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Comment by jmillikin | Hacker News Reader

Previous discussions can be found at:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438124

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1062284

The QWERTY vs Dvorak argument is silly; both were designed at a time before any research had been performed into typing ergonomics, and the only reason to pick one or the other is largely based on hearsay and rumor.

If you'd like an ergonomic keyboard layout, try one designed to be efficient for common use cases, such as:

Colemak < http://colemak.com/ >: More efficient than QWERT and Dvorak, while preserving common QWERTY-based keyboard shortcuts.

QGMLWB < http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization >: Highly efficient, at the cost of sacrificing keyboard shortcut muscle memory.

Or, design your own with carpalx: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/

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> The QWERTY vs Dvorak argument is silly; both were designed at a time before any research had been performed into typing ergonomics, and the only reason to pick one or the other is largely based on hearsay and rumor.

I grew up using my own odd way of typing with several of my fingers, but didn't type by touch. When I started studying comp sci I decided to finally learn to type properly. After a year or so of typing qwerty I had pain in my wrists and fingers.

Obviously I couldn't afford any injuries before my career even started, so I read up on dvorak and the decided the reasoning behind it was sound. I switched and it was one or two weeks before I could type very well at all, and a month before I was what I call proficient. Since then no more pain.

So whether my fingers actually travel less or not, I don't really care. Something about it is better ergonomically, for me. It's been 5-6 years since then without any pain or discomfort (apart from 20+ hour sessions, and I deserved exactly what I got, that's just dumb).

AFAIK Dvorak wrote studies on this for some US gov't body, around WW1 or WW2 iirc. I haven't looked for them but to call his research hearsay and rumour is not very fair. You need to back that up.

> You need to back that up.

Besides presenting us with an unfalsifiable anecdote, you obviously haven't read the article. It's about backing that claim up:

"Fast forward now to 1936, when August Dvorak ... patented the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard...

The standard telling of [the Navy Study] story turns out to be false in almost every important respect....

[Dvorak et al] compared students of different ages and abilities (for example, students learning Dvorak in grades 7 and 8 at the University of Chicago Lab School were compared with students learning QWERTY in conventional high schools)...

Even in their studies, however, the evidence is mixed as to whether students learning Dvorak retain an advantage, since the differences seemed to diminish as training progressed."

No, the article is addressing a different claim about Dvorak from the one sjs made. (Article: Can one type faster on a Dvorak than a QWERTY keyboard? sjs: Is typing on a Dvorak keyboard easier on the wrists and fingers than typing on a QWERTY keyboard?)

For what it's worth, I've heard a lot of anecdotal claims that Dvorak is better in terms of pain, and scarcely anyone claiming it's better for speed. This might, of course, be because the main thing that makes someone switch from QWERTY to Dvorak is that they've started having pain and are searching for something that might stop it.

> Besides presenting us with an unfalsifiable anecdote, you obviously haven't read the article.

There were a few articles trying to "debunk" dvorak recently and no, I did not read this one. I am tired of them. It's a silly debate.

It's not just my anecdote. There are at least 1/2 a dozen others here on hacker news this week with a similar story. That's only a small sample. I've met others in person who type dvorak with a similar story, there's one at my current workplace.

The fact that people don't know about or consider alternative layouts doesn't mean they aren't better in some way.

Good post! I can confirm that: I switched to Dvorak from Querty a few years ago too - big improvement.

Er...or click on the dvorak link on your QGMLWB site. There's no mention of 'heresay' or 'rumour'. What they do say is:

"Chances are you don't know anyone who types on Dvorak. This is unfortunate because Dvorak significantly reduces typing effort and the likelihood of typing-related injuries. "

"First, Dvorak is very good at keeping fingers on home row - 71% of keystrokes land there (compare this with 34% for QWERTY). This alone is worth the price of admission. Dvorak bottom row usage is very low at 9% (15% for QWERTY). Dvorak favours the right hand by 14% (QWERTY favours left by 15%). Dvorak has more uniform finger usage and makes greater use of the pinky (18% vs QWERTY's 10%). "

http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?dvorak

> Dvorak favours the right hand by 14% (QWERTY favours left by 15%). Dvorak has more uniform finger usage and makes greater use of the pinky (18% vs QWERTY's 10%).

I find that writing code, my right pinky is by far the most overworked finger, on account of the ; ' " [ ] { } - _ = and + characters, and especially the return key which you hit all the time in code but only once per paragraph in prose. So now I can shake off this nagging feeling that I should look into Dvorak. Thanks.

Programmer Dvorak puts the brackets on other keys, and the +, = and * keys front-and-center. It's more hassle to set up but it murders QWERTY for coding. Except cut and paste, which still sucks.

See, what I would like to know is, what aspects of keyboard design actually make the keyboard more efficient? Most discussions I've read about QWERTY vs Dvorak, etc. eventually turn into personal anecdotes or debates about economic ideology, which has nothing to do with keyboard design.

Optimizing keyboard layout to have common letters on the home row and alternating hands during typical usage seems like a reasonable principle. Dvorak is significantly better at that than QWERTY, at least for English text. (Neither was designed with Norwegian or C in mind, obviously.) Years ago, there was a website* in which the author used genetic programming to evolve better keyboard layouts, seeded with QWERTY, Dvorak, and a few others. Dvorak was never best, but tended to place highly. But the more important question is, how should you score keyboard layouts?

* My wayback machine bookmark says the author blocked it with robots.txt.

Is Dvoark an objectively better keyboard? I don't know. I've typed with Dvorak for about three years, and I strongly prefer it, but it could probably be better. I also don't care about typing speed - I already type fast enough to not mind getting briefly sucked into QWERTY/Dvorak threads before breakfast. ;)

I haven't ever used any of the really funky ergonomic keyboard designs (the Kinesis, Maltron, etc.), but that's another option, and possibly more important than layout.

I'm going to switch to QGMLWB tonight. We (by which I mean I) will see if it is in fact greater.

Please, let us know how it goes!

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