Norman layout: less effort than QWERTY
normanlayout.info
normanlayout.info
For whom?
For programmers?
For Vim users?
For Emacs users?
For Photoshop users?
For writers?
For English writers?
For Non-English writers?
For Mathematica users?
For LaTex users?
For my mother browsing the net on her iPad?
Everyone has a different use case, programmers use special characters more than non-programmers, Vim users use different shortcuts than Photoshop users, C programmers use the semicolon while Ruby programmers don't, American writers use the letter y more than German ones and so on. Claiming 46% less effort than qwerty needs further clarification.
Another thing which comes with all alternative mappings: you need to be able to change all your devices (desktop, mobile) to your new mapping, otherwise the constant mental switch from one to another keyboard layout won't bring you any speed and flow improvement. My writing speed goes down to zero when I have to write on a British layout (which is already super close to the US layout compared to other countries).
That doesn't align with my personal experience at all. I do switch between English and Polish keyboard layout on a regular basis (and I mean proper Polish layout, the semi-forgotten PN-87; it's QWERTZ-based, but much more distant from vanilla QWERTY than so-called Polish Programmer's, especially when it comes to special characters). I'm really quick with both and I don't find switching inconvenient in the slightest.
So it's really individual thing and sweeping generalizations like "constant mental switch won't bring you any improvement" seem dubious to me. The truth is that YMMV.
Give it a try.
I do it on machines where I have no time nor interest to add the PN-87, or Polish typist layout (after mechanical typewriters where it was used in Poland before the computer era took over).
That's the case of my work machine, for instance, on which I don't type that much in Polish anyway. Yet I still do now and then, so I can gauge the difference.
Since I have to resort to these artificial combos, typing speed and convenience is inferior.
It's other small things that add up, too - for example Polish layout uses QWERTZ, "z" being much more common in Polish language than in English where it's rare. For this reason putting "z" under the weakest finger of all, the left pinky, makes for really poor UX for someone using QWERTY to type in Polish. It's much better located in the middle of the top row.
When writing in Polish, the flow is much better with Polish typist than "Polish programmer's" with its shortcuts. But as I said, your mileage may vary, and it seems so in your case.
Desktop and laptop, sure. Mobile (which I assumed meant a palmtop such as a smartphone), not so much. If you change the layout of your keyboard, you will touch type. This is a very different kind of memory than the typical hunt&peck. Phone virtual keyboards are even more different.
In practice, my dekstop and laptop use the Bépo layout (a Dvorak-like for French), and I kept Azerty (French Qwerty derivative) on my phone. The discrepancy never caused me any problem.
Why? I type on an iPhone keyboard without any assistance as fast as on my keyboard. I'm almost touch typing. Even if you have to look at the phone's keyboard—you are way faster if the keys are at their expected place on the keyboard (which is QWERTY in my case).
Edit: If you disagree don't downvote, rather express why you disagree
I believe that my years of touch typing experience are the reason I hate typing on glass so much. I follow the text I'm writing and not the keys I'm pressing, so with no physical feedback about the locations of the keys, my text is an endless stream of aggravating typos requiring laborious correction.
I really miss my Blackberry. Every phone since has felt like the designers calculated the experience to be just one notch less annoying than the threshold at which I would actually pound the damn thing to bits with a sledgehammer.
Very different. Though I didn't realised how dissociated those could be before I used my Dvorak-like layout.
Ie, log and then paste the contents into something like: https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/
>Norman is a fully optimized alternative keyboard layout to QWERTY for touch typing in English. It maintains keyboard shortcuts for the letters QWASZXCV and keeps 22/26 letters in the normal use pattern of their QWERTY finger, if not the original QWERTY location.
I started in high school by switching to Dvorak, missed keyboard shortcuts, switched to Colemak. Didn't like it, switched to Workman. Didn't like it, found Norman. Haven't looked back. I also use Plover for stenography. I like typing.
