\section{Discussion} \label{sec:discussion} In the following sections, we reiterate on our findings presented in the last section and try to derive answers regarding our seven hypotheses and research question \textit{``Does an adjusted actuation force per key have a positive impact on efficiency and overall satisfaction while using a mechanical keyboard?''}. \subsection{Impact of Actuation Force on Typing Speed} \label{sec:dis_speed} Our main experiment yielded, that there are differences in typing speed for both metrics related to transcribed text we measured―namely \glsfirst{WPM} and \glsfirst{AdjWPM}. Especially the keyboard with the lowest uniform actuation force of 35 g―\textit{Nyx}―performed worse than all other keyboards. In terms of \gls{WPM}, \textit{Nyx (35 g)} was on average 4.1\% slower than \textit{Athena (80 g)} and \textit{Aphrodite (50 g)} and 4.8\% slower than the adjusted keyboard \textit{Hera (35 - 60 g)}. Similarly, for \gls{AdjWPM}, \textit{Nyx} was 4.3\% slower than \textit{Athena} and \textit{Aphrodite} and 4.9\% slower than \textit{Hera}. The 4\% to 5\% difference in \gls{WPM} and \gls{AdjWPM} in our sample account for approximately 2 words per minute. When extrapolated with the mean daily keyboard usage of 6.69 hours reported by our participants, this difference would be as big as 803 words, which when put into perspective, is equivalent to roughly two full pages of only written content (11pt font size). Although, this specific example would assume constant typing for 6.69 hours, it is still a useful estimate of the loss in productivity under normal working conditions over the course of several days. These differences in \gls{WPM} and \gls{AdjWPM} could be explained by the higher error rates and thereby the loss of ``typing flow'' we discuss in the next section. \gls{KSPS} reflects the raw input speed by including backspaces and previously deleted characters. The reason we included \gls{KSPS} in our analysis was to reveal possible differences in the physical speed participants type on a keyboard and not to further asses speed in the sense of productivity. We could not find any statistically significant differences in \gls{KSPS} but saw a trend, indicating that subjects typed a bit slower (< 3\%) on \textit{Athena (80 g)} compared to \textit{Aphrodite (50 g)} and \textit{Hera (35 - 60 g)}. With the differences in metrics that are commonly used to measure typing speed more closely related to productivity (\gls{WPM}, \gls{AdjWPM}) and the trends that indicate a slight difference in operating speed, we can accept our hypothesis that solely a difference in actuation force has an impact on typing speed. \begin{phga_hyp}[\checkmark] Actuation force has an impact on typing speed (efficiency - speed). \end{phga_hyp} % During our telephone interviews 76\% of respondents would have preferred a % keyboard with lighter actuation force. % Our study tried to present the participant with a typing scenario that is as % close to a typical text input situation as possible, by allowing but not % enforcing the correction of erroneous input. \subsection{Impact of Actuation Force on Error Rate} \label{sec:dis_error} As already briefly mentioned in Section \ref{sec:dis_speed}, measured error rates like \glsfirst{UER}, \glsfirst{CER} and \glsfirst{TER} differed especially between \textit{Nyx (35 g)} and the other test keyboards. The statistical analyses further revealed, that \textit{Athena}, the keyboard with the highest actuation force of 80 g, produced on average 1\% less \gls{TER} than \textit{Hera (35 - 60 g)} and \textit{Aphrodite (50 g)} and 3\% less than \textit{Nyx (35g)}. Furthermore, \textit{Hera} and \textit{Aphrodite} both had a 2\% lower \gls{TER} than \textit{Nyx}. Additionally to the quantitative results, fourteen of the twenty-four participants also reported, that \textit{Nyx's} light actuation force was the reason for many accidental key presses. It further stood out, that as shown in Figure \ref{fig:max_opc_ter}, \textit{Athena} was the most accurate keyboard for 58\% of participants and also more accurate than keyboard \textit{Own} for eleven of the subjects. This concludes, that a higher actuation force has a positive impact on error rate. \begin{phga_hyp}[\checkmark] Higher key actuation force decreases typing errors compared to lower key actuation force (efficiency - error rate). \end{phga_hyp} \textbf{Impact of \gls{TER} on \gls{WPM}} The higher error rates and the possibility to correct erroneous input could have also been a factor that led to lower \textit{WPM}. To evaluate the likelihood of this additional relation, we conducted a \gls{LRT} of fixed effects for our linear mixed-effects model with two random effects (participant and first/second typing test), fixed effect \gls{TER} and response variable \gls{WPM}. The results of the \gls{LRT} ($\chi^2(1)$ = 110.44, p = 0.00000000000000022) suggest, that the \gls{TER} indeed had an impact on \gls{WPM}. This could have been, because every time an error was made, almost all participants decided to correct it right away. With a higher error rate, this obviously leads to many short interruptions and an increased number of characters that are not taken into account when computing the \gls{WPM} metric. \subsection{Impact of Actuation Force on Satisfaction} \label{sec:dis_sati} \subsection{Impact of Actuation Force on Muscle Activity} \label{sec:dis_emg} \subsection{Impact of an Adjusted Keyboard on Typing Speed, Error Rate and Satisfaction} \label{sec:dis_hera}