Unusual input devices #002: The Happy Hacking Keyboard 22 Nov 2007

Fujitsu's Happy Hacking Keyboard has been around for some time, but we thought we'd give it another mention since it's a great reminder of why you should design for your target market and not "the average user": As you can see from the image above, the keys on the HHK are all blank. This gives users the opportunity to remap to a QWERTY / QWERTZ / AZERTY / QZERTY / Dvorak / whatever layout they feel most comfortable with (it circumnavigates a whole host of localisation issues too). There's also no Caps Lock key - which should please CAPSoff and vindicate Apple.

Okay, so you have to be pretty hardcore to "fly blind" on a keyboard like this. "The average user" simply wouldn't be able to manage. But that's not who the product is aimed at. The Happy Hacking Keyboard is aimed at turbo-charged touch-typists who never need to look down at their keyboard.

Related: Unusual input devices #001: The Ergodex DX1 Input System.