9/22/2023 0 Comments Picture of french keyboard layout![]() ![]() ![]() To this end, we developed a method to quickly assess the quality of solutions by computing near-optimal lower bounds using a novel column-generation approach that exploits the sparsity of the quadratic part of the objective, which is common for instances of this use-case. We provided the committee many solutions corresponding to their varying demands. This is an obstacle for using computational support in such a standardization process, because not only after the public inquiry, but also for every committee meeting, the underlying model was updated and new solutions were computed. In particular, the requirement for intuitiveness makes the optimization problem hard as it leads to a quadratic objective function, thus, yields quadratic assignment problems (QAP), which are generally very hard to solve. Intuitiveness– special characters should be placed close to similar fixed characters and other special characters to simplify finding them on the keyboard įamiliarity– frequent special characters should be placed close to their position in the original Azerty keyboard if this character was already positioned there. Performance– special characters that are often used in combination with fixed characters should be close together in order to minimize the time to type Įrgonomics – frequently used special characters should be quite central on the keyboard to avoid unhealthy stretches of the fingers Eventually, the objective function stabilized as a combination of four different measures: Hence, the whole standardization process consisted of several rounds of gathering data, adapting the mathematical model for the problem, finding a (near-) optimal keyboard, presenting it to the committee who expressed further wishes for the objective, modifying the weighting of its components, and adding or removing certain characters. In several meetings, the standardization committee discussed several solutions, evaluated the impact of manual changes on different parts of the objective, and altered the optimization model to find a compromise. ![]() It was rather a process that could be described as Participatory Optimization with multiple stakeholders with various fields of expertise, having divers and conflicting opinions that changed over time (such as the set of the special characters to be included and their respective importance). However, this was not a typical case of one-shot optimization with a clearly defined model, which just has to be solved, because such a rigid approach offers only poor support for such complex socio- technical endeavors. Going beyond prior work, the goal was not only to ensure high typing performance but we also considered ergonomics and learnability factors. ![]() Our task was to modify the placement of the special characters of the traditional Azerty keyboard while letters and numbers remain at their known positions. We, Maximilian John and Andreas Karrenbauer, joined this project in 2016 as optimization experts. One year later, AFNOR, the French national organization for standardization, was tasked with producing a standard that resolves the issues. For example, some French people were taught, incorrectly, that accents for capital letters (É, À, etc.) are optional, a belief sometimes justified by reference to their absence from Azerty. The ministry was concerned that this hinders proper use of the language. It pointed out that Azerty, the traditional layout, lacks special characters (like À, œ, etc.) needed for `proper' French and that many variants exist. In 2015, France's Ministry of Culture wrote to the French Parliament, criticizing the lack of standards for a keyboard layout. ![]()
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