ShortStep for repetitive work without stressing
hands, arms, shoulders, and neck.

Introduction

Moving the repetitive work to your feet

The ShortStep foot keyboard is a combination of a foot rest and cleverly arranged keys that allow you to transfer this repetitive work to your feet. It allows you to drastically change body posture: when not entering text, you can lean back while working with little or no use of arms.

In fact, almost all existing keyboard shortcuts, including the hundreds defined by some applications, are directly expressible by simple taps on foot switches instantly reachable from the comfortable resting area of the ShortStep foot keyboard.

Who could benefit?

• People with sore shoulders or neck pain.
• People with RSI, CTD, tendinitis, carpal tunnel syndrom.
• People who need to type with one-hand (the modifiers can now be activated by foot along with slow-to-reach buttons like enter).
• People who have poor manual motor control.
• People whose jobs involve heavy amounts of repetive work, like copy editors, CAD/CAM users, and innumerable other professions.

Are keyboard shortcuts useful?

Professional computer users in many areas would not be able to work without keyboards shortcuts. An architect using a CAD program is constantly panning, focussing in and out, and selecting drawing tools. Without keyboard commands, this work would be many times slower. Of course, most computer users recognize a few keyboard shortcuts, like Ctrl-C for the copy command, Esc for cancel, or Delete for erasing an email message or file. But in fact, there are dozens of generally useful shortcuts, see Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows, and most programs offer shortcuts for all common functions.

One problem with keyboard shortcuts is that they must be learned. But ShortStep effectively doubles the reward: once you know a keyboard shorcut it can be used in two ways, by hand or by feet.

So, can I ShortStep my way to Esc, Page Up, Delete, Left Arrow, F5, Ctrl-C, Alt-F4, Alt-Shift-Left Arrow, Alt-Ctrl-G,... ?

Yes, the keys Esc, Page Up, Delete, Left Arrow are among the most commonly used and they are all there for easy activation with one foot, along with ten other common keys. For the other keys F5 (refresh), Ctrl-C, Alt-F4 (close application), and specialized ones like Alt-Shift-Left Arrow (promote a paragraph in an outline mode [Microsoft Word]) or Alt-Ctrl-F (set coordinate system [TurboCAD]), the answer is also yes. These combinations are activated by feet according to the same modifier principle as on the standard keyboard: press the modifier, then the ordinary key.

Surprisingly, such combinations are about as fast to make by feet as by hands. In fact, on the ShortStep keyboard the modifier pedal is behind the heel, so while one foot presses the ordinary key, the other foot moves back a couple of inches to slide onto a modifier pedal. This patented method contributes to solving the key problem of foot pedals: a simple mapping must be devised from the hundreds of keyboard combinations that are already available to the modest amount of switches that can be operated by feet.

So how exactly does ShortStep work?

The Resting Areas

First of all, ShortStep provides you with a naturally sloped resting area for each of your feet, not unlike existing foot rests (such as 3M foot rest next,). To the right you see how each foot rests, mainly on the sloped part. The foot does not need to be precisely aligned all the time. It will very quickly obtain a sense of position, just as your hands do on the keyboard.

The keys that are used all the time

Second, ShortStep allows each foot to serve seven common keys. There are two keys above the resting area, one key that is part of the area, and two keys to each side of the area. The shapes of the keys are carefully matched with the anatomy of the foot: with the ball of the foot, for example, it is very easy to select either of the inner side keys.

With these keys much repetive work already gets easier.

• The mouse can be operated in a much more relaxed manner, since your fingers are no longer a hostage of the buttons: push it around with your hand grasping it in any manner and use foot keys for button activity.
• Browsing an e-mail index (up and down keys), scrolling the preview window (space), erasing mail (del key) can be done while leaning back since all these keys are there.
• Tab yourself to the right button in a user dialog box and type enter to select it.

The Shft, Alt, and Ctrl modifiers

Third, the usual modifier keys are very easily activated, since they are arranged as shown, immediately behind the foot:

Note that a combination like Alt-Shft can also easily be achieved as shown by the red arrow above: move the heel sidewards to the right and the down until the foot encounters the row of blue keys---which are raised and form a natural stop. The width of the shift key has been designed so that the foot will depress both the Alt and the Shft at the same time.

So what can we accomplish now? Examples are

• Switching among applications Alt-Tab and Alt-Shft-Tab
• Activating the start button Ctrl-Esc (this is the same effect as the dedicated Windows button found on some keyboards)
• Selecting and moving over words at a time. This is accomplished by Ctrl and Shft combined with left and right arrow keys. So with just a few keys, you can carry out most trivial editing by feet alone.

The alphabetic modifiers for Ctrl-c, Alt-S, ...

~	H		J	`
		I
	K	L	M

!	N		P	"
		O
	Q	R	S

ShortStep presents an innovative way to boost the number of available keys: the remaining letters are on the modifier keys! The key idea, so to speak, is that when the left foot presses an alphabetic modifier, the modifier keys of the right foot turn into ordinary keys according to the labels just provided. Similarly, the left modifier keys turn into ordinary keys when an alphabetic modifier keys on the right is pressed. This unique dual use principle dramatically extends the space of available key combinations. So, if you first press the alphabetic control key with your left foot followed by the alphabetic control key with your right foot, then you generate Ctrl-p. But if you press the keys in the reverse order, then you generate Ctrl-h.

The function modifiers for F1, Alt-F4, ...

F1		F2
	F4
F3		F5
F6		F7

F8		F9
	F11
F10		F12
Home		End

-	_		+	=
		Pause
	[	]	\

;	:		'	,
		Insert
	.	/	?

The meaning of keys for the left and right foot are shown here.

Customizing the layout

A QWERTY layout

Design summary

• The basic form must be that of a sloped foot rest in order to prevent tension in the calves.
• The resulting mobility of the heel must be exploited. The placement of heel keys provides a natural and very efficient way of generating hundreds of key combinations.
• The keys around the foot must be shaped so that they can be activated with a minimum of movement and torsion of the foot.
• The heel keys must be designed so that they can mostly be reached by a sliding movement that does not involve lifting the leg.
• The heel keys must be designed so that two modifiers can easily be activated at once.
• It is necessary to map all 26 letters of the alphabet to keys even if there are only around 14 ordinary keys. The dual use innovation solves this problem.
• The orientation, size, shape, and travel of buttons are critical to the natural operation of the ShortStep keyboard.

Side view.

Detail from prototype showing heel keys.

Summary of key meanings.

Specifications

Drawings