Speaking of real ergonomic and health in my humble opinion, the designs with Concave keywell (Kinesis/Dactyl) are the way to go. I have jumped on to Kinesis Advantage 2 and all my wrist pain is no more.
I no longer have any extended pain due to:
1. Modal editing. I use the boon package for emacs, but basically vim
2. Sticky keys. Basically, I don't have to hold down any modifiers, I just press Ctrl then press N for example. Or two Ctrl to lock it, NNNNNN, then Ctrl to return to normal. On macs this is in the Accessibility app under Keyboard. It doesn't work so well with Shift + mouse scroll though.
3. Kinesis advantage 2
4. Dvorak
I still sometimes get a bit of pinky pain since I shift and ctrl with my pinkies. With sticky keys, modal editing, and mechanical switches in the Advantage 2, it's not really a problem.
I learned that the macbook keyboards aren't that bad if I use modal editing and sticky modifier keys. Also I need to be careful to avoid so-called "ulnar deviation" of my wrists. This means I lift my wrists, let my fingers hang down more, so I can keep the wrists neutral while hitting shift etc.
I don't think Dvorak helps much, but I still like it. It was intentionally put together. I think it helped to learn Dvorak and the concave key well of Advantage 2 at the same time. I never learned qwerty on the Advantage 2 or Dvorak on macbook keyboard. I want to try the programmer's dvorak layout as well for lisp.
Similar to a Jedi building your own light saber, you should build (and customize fw) for your keyboard :)
When I built my ergodox, I put the Norman layout on it. I use emacs bindings almost everywhere, so control is under a thumb.
(I'm still tweaking and considering a gergoplex when I get to stay travelling for training again)
As an aside, if you buy a Kinesis, look at getting the “LF” version of the Advantage, it comes with Cherry MX Reds instead of the defaults and the difference is enormous.
Second thing is that quite frankly at that price point Advantage looks a and feels a bit flimsy (especially the middle part between the key wells) though it has seemingly no impact on typing.
And lastly, I have a bit broader shoulders than average and I need hands a bit more apart than the key wells on Kinesis and maybe a bit more tilted sideways (well at least I think, I am not a doctor). It is orders of magnitude better than it used to be on a regular keyboard, but I still have sore muscles around shoulder blades and back of my neck sometimes.
All of these issues seem to be solvable by a split. I still hope that Kinesis would release a split concave keyboard by themselves since among all of the concave keyboards it is by far the most user friendly (no assembly required, no QMK compiling, remapping is doable on the keyboard itself), but I am starting to oogle the likes of Dactyl, Dactyl-ManuFrom or Bastyl[1] (which is modified Dactyl with less DIY required for more $$).
If I go the DYI way I am also thinking about mounting trackball on it similar to the Tracktyl (trackball helped me immensely with my wrists). What I am a bit afraid of is that once I start doing customizations I'll need/want something easily modifiable/adjustable to experiment with quickly. This design [2] in combination with Bastyl-like flexible PCBs seems like a neat idea I'd like to try.
Be not mistaken, Advantage is, not entirely unlike a good office chair or a mattress, still worth every penny, but IMO the split concave keyboards are the "future future". I would not even think of building a keyboard before Advantage, but now I do and there is no turning back for me.
As a designer, my right hand is over the mouse a lot of the time. I have a chronic pain on my right wirst, although, I not certain of the cause.
Anyone her has experience with this?
Vertical mouse or trackball; they're all fine, you can get a "nice" one after finding what works first.
Wrist braces.
Wrist stretches.
Exercise; most weightlifting will improve your grip strength which helps some people.
Ergonomic chair; pain in the wrist can sometimes be caused by issues in the shoulder, which often result from a poorly placed arm rest. This is hard to notice as your shoulder might feel fine. Worth double checking.
Reduce stress; some amount of wrist pain can be caused by mental stress which results in tension and blood flow problems.
Laptop; your desktop environment might be great, but maybe you use a laptop too, and you're slowly destroying your wrists on its tiny form factor.
Right now my belief is that non-vertical mice are badly designed and I see no reason to use a non vertical one again.
Years later, I got wrist pain in both hands. Switching to a tenting keyboard solved it. I've used the GoldTouch V2 for 7 years now.
Do not try 3M's vertical mouse with the thumb button. I used it for a few months and developed severe pain in my thumb. Fifteen years have passed and my thumb still occasionally clicks when I bend it, due to that injury.
I think you will notice a loss of precision though. For example I could never play an FPS at my best with a vertical mouse. But for $80-100 definitely worth a try for your health.
The thing that's hard to remember with a vertical mouse (and mice in general) is that you're supposed to move your arm, not your wrist. Getting used to that was more of an issue than the orientation of the mouse.
In the end my favorite is the Logitech Ergo with the "Plus" stand. The version that includes the stand is only sold in the US so I imported 2 of them. I got rid of all the others.
Should I have persevered? Is this a typical frustration of moving to a split ortholinear layout board using QWERTY?
edit: spelling