How much of a pain in the ass is it to deal with other people's keyboards (which presumably are still QWERTY)?
Does it work for a split layout? (ex: Microsfot Natural Keyboard)
Any noticeable speed increase or decrease of wrist pain? I've all but eliminated it via a split keyboard but always on the lookout for something better.
I had about a year of just using Dvorak before changing jobs, then moved to a job where I had to share testing machines and people got annoyed when I changed the keyboard layout. So I started to learn QWERTY again and fairly quickly got to the point where it was natural for me to type on a split keyboard with Dvorak and a straight one with QWERTY.
I can now type on any keyboard in either layout, although if what I'm typing starts with 'ma' or 'am' then I'm liable to get confused as those are the two keys in the same place on both layouts. Since my last job change I don't use a split keyboard routinely any more.
My typing did slow down at the start, and a time of purely Dvorak helped a lot with re-gaining speed. My boss also transitioning meant I didn't feel so bad about the speed loss.
2) Depends if you retain your ability to type with QWERTY or not. I type with Colemak at home and QWERTY at work.
3) Depending on how you type. I dislike split layouts because my left hand frequently hits my "right hand" keys.
4) Any non-trivial speed increases are likely entirely contributed to people learning how to properly type after switching keyboard layouts, IMO. Comfort/decrease of pain is tied to making both fewer and smaller movements when typing.
That's why I switched. I was having some hand pains using Qwerty. I switched to Dvorak and never had those pains again.
I never did get to the same speed in dvorak that I had in Qwerty. That's largely because I learned to type qwerty by playing MUDs, where fast typing can literally save your life. None of my dvorak typing has had the same sense of urgency. :)
I've switched about 7 years ago, and the ergonomic benefits are just enormous. Typing is so much more pleasant, smooth, and fun, compared to QWERTY. Note that I still touch type both, and have decent speed (~100wpm in Dvorak, ~85wpm in QWERTY).
The pain (about 2 months realistically) has been totally worth it. Also the way my brain cringed during the switch made me feel like it was a pretty great brain exercise.
Why did I switch? It was a time in my life where I was grasping for any change of scenery I could get. I guess you could say it was pretty arbitrary.
Dealing with QWERTY keyboards: I type on my phone in QWERTY without a second thought. For a good while, even switching from my desk keyboard to my laptop was difficult, even though the only difference was the visible letters (I adjusted the keycaps on my mechanical keyboard). Today, if I sit down at somebody else's computer I have to change the layout or type with two fingers. I imagine it would be possible to practice QWERTY to keep up my skill with it, but it would not be worth the time for me.
Split layout: I can't answer for certain—I think I reach less with Dvorak than I used to with QWERTY, but anecdotally I do hit 'F' with my left index finger—that's Y on a QWERTY.
Speed increase: When I switched I could comfortably type in the 70-80 WPM range and could peak around 100-110 if I was really really trying. Timeline for switch with errors: - first few days: you're typing with 2 fingers; it's extremely frustrating - 2 weeks: 10-20 WPM, errors every other letter or so - 6 months: up to 40 WPM maybe, several errors per sentence - 1 year: up to 60 WPM, still several errors per sentence - 2-4 years: back to 70-80 WPM, gradual reduction in errors
Timeline TL;DR: you'll type more slowly for at least a year unless you deliberately practice with a focus on reducing errors and improving muscle memory, and it will still be a struggle. It took me 3-4 years to get back to my fast typing speed, and I doubt I'll go beyond what I could do with QWERTY.
Wrist pain: No noticable difference for me personally. I do feel like utilization of my fingers improved overall and there really are less awkward positions. However, with Dvorak you _really_ have to get used to hitting 's', '-', and '?' with your little finger.
Is it worth it to switch? —When I read comments on HN from people that switched to Dvorak, when asked if it was worth it, most say that the ergonomics of Dvorak do not outweigh the difficulty of learning it and dealing with ongoing issues with using it. I mostly agree with that. However, I found learning Dvorak to be fun and challenging and I'm glad I switched. But do it mostly for the challenge and the geek cred and as a talking point when somebody is standing at your desk.
