Today, pagers, and the paging systems in which they operate, are quite prevalent in society. They are no longer used simply to send phone numbers to return calls, but also are used to receive information on stock quotes and other financial information, sport scores, calendar updates, as well as a whole host of other information which individuals desire on a timely basis.
Until recently, paging systems were limited to one way paging. That is, an individual using a paging system was limited to having information sent from a paging broadcast center to an individual's pager, which may reside anywhere within the broadcast area of the paging system. Today, two-way paging systems have been introduced. In a two-way paging system, an individual using a pager may send messages, as well as receive them. A two-way pager includes an input device for message creation.
The emergence of two-way paging systems has brought about a conflict between the need to maintain the portable pager as a small form factor communications device while providing the pager with functionality to create messages to be sent. Problems may arise where the input device includes buttons that are positioned close together. In such a case, pressing one of the buttons may cause another button to be depressed. However, if the buttons are positioned far apart, the size of the pager may have to be increased. What is desired is to have the buttons on the interface be positioned close together to reduce the amount of area allotted to the interface on the pager.
Thus, what is needed is an interface for a portable paging device that allows the paging device to maintain a small form factor yet provide an input device which is easy to use by the user yet which has buttons that don't interfere with each other.