Morse code is a full alphabet made of just two signals, which makes it one of the most efficient ways to type for people who cannot use a keyboard or a touch screen. With one or two switches, pressed by a hand, a foot, a head movement or a breath, a person can write any word, and with practice they can do it quickly. Phones support it too: Android has accepted Morse input since version 5.0, and Google's Gboard has a Morse keyboard.
Why Morse suits switches
Many people with motor disabilities can reliably press a switch but cannot point accurately at small targets. A common alternative is scanning, where a cursor moves through the letters and the user presses a switch when it reaches the right one. Scanning works, but it is slow, because you wait for the cursor every time.
Morse turns the switch into the keyboard itself. Every letter is a short sequence of two signals, and the commonest letters are the shortest: E is one dot, ., and T one dash, -. There is no waiting. An experienced user types as fast as they can press.
One, two or three switches
- One switch. A short press is a dot and a long press is a dash. Everything is in one switch, but the user has to control the length of each press, which depends on timing.
- Two switches. One switch sends dots and the other dashes, so the length of the press no longer matters. A pause still ends the letter.
- Three switches. One for dots, one for dashes, and a third that says the letter is finished. This removes timing altogether, which matters for people whose movements are slow or unpredictable.
As D. K. Anson put it in 2018, both one and two switch Morse "depend, to some extent, on timing", and three-switch Morse removes "the necessity of timing to send Morse code".
Sip and puff
A switch does not have to be pressed by hand. In a sip-and-puff interface, the user alternately blows into and sucks on a plastic tube: a puff for a dot, a sip for a dash, for example. Combined with a computer that translates the code, this lets someone with very limited movement write, and drive a speaking communication aid.
Gboard's Morse keyboard
In 2018 Google added Morse code input to Gboard, its phone keyboard, first on Android and then, from July that year, on iPhone. It was designed with Tania Finlayson, who was born with cerebral palsy and has communicated in Morse since the 1980s. She helped design the keyboard layout and its settings, and added Morse sequences to the suggestion strip above the keys.
The Morse layout replaces the letters with large dot and dash keys and works with Android's accessibility services, such as TalkBack, Switch Access and Select to Speak. Google also released a Morse typing trainer game to help people learn the code.
Learning it
Because Morse is used here for writing rather than listening, people often learn it visually at first, unlike radio operators, who learn it by ear. Both work. The most important thing is learning the shortest codes first, since they come up most often:
| Letter | Code | Letter | Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| E | . |
T | - |
| I | .. |
M | -- |
| A | .- |
N | -. |
| S | ... |
O | --- |
Tap any code to hear it. With these eight letters you can already write words like SEAT, MEAN and NOTE. Our guide to learning Morse explains how to add the rest.
Try writing with two signals
The translator shows what anything you type looks like in dots and dashes, and plays it back. The alphabet chart can be printed or saved as an image, which some people keep beside their switch while they learn.