A few things to consider with a non-default keyboard layout:
- If you are a vim user, decide early if you want to memorize letters or positions. I chose letters, so I type the same thing a QWERTY user would, but if I want to use vim on a QWERTY keyboard I'm f*ed and I will have to look for the letters individually—but I'll know which to look for! On the other hand, if you memorize position, you can use existing muscle memory for vim and you will only have to worry about configuration in the short term, but learning new commands in the long term might be difficult. If you are concerned about this feel free to ask more.
- macOS has a Dvorak + QWERTY Cmd layout, where if you hold Cmd to perform shortcuts like Cmd + C for copy, Cmd + V for paste, it'll defer to the QWERTY position. This is handy if you want to be able to copy and paste with just your left hand, and use existing muscle memory. I eventually switched to plain Dvorak and found it was a lot easier and I was confused much less often. I recommend doing this as soon as you can make yourself do it. Be prepared to accidentally close windows and random stuff in your browser/terminal/slack/whatever
- Some video games will go by letters instead of character positions—be prepared to remap a bunch of things. This is not a problem on Mac, however. Browser games where you can't remap keys will be awful, you'll just have to switch layouts.
On my Dvorak keyboard, ':w' ends up being 'z,' are if you were looking at a QWERTY keyboard.
I can choose to learn ':w' and re-learn my muscle memory for writing a file.
OR
If I want to use my existing muscle memory, I can find ':w' on my QWERTY keyboard and see that's 's,' on my Dvorak keyboard, and I can remap the command accordingly.
So the question is, do I memorize ':w' and re-learn those locations or do I keep my muscle memory and gradually adjust to hitting 's,' on my Dvorak keyboard, as if I was typing on a QWERTY.
You can find files that folks have kindly contributed that will do a full remapping of vim keybinds to Dvorak.
This is what I mean by 'locations' (QWERTY ':w' -> Dvorak 's,') which keep muscle memory intact or 'letters' (Letters ':w')
The letters argument is that when you want to learn a new command, you can use your Dvorak knowledge to type the letter you're thinking of. The locations argument is that if you're fluent with vim and use QWERTY, you can continue to do use it that way by remapping keybinds.
> What makes a person switch to a non-default keyboard layout?
I switched in high school. I think one of the first times I heard about Dvorak was this XKCD: https://xkcd.com/554/
I also found the Dvorak Zine to be of great inspiration: http://www.dvzine.org/
Personally, I was never formally taught QWERTY, and so my hand placement while typing on a QWERTY keyboard is whack. I'm all over the place → namely, because I'm left-handed, my left hand reaches all the over to the Y, H, and B on the keyboard. My right hand is shifted and the right pinky lies on the right shift key. So I couldn't even use split layouts with QWERTY!
> How much of a pain in the ass is it to deal with other people's keyboards (which presumably are still QWERTY)?
I still type QWERTY completely fine, and on other people's computers I just deal with it. On my own computer, I have a hot key to switch back and forth; sometimes games have hard-coded WASD so I need to switch, other times I want to let someone write on my keyboard. It's not inconvenient.
> Does it work for a split layout? (ex: Microsfot Natural Keyboard)
After learning Dvorak I got a TypeMatrix keyboard, which I loved to bits. It's split and ortholinear. Then I graduated to an ErgoDox. I'd say that my "properly-learned" touch typing layouts like Dvorak and Norman work much better with a split layout than when one writes non-traditionally on a QWERTY layout (noting, too, that not many people touch-type 100% correctly like they would teach you in class.) With these newer layouts, they are designed to be touch-typed and favor the home row, and so a shifted configuration like I have on QWERTY would not work well with a custom layout.
> Any noticeable speed increase or decrease of wrist pain? I've all but eliminated it via a split keyboard but always on the lookout for something better.
