In 2009, I was a key contributor in the creation of an award-winning mobile platform, Windows Phone 7. I led design of all text input experiences and delivered a solution highly praised by industry reviewers (Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, etc.)
Text input experiences included soft keyboard, prediction, correction, edit fields, auto-complete, international layouts, and hardware compatibility.
Default US English layout for general text fields in both theme colors and orientations
Custom key sets for specialized fields (Search\Maps field, URL field, email address field, and SMS “To” field)
Who the hell did Microsoft hire to make this keyboard? Because whatever they’re being paid, they deserve a raise. I’ve got no idea what sort of sorcery Microsoft used to build this thing, but it rocks. I’ve typed the character-count equivalent of a novel or two on just about every smartphone platform’s software keyboard, and this … this just might be the best one.
TechCrunch, 2010
Some of the magic came from a “hit target resizing” algorithm. Some of it came from a robust word candidate engine. And some of it came from very carefully considered correction UI.
1) prediction\correction candidates 2) auto-complete indication 3) auto-complete undo option 4) correction candidates for selected text with add to dictionary option
Learn more about the project and team here:
UX Design: Shawna Davis
Visual Design: Ryan Bickel
Program Management: Lori Kratzer, Itai Almog, Priyanka Singhal
User Research: Tirthankar Sengupta, Tim Paek
SHAWNA J DAVIS 