Keytop Design to Reduce Unintended Activation of Caps Lock

Disclosed is a keycap design which incorporates both a reduced surface area and a lowered perimeter shelf height that are intended to minimize unintended activation of the CapsLock key on a typical computer keyboard.

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Keytop Design to Reduce Unintended Activation of Caps Lock

Main Idea of disclosure

     Disclosed is a keycap design for minimizing unintended activation of the Caps Lock key on a typical computer keyboard. This is a significant source of frustration to users of keyboards wherein the user intends to press the adjacent "A" key or the "Shift" key, but instead enters Caps mode by accidentally depressing the Caps Lock key with part of their finger in the process of depressing the intended key.

     The shape of the typical Caps Lock key on currently shipping keyboards implements a reduced surface area keytop that is intended to address this user frustration. However, the current design does not resolve the problem because it is still quite easy to accidentally depress the Caps Lock key when depressing adjacent intended keys. This failure is in part attributable to the fact that the "shelf" at the right-edge of the Caps Lock key (see Figure 1) - while reducing the surface area of the keytop - is not purposefully designed to be lower than the position of the typist's finger when they have depressed an adjacent key, thereby allowing the finger to accidentally press the Caps Lock key simultaneously (see Figure 2). It is this inadvertent overlap of the typist's finger on the Caps Lock key that causes many unintended Caps Lock key activations.

Figure 1. Cap Designs for Caps Lock Key

Figure 2. Impact of Shelf Height on Inadvertent Presses of Caps Lock Key

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