Speed increase: not appreciable. I went from ~95 words per minute on QWERTY to ~100 words per minute on Dvorak/Norman. However, for me, I did have greater accuracy, and I do find that comfort is greater.
It's not that it was designed to not be optimal. It just was optimized for not jamming v.s. pure typing speed.
The emphasis was on having keys on opposite sides of the keyboard based on the frequency of their sequential occurrence in common text. The idea being that it'd predominantly be a left/right/left/right sequence of the typewriter arms hitting the page that would be less likely to jam then two arms right next to each other.
If you factor in the time to "un-jam" the typewriter, I bet it'd be faster than a modern layout (Dvorak, Colemak, Norman, etc) when typing on an old school typewriter.
What do you base this on? Actually every source I looked up shows that QWERTY doesn't rate well even in this aspect alone.
Eg. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?keyboard_statistics
> In, QWERTY the left hand is used for <=2 consecutive strokes 68.5% of the time. The left and right sides of QWERTY are not balanced well, since the right-hand run length is better, with <=2 consecutive strokes 82.9% of the time.
Also see http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer/#/results (go to Miscellaneous tab; I loaded chapter 1 of "Alice in Wonderland", but selecting a different English text shouldn't make a significant statistical difference of course).
Under "Consecutive Hand and Thumb Use" QWERTY is almost the worst - screenshot for your convenience under http://i63.tinypic.com/2ykgx2v.jpg - the lower the better.
It's based on a combination of late 1800s guess work and trial and error: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholes_and_Glidden_typewriter
Note that it's not like high hand alternation factor (favoring often left-right-left-right switches) is only good for not jamming typewriters, and therefore dismissed as unimportant by keyboard layout designers in the modern era.
Quite the contrary, it's essential for keyboard ergonomy; try typing "pumpkin million stewardesses reverberates" a few times in a row... you'll feel the problem that has nothing to do with your keyboard mechanism jamming ;)
If that's true, it's easy to see how it doesn't have much to do with our convenience, as the work we need keyboards for doesn't involve amazing people by typing TYPEWRITER over and over. If it's another myth, well that would be quite a coincidence
I tried switching from qwerty to colemak, went all in and bought new keycaps for my keyboard. Practiced a few hours every day for a week and went from qwerty 60-100wpm depending on what I'm working on, to about 15wpm on colemak and couldn't break beyond that threshold. I honestly couldn't get any work done with it so I bailed.
As for learning a particular layout, Dvorak took me weeks to get down-pat, but Norman only took me a couple of hours. I think it more has to do with me learning a bunch of layouts over the years than the layout itself.
Otherwise, no real tools are necessary. After learning the layout (which involves trying to memorize it based on each finger, start with the home row then move up then down. Then I'd start drawing it on paper from memory to reinforce the look of each row and column), I start to type to gain muscle memory. I may keep a list of weak keys on a piece of paper for reference. I never relabel my keys or look down at the keyboard. I always learn to touch type an alternative layout (as it really sucks when someone else can't use your keyboard)
2. Do you write a significant amount of English prose? If so, is any if it in a markup language like Markdown or rST?
3. How do you find life on multiple devices (computers, smartphones, tablets) to be, especially if you jump between layouts?
Thanks in advance!
2. I do write the odd blog post and stuff, and I always use Markdown. For writing for a long time a proper touch-typing-optimized layout does beat QWERTY, as you tend to write "gentler" (excuse the nonquantitative descriptor.) I have since, though, switched over to stenography, which I find even more convenient for writing prose (like this comment).
3. Jumping between layouts is only an issue after you've just learned the new layout. I'd say it's in the magnitude of hours of inconvenience → after learning Dvorak, switching back to QWERTY and retaining my original speed took maybe a day or two of casual computer use. Now I can switch between QWERTY, Norman, and stenography without a hitch. It's very, very rare that I try to write one layout or letter or word in the wrong place on the other, except for the obvious case when I open up my computer and I don't necessarily know what layout it's in. That's when I get: Kyd qurci bflwp tlx num;s lvdf kyd oazj elg.
