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Comment by gilbetron | Hacker News Reader

I worked a lot in human-computer-interaction a couple of decades ago, and people always try to make a better keyboard, and outside of niche uses, they have failed, except for small, incremental tweaks. In fact, it is an example I often use of how, most often, when people try to reinvent something, they instead end up learning why the existing thing is so great. I know I've done it multiple times with various technologies. It's a great learning experience, but my money is betting on the keyboard staying the keyboard :)

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> when people try to reinvent something, they instead end up learning why the existing thing is so great

As someone who has actively tried to switch to Dvorak and Colemak keyboard layouts and failed, I'd argue it's less because that Qwerty is so "great" and more that it's just so entrenched everywhere, that unlearning it for keeps is difficult.

Like I'd have to set up Colemak everywhere I go, if I sat at someone else's computer or a public computer it would be back to Qwerty, if you ever look down at your keys for reference (something you want to do a lot when you're learning a new layout) they're telling you Qwerty, etc.

Also the unlearning process can be slower than I'd like, and my typing speed plummets while I'm learning these things, so I'm less useful at work or school or working on personal projects. I've been using Qwerty for over 20 years at this point, whereas my Colemak experiment was only a few months.

It did seem like I was straining my fingers less when I was using Colemak, though, and could potentially type faster eventually if I could ever fully commit to it.

> Like I'd have to set up Colemak everywhere I go, if I sat at someone else's computer or a public computer it would be back to Qwerty, if you ever look down at your keys for reference (something you want to do a lot when you're learning a new layout) they're telling you Qwerty, etc.

I use Dvorak. One of the first things I did when switching to Dvorak was buying a keyboard with hardware Dvorak layout and a black skin. The hardware layout meant that to use it on any computer all I had to do was set the computer I wanted to use to US English. The black skin meant I couldn’t cheat and look – it was painful for a short while and it was extremely effective in forcing me to learn the layout.

The fact that other computers are in QWERTY don’t matter. In fact on my laptop I use QWERTY when using the builtin keyboard. On my phone I use QWERTY. But with my keyboard I use Dvorak. You don’t need to unlearn QWERTY to learn Dvorak. In fact it’s better to keep using QWERTY on the side like I do, because you still reap the benefits of Dvorak when you use Dvorak, without becoming incapable of using “normal” computers and devices.

The original keyboard I bought when learning Dvorak was the TypeMatrix 2030 USB ortholinear keyboard with an all black skin.

My current keyboard, that I’ve been using for the past few years, is the programmable mechanical ortholinear keyboard ErgoDox EZ Shine. All black.

For my ErgoDox EZ Shine I created a custom Dvorak-based layout that I use: https://github.com/ctsrc/ergodox-ez-shine-dvorak

I'm glad you figured out how to make it work for you. But in a way you're kind of proving my point when you're saying you use QWERTY on your laptop and your phone. You may be able to context switch fine but I was having a hell of a time. Also last time I tried was probably 15+ years ago.

I've used Dvorak for over 15 years.

I keep Qwerty on my phone, since the advantages of Dvorak are disadvantages on a phone keyboard -- I want the letters to be spread all over the place, so the swipe-to-type thing works.

Jobs differ, but I very rarely type more than a word on computer keyboards other than my own. If a colleague asks me to help with something, I almost always think it's more polite to ask them to type.

You need to learn qwerty. Then you need to learn Dvorak (or in my opinion the far superior Colemak). Then you need to learn to switch between them. It can be done but it’s three separate stages.

Agree. Thinking back, I remember that for after I learned to use Dvorak I did actually struggle with QWERTY for a while. So for some time I stuck to only Dvorak. And then I learned to switch between both.

I ran into these issues myself.

I've been typing in dvorak at home and qwerty at work for about 20 years now. I was having pain in my fingers typing all day on qwerty, and sought out another way of typing hoping it would help. Switching to dvorak + qwerty permanently solved the pain problem for me.

I was unaware at the time how difficult it would be. There is no incremental approach to switching keyboard layouts, at least for me. As soon as I started learning dvorak, my performance in qwerty dropped drastically. I'd blank on what key to type or I'd spend more time correcting dvorak keys in qwerty or qwerty keys in dvorak errors than I was actually typing. I was at a severely degraded typing ability on any keyboard layout for a week or two and it was a couple of months before I felt comfortable in either again. It was several months after that before I could easily context switch between them without errors. Occasionally now I'll start typing gibberish and realize that I need to switch my brain over because I'm at work now and need to type in qwerty, but once I've made that context switch I only have normal typos for the layout I'm in instead of the cross-layout problems I used to have.

