Keyboard for an electronic device having a key with indicia to indicate the direction of the key function

摘要

A keyboard for a portable electronic device such as a mobile phone has a key 306 having indicia displayed on it to selectively indicate the direction of a function, the function being particularly the direction of the backspace or the delete function. The direction is preferably left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom, or bottom-to-top with respect to the display. The keyboard is particularly to accommodate languages where text is entered in different directions such as English as opposed to Hebrew or Arabic. The keyboard is preferably a graphical user interface rendered on a touch sensitive display or it is preferably a physical keyboard including keys having a mechanical actuators and which are selectively illuminated to display the direction.