On that note, I've always wished Google could figure out that I'm writing a wrong layout and figure it out
I did feel it was more convenient, but I never got up to my typing speed with regular QWERTY (~130wpm), I peaked at about 60 or 80, can't remember. Surely I would get there with time, but it would take time and be limited to English anyway, which isn't my first language.
The website itself is very interesting though: the guy developed an algorithm for assessing the quality of keyboard layouts, and another - based on simulated annealing - to create his own. The theory behind this was more interesting to me than the layout itself.
I played with Dvorak and Colemak too, but neither felt as comfy.
One great idea I adopted from Colemak though is setting that useless caps lock key to backspace. That feels really great, especially the ability of deleting the last word with only left hand; ctrl + backspace requires both hands on normal keyboard layout, ctrl + capslock doesn't and feels very natural. It's about the first thing I set up on every new machine I lay my hands on.
You're obviously not a writer :)
Norman took care of that by keeping those keys in place as in qwerty, which is good.
https://www.amazon.com/Simplified-Keyboard-Lettering-Transpa...
I can't imagine that not having backlit keys would be a dealbreaker for the kind of person willing to learn a new layout.
If you're using a laptop then I have no sympathy. You have chosen that life.
I have a desktop machine at work and another at home and just virtually never have a need to do computer work when I'm not in one of those two places.
Actually, autocompletion really slows me down sometimes too. For example, sometimes I type faster than I can watch what happens, and I press the up button to go up a line. Sometimes autocompletion decided to give me some options, and decides that the up button press is meant for that list, and refuses to let me go up. So I have to press left or right until my cursor is no longer in the token that is being autocompleted, and THEN I can finally go up/down a line. Very bothersome.
Also, sometimes space works to select a autocompletion option, for other editors it has to be enter.
Same thing with braces: I will type both of them eventually, but a lot of IDE's put one there immediately, which is very annoying if you don't anticipate.
The whole thing makes coding inconsistent among multiple different editors; a bad case. IMO features should only be triggered by keys which do not have an essential function already.
I have them set up in Xorg: https://github.com/myfreeweb/dotfiles/blob/2a3008b27997b6324...
And Windows: https://github.com/myfreeweb/dotfiles/blob/2a3008b27997b6324...
Has anyone found it valuable to switch and if so, why?
If you already touch type quickly on QWERTY, I only think it would be worth it if you wanted to potentially help with RSI.. although I'd try an ergonomic keyboard first.
hover the layers here: http://neo-layout.org/index_en.html
layer 4 is numpad, arrow keys, backspace, del escape. the layer above I don't use, maybe handy for mathematicians.
Some hidden bonuses too: [caps]+[tab],[U],[C],[1],[+],[2],[=] produces: 1+2=3
However, I couldn't get over the hump to use it day to day. It's hard to unlearn vim commands and all.
Strangely, I'm able to switch pretty effectively between qwerty and norman. Also strange is if I think about typing in my mind, it's in the norman layout.
For instance I use xmodmap to remap ALTGR + [ for å, ALTGR + ; for ö (+ SHIFT produces capital letters of the same)
Example: xmodmap -e "keycode 108 = Mode_switch" && xmodmap -e "keycode 48 = apostrophe quotedbl adiaeresis Adiaeresis"
This can of course be used for any kind of remapping in case your unhappy with some key locations.
Then users could contribute their speeds, accuracy (number of backspaces), and finger distance for whatever mapping pleases them.
I can imagine it must be hard to design a good study comparing them when almost everyone uses qwerty.
That's also one of my reason of choosing US-Dvorak as an alternative to Qwerty rather than more modern / efficient alternatives : it is available in most operating systems out of the box.
If you're talking about cell phones and tablets sure—but you certainly don't type with both your hands like on your laptop...
