Apple Watch Keyboard Concept

Here’s a quick exploration into how a full-fledged keyboard might work with the new Apple Watch. It’s based on a smart sensing canvas, a few simple interactions, and hand writing recognition — no small feat I know.

Layers

Based on what you write, the output shows what is being rendered. As you write more, it scrolls left. You can scrub left or right at anytime to view the complete sentence.

The touch canvas is where handwriting, punctuation and editing happens.

Real emoji, not the set of animated stickers we currently have on the Apple Watch.

Last is an actual Emoji keyboard triggered by the smile icon.

Handwriting

As you write, the letters appear in bold above it.

By choice, the keyboard will interpret every character you write as a single word until punctuated. You can write a single character at a time, or you can write multiple characters simultaenously allowing a more natural, and faster way of writing.

The canvas edges itself based on your speed, creating space.

The smart canvas will sense as you near the edge of the screen and begin sliding left — allowing you more room to complete your character. Based on your velocity, the smart canvas will adjust the speed at which it slides over. Ideally you should be able to write a single word in mixed cursive, at regular speed without ever hitting the edge of the watch.

The underscore is there for concept, but shouldn’t actually appear in production. Notice words are no longer bold.

A single tap between characters will create a space in your sentence. This also denotes that a word has ended.

Punctuation

Press the crown for punctuation.

Pressing the crown activates the punctuation select list. Rotate the crown to select a your desired mark, and press the check-mark to add it in-line with your sentence.

As a shortcut, double tap the canvas to create a space and period.

As a shortcut, double tapping the screen (similar to how double tapping the spacebar in iOS works) will generate a period and space between words.

Correction

Swipe left to delete a character.

A swipe left on the canvas will delete the previous character. A quick succession of left swipes can delete multiple characters quickly. Or a long pause at the end of a left swipe will speedily delete the last several words.

Drag a word to delete it.

To delete a whole word from anywhere in the sentence, scroll to it and drag it beneath the output line. A trash icon will appear where you can drop the word.

Tap a word to correct it.

To re-write a word, tap any word from the sentence, and re-write it on the canvas.

Submit

Force press for final action.

To complete the input, force press on the screen to either submit, or cancel out of the keyboard.

That’s it, thanks for reading

This was a fun exploration into the Apple Watch, and potential interactions we might see in the future. I hope it helped inspire some ideas of your own, and improvements to mine. Please feel free to share them in the comments.