through a keypad or keyboard

These modes should be used in priority from top to bottom; that is, first a solution should be tries that does with direct clicking; only if space restrictions or value ranges require other solutions, these should be tried.

Selection

For selecting values, there are the following interface options:

Multiple Selection

Checkboxes

Single Selection

Radiobuttons
Buttons
Text lists (top-to-bottom, left-to-right, or arbitrary arrangement)
Pick lists (Popup menus)

Pick lists need less screen space, but require more interactions steps (they are less "direct"). In addition, only the current selection is visible, not the whole set of choices.

Multiple Clicking

Possible interface options are:

Spin Buttons
Scroll buttons

These options need less space than discrete options, but require users to click several times or even cycle through the possible values or options.

Dragging

For mouse-operated or pen-based systems, dragging is a valid and often efficient option. For finger-operated systems, however, these options should be avoided, if possible. Drag operations are imprecise, relatively slow, and smear the screen surface.

The following controls are available for setting discrete or continuous values.

Sliders
Scroll bars

These options are better suited for large and/or continuous value ranges.

Entering Digits or Letters

This option often requires the most effort on the users' side. On the other hand, well-trained users are often very fast using this method. Therefore, while this entry modes is not recommended for public systems, it may the be best option for POS or counter systems.

For more information on keypads, see Numbers and Letters and Interaction.

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