Once you make the switch to an alternative layout, having to write on a qwerty layout becomes very unpleasant. Unfortunately, it is often common that you have to type on a borrowed system and you want a layout you can easily switch to.
Dvorak layout is standard in all operating system whereas most alternatives are not and requires additional drivers / setup files.
While most people will let you change a system settings for a while, it will be frowned upon if you start downloading strange software from the internet...
Switching to Dvorak and back on any modern OS take less than 20 seconds so it's not an issue to setup even for a short time.
My boss has been informed that laptop with a Touchpoint is a "condition of employment" - I cannot imagine working without one. I see people trying to work with touchpads and it just makes me cry...
Sample Image: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/think...
Edit: Apparently Wikipedia imaginatively calls it a "pointing stick" :> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick
Are there any models (of any brand) with a particular good touchpoint feel?
Edit: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/looking-for-nub-best-and-w... Apparently, the Lenovo one is supposed to be good. Bummer, I don't like it at all. It seems to switch from moving slowly to moving really fast at a rather unpredictable spot, which makes it hard to make precise movements in a fast way. You usually overshoot about two times if you're trying to click in a small area.
Edit: LOL, it also only just occured to me that using the trackpoint with your index finger is the best option (I was using my thumb before). Work a tiny bit better (still not very well honestly).
I've used it on T410, T420, T450, T530, T61, T23.
You do have to set up acceleration and speed to suit you (takes a while I assume), and set them up differently than you would for a mouse.
I will absolutely agree that learning curve is higher for trackpoint and that it's less intuitive than touchpad - but it's a bit like Vi/Emacs vs MS Notepad - one is immediately intuitive, the other rewards you for initial investment. I think giving a random person a touchpad and a trackpoint, and asking them to immediately do something, touchpad will win. But I also firmly believe the achievable ceiling is higher on trackpoint.
I cannot imagine using it with my thumb!!
Interestingly, while I'm right handed and use my mouse with my right hand, I use my trackpoint with left index finger, thumb over buttons... but I think that's a quirk of mine and not a generalized thing.
Trackballs, touchpads, mice, even a lot of esoteric solutions such as eye-trackers do. Even Valve made a controller with touchpads to work around this problem.
I find them too slow for long distances too, and they tend not to be accurate enough if you increase the speed.
I had a couple of friends at university looking forward to have some of those, but they admitted (on their own, while presented with the above argumentation) it was for the "premium/professional" look of those rather than usability.
So,in my highly subjective experience, this input method is highly unusable when used as a mouse. I wonder how you perceive these issues? Maybe I am just using them the wrong way?
Edit: One thing I wish more laptops had is a third button, though, if only for interacting with tabs/link in the browser, and copy/paste. You can also use a touch pad with your thumb quite accurately (tap to click), but it's a bit awkward.
As to the rest though, I have exactly the same complaints about touchpad - lack of speed, accuracy, etc... it just boggles my mind how people can put up with it (especially on smaller laptops/netbooks).
Largely I imagine therefore it's whatever you're used to. That being said, and for whatever this extremely biased and small sample is worth, there's nobody I know (friends, family, co-workers, fellow geeks) who can beat me on either speed or precision if they use a touchpad and I use trackpoint. I can pinpoint things down to a pixel (can never do it with touchpad, regardless of time), drag & drop with ease and I can move from one corner of the screen to the other in less than a second in one motion.
[couldn't care less about "professional" look - nobody I know would be impressed... if anything, most people will just look at me in bewilderment/pity when I try to use the touchpad :]
I'm willing to admit that it's largely due to whatever a person is accustomed to.
However, I still have to see somebody use Touchpad in a way that doesn't make me cringe as to how long anything takes... maybe I need to find a more proficient friend :)
http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/902/images/Image_03S.p...
But I agree, I've always wanted a plausible one handed keyboard (of course I'm writing this on one now: my phone).