In 2012, my colleague and I were tasked with exploring ideas for the next generation virtual keyboard for the yet-to-be-released BB10 OS. My role was as lead UX designer. I was previously involved in the hardware design of BlackBerry keyboards, so I had experience with text input. The two of us set about building a fully functional prototype that we could rapidly try out new ideas on.
Given free rein to explore ideas, we developed a radically new way to enter text. Predicted words would show up above the next letter, and could be flicked into place. The visual design paid homage to the classic “frets” of a real BB keyboard. Key features that I focused on building were:
- Flick to type predictions
- Swipe to delete
- Gesture dismiss
- Swipe down for symbol screen
- Frets visual design
Our demo was adopted as the direction for the BB10 keyboard, and I remained involved in the project through to implementation. As with many innovations, there was a lot of internal debate over whether to release this keyboard. It wasn’t until our demo ended up on stage at the announcement of the BB10 os, and filmed as part of the release video of BB10, that it became the plan of record.
A tremendous amount of work went into the millisecond timing of every animation and gesture to make the keyboard what it was. A big thanks goes to everyone involved with testing and revisions, and the amazing team responsible for moving our demo into a real working product.
It was a fun project, and we generated a lot of new IP for BlackBerry.
(Images and video pulled from online sources, for those not familiar with all the features we designed into the keyboard, the top ten tips from crackberry make an excellent overview)