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.
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. :)
> 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.
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.
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
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 ;)
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.
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.
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