> odd that for touchscreen phones we just decided to grab the near exact keyboard layout we use with physical keyboards, and just stick them on a tiny touchscreen
An anecdote: Early in Steam's controller support, they used a really nice alternative keyboard, where you picked one of 8 directions with the analog stick, and pressed a face key for the specific letter. It was fast, convenient, and built for controllers.
It didn't last.
Steam shortly moved back to a standard QWERTY keyboard layout with the joysticks moving virtual fingers. If I had to speculate, I'd say that they received too much negative feedback, because people didn't immediately recognize it as a keyboard, and didn't want to learn something new.
Even if it's slower, virtual QWERTY keyboards are (almost) universally familiar, and there's nothing new to learn.
An anecdote: Early in Steam's controller support, they used a really nice alternative keyboard, where you picked one of 8 directions with the analog stick, and pressed a face key for the specific letter. It was fast, convenient, and built for controllers.
It didn't last.
Steam shortly moved back to a standard QWERTY keyboard layout with the joysticks moving virtual fingers. If I had to speculate, I'd say that they received too much negative feedback, because people didn't immediately recognize it as a keyboard, and didn't want to learn something new.
Even if it's slower, virtual QWERTY keyboards are (almost) universally familiar, and there's nothing new to learn.