Products · Pattern or everyday thing
onscreen keyboards
Raised as a usability problem by 23 people on Hacker News over 16 years (2011–2026), in 22 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
On-screen keyboards make typing slow and effortfulUnreviewed
20112026- Fat fingers miss keys and swipe typing fails, forcing constant text fixes2023-12-19
- Finds touchscreen on-screen keyboards annoying to type on2023-12-09
- Typing on a tablet's onscreen keyboard is much slower than on a physical keyboard2023-06-02
Keyboard presses wrong keys often and autocorrect is rarely rightUnreviewed
20112026- Constantly looking at the screen keyboard to fix autocorrect mistakes, which can insert random words2023-09-24
- Autocorrect and suggestions cause mistakes the user has to fix themselves2022-01-26
- Frequently hits wrong keys, like 'b' instead of space, on phone2022-01-26
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 23 complaints
- Keyboard layouts keep shifting and input lags, so the user can't build muscle memory2026-09-18
- On-screen knobs are operated differently from real knobs, which is awkward to use2026-09-01
- Letters register late, so typing gibberish unless user pauses after each letter2025-04-29
- Browser cannot tell the OS which keyboard layout to show for each input field2024-10-29
- Fat fingers miss keys and swipe typing fails, forcing constant text fixes2023-12-19
- Finds touchscreen on-screen keyboards annoying to type on2023-12-09
- Constantly looking at the screen keyboard to fix autocorrect mistakes, which can insert random words2023-09-24
- Typing on a tablet's onscreen keyboard is much slower than on a physical keyboard2023-06-02
- Typing long text on a phone's on-screen keyboard is much worse than a physical keyboard2023-04-15
- Painful to type anything beyond a few words on on-screen keyboards2022-08-19
- Phone and on-screen calculators copy the worst traits of bad physical calculators2022-06-03
- Autocorrect and suggestions cause mistakes the user has to fix themselves2022-01-26
- Frequently hits wrong keys, like 'b' instead of space, on phone2022-01-26
- Presses the wrong key every few characters and autocorrect is rarely right2020-08-20
- Typing on a phone screen demands full visual attention until the message is finished2020-03-31
- Typing on touchscreen keyboards is much slower and less precise than on T9 keypads2019-03-30
- Switching cases and symbols with a remote is cumbersome and slow2017-08-10
- On-screen keyboards on mobile devices are frustrating to type with2017-07-30
- Touch keyboards lack tactile feedback, so typing is hard and relies on autocorrect guessing2016-09-12
- On-screen keyboards are much slower and more error-prone to type with than hardware keyboards2016-09-01
- On-screen keyboards make typing slow and effortful compared to physical keyboards2013-03-26
- Flat touchscreen gives no positional feedback, so typing errors are harder to notice and fix2012-08-20
- Single-touch on-screen keyboards are slow and error-prone when two keys are touched at once2011-02-10