Secure Text Entry using a Virtual Radial Keyboard with Dynamically Resized Keys and Non-Intrusive Randomization

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Huang, Yuxuan, Jin, Qiao, Nie, Tongyu, Interrante, Victoria, Rosenberg, Evan Suma
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Huang, Yuxuan
Jin, Qiao
Nie, Tongyu
Interrante, Victoria
Rosenberg, Evan Suma
author_facet Huang, Yuxuan
Jin, Qiao
Nie, Tongyu
Interrante, Victoria
Rosenberg, Evan Suma
contents As virtual reality (VR) becomes more widely adopted, secure and efficient text entry is an increasingly critical need. In this paper, we identify a vulnerability in a state-of-the-art secure VR text entry method and introduce a novel virtual radial keyboard designed to achieve a balance between security with usability. Keys are arranged alphabetically in a circular layout, with each key selected by controller rotation and dynamically expanding to facilitate precise selection. A randomized rotation mechanism shifts the keyboard after each keystroke, preserving relative key positions while disrupting absolute spatial mappings to protect against inference attacks. We conducted a within-subject study (N=30) comparing our method with the prior secure technique and a standard QWERTY keyboard. Results showed that the radial keyboard significantly improves resistance to keystroke prediction attacks while incurring a tradeoff in entry speed and subjective workload due to the unfamiliar non-QWERTY layout. However, both quantitative trends and qualitative feedback indicate strong potential for performance improvements with practice. We also discuss design implications, possible interface refinements, and directions for future work, including layout variations and visual enhancements.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_05516
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Secure Text Entry using a Virtual Radial Keyboard with Dynamically Resized Keys and Non-Intrusive Randomization
Huang, Yuxuan
Jin, Qiao
Nie, Tongyu
Interrante, Victoria
Rosenberg, Evan Suma
Human-Computer Interaction
As virtual reality (VR) becomes more widely adopted, secure and efficient text entry is an increasingly critical need. In this paper, we identify a vulnerability in a state-of-the-art secure VR text entry method and introduce a novel virtual radial keyboard designed to achieve a balance between security with usability. Keys are arranged alphabetically in a circular layout, with each key selected by controller rotation and dynamically expanding to facilitate precise selection. A randomized rotation mechanism shifts the keyboard after each keystroke, preserving relative key positions while disrupting absolute spatial mappings to protect against inference attacks. We conducted a within-subject study (N=30) comparing our method with the prior secure technique and a standard QWERTY keyboard. Results showed that the radial keyboard significantly improves resistance to keystroke prediction attacks while incurring a tradeoff in entry speed and subjective workload due to the unfamiliar non-QWERTY layout. However, both quantitative trends and qualitative feedback indicate strong potential for performance improvements with practice. We also discuss design implications, possible interface refinements, and directions for future work, including layout variations and visual enhancements.
title Secure Text Entry using a Virtual Radial Keyboard with Dynamically Resized Keys and Non-Intrusive Randomization
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05516