Speed is one example of a method-agnostic measure. These measures, for the most part are, method-agnostic that is applicable to a variety of text entry methods. This chapter discusses the measures of text entry performance. This suggests that despite the apparent conservatism within existing devices, the emergence of radically new device forms creates discontinuity points that give ground to new text methods.

While the typewriter and its successor, the personal computer, have been operated mainly through the keyboard, the newer devices use different techniques. While text entry methods within each of these four devices are very consistent, the intradevice differences are very clear. There are four cornerstone devices in the text entry arena: typewriter, personal computer, mobile phone, and handheld computer. Even over long distances, writing has also allowed the communication of information or emotions. The invention of writing, which is the most specific and flexible way to store information, accelerated cultural development because individuals could store their ideas for later use and for use by the following generations also. In fact, the wide variety of culture that can be seen today is enabled by textual communication. Textual information and communication are an essential part of lives and text entry is much more than a feature in modern computers. This chapter provides an historical overview of consumer text entry technologies. This fundamental design of the keyboard allows visually impaired users to use their sense of touch to input text without seeing the keyboard. It means that each physical key is associated with one specific character. This characteristic allows laying out a keyboard with individual keys for each character. There are several character sets that are grouped under the label of Latin alphabet, but they generally have fewer than 30 basic characters. The chapter reviews the history of these two types of entries. Though the use of Braille is declining, Braille input is still very important. Text entry for visually impaired people can be divided into two methods, one for standard keyboard entry used by the majority of users and one for six-dot Braille entry. Further, it discusses some guidelines for the developers of text entry interfaces that can make them more accessible for visually impaired users.

The chapter also introduces future challenges, such as the challenges of various types of selection-based text input interfaces. It considers the difficulties of supporting text entry for ideographic characters, since people in cultures with such graphic characters still have fundamental difficulties in handling those characters. This chapter reviews the history of input innovations focusing on the Latin alphabet.

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