Every calculator port to a desktop computer I’ve seen uses the same UI that a hand-held calculator would use. The hand-held calculator was designed to be used in your hand or on the desk. It has big buttons so you won’t miss them. The operators are on the right or left side so you can easily reach them with your thumb. This is far from how a calculator app should be used on a computer. There haven’t been much innovation in calculator UI design since Kilby, Jerry D. Merryman and James H. Van Tassel, invented the first hand-held calculator at Texas Instruments in 1967.
First hand-held calculator invented at texas instruments
TI 89 "Titanium edition" graphing calculator from Texas Instruments
Sure there are more buttons now, and you can draw graphs, but the main set of number keys haven’t changed very much, the buttons are just thrown at the top almost without any consideration. For a physical calculator, we can argue that there’s not much we can do if we wanted all the functionality that a modern graphics calculator has. But a calculator on the keyboard has more potential. A modern keyboard already has over 100 keys. Yet the UI on a computer mimicks that of the physical calculator.
Windows 7 calculator
The calculator UI works well with the number pad if it only features the four basic arithmetic operations (+, -, x, /), but it doesn’t work if you’re using a scientific calculator with more buttons than you have keys on a number pad. It also doesn’t work on a laptop where most people hardly ever turn number pad on to use the number pad because those keys are shared with the normal keyboard layout. There are no obvious keyboard shortcut keys to any of the advanced operators.
It’s time we redesigned the calculator UI to work more efficiently on a computer. The number keys should be split between the middle of the keyboard where both hands can be used to maximize finger utilization. Commonly used operators should be near index and middle fingers. I propose T, Y, G, H for +, -, *, / and ASDFJKL:RU keys be the number keys. That should be a good start. It might take some experimenting before we add the advanced keys. Regardless, since there haven’t been any UI innovation in calculators, it wouldn’t take much effort to come up with a better arrangement of keys for the keyboard.
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