I don't know if I'm just terrible at learning keyboard layouts or if this is something everyone will encounter, but I wouldn't recommend switching over to anyone that doesn't have a good couple of weeks to effectively be at the hunt-and-peck typing level again and a long while until they can expect to type long documents without multiple errors.

I don't use a hardware dvorak keyboard, I still use the qwerty layout keyboards with a different keyboard layout in software. This may have been part of the problem I had learning dvorak. I learned to touch type without looking at the keys in high school on IBM Selectric typewriters, so that helped a lot.

> Like I'd have to set up Colemak everywhere I go, if I sat at someone else's computer or a public computer it would be back to Qwerty

When I switched to Colemak (in Grad School) I bought a cheap laptop so I could make a clean break and never need to use a "public" computer again. (That was just before my first iPhone, and I actually imagine that should be even easier now that so much of what the need for borrowing "public" computers as a student in those days has moved to our phones. The rest was already mostly replaced at that point with tools like SSH and RDP remoting. One useful discovery at the time was that if I was RDPing into my desktop machine back in my dorm on a "public" computer in a school lab, I'd need to hunt and peck my address and password in in Qwerty, but as soon as I connected to my own machine, I could touch type in Colemak because it was my machine and set to use Colemak as default.)

I also made peace with looking like a slow idiot and hunting and pecking out QWERTY when trying to help someone on someone else's computer. When I need typing speed I use a computer I control. I learned to stop worrying about my typing speed on other people's computers.

> if you ever look down at your keys for reference (something you want to do a lot when you're learning a new layout)

This was a feature for me rather than a bug. Proper touch typing is "never glance at the keyboard" (and I was taught that over and over from childhood with Qwerty lessons, though I was bad at it with Qwerty; including teachers that insisted lessons needed to be done with a cover over your hands and the keyboard so that you couldn't look) and if you can't trust the key caps you have more reason to never look.

> Also the unlearning process can be slower than I'd like, and my typing speed plummets while I'm learning these things, so I'm less useful at work or school or working on personal projects.

For what it is worth, what worked well for me was taking a long holiday weekend where I didn't have work or school or personal project deadlines to do just about nothing but Colemak typing lessons. Going entirely cold turkey on not using anything but Colemak when touch typing from that point onward. (I also make a distinction between touch typing and "swipe typing" as entirely separate skills despite both involving "a keyboard" and don't have a problem touch typing in Colemak and swipe typing in Qwerty.)

That long holiday weekend was enough that I felt comfortably fast with Colemak for work/school/personal projects as I started to get back into them that I never felt like falling back on my old bad Qwerty habits, even if it was still maybe a small bit slower than where I had felt like I'd been before the switch, and as with anything once committed to it and using it every day speed only improved from there until I didn't feel any speed difference at all (and presumably am faster than I ever was with Qwerty though I never trusted speed metrics enough to say for sure).

I was highly motivated though to unlearn Qwerty, so obviously your mileage will vary. My Qwerty touch typing form was wrong from years of self-taught programming (my left hand was shifted off the home row left by a key to spend more time on the accelerator keys and my right hand had to move a lot more to compensate). Late in grad school with a mountain of assignments both school and otherwise I was dealing with an immense amount of hand pain that I was sure likely meant I was deep into the early stages of carpal tunnel and buying a cheap laptop and switching to Colemak seemed like a great cost savings over surgery. More than a decade later, almost closer to a decade and a half now, it still seems like a great deal and I'm very glad that I did it.

To ease into colemak, you can yous TARMAK, transitional colemak layout (2-3 keys switched at a time).

fastest way to ramp up.

https://forum.colemak.com/topic/1858-learn-colemak-in-steps-...

I think moving j just to move it again is annoying. I don't see how this was considered worth it. Cool to see someone trying this concept of transitional layouts.

There are numerous versions of this. I’ve constructed my own with a generator and it was actually quite helpful to maintain speed.

You don't have to stop using qwerty. You basically stay fluent in both layouts, enjoying the advantages of Colemak on your personal machines and still typing quickly on other machines. For me, it's definitely been worth the effort in terms of managing RSI.

The only complaint I have had is bindings in vim. I found there was no point in trying to have a custom vimrc since I would be using vim in all sorts of situations where I couldn't have a vimrc. My hjkl was awkward to get used to, but now I don't even realize I'm pressing random buttons for up down left right.

Aren't keyboards with control, shift, escape, etc... where the thumbs should be objectively better in terms of ergonomics, though? At least if you're hitting those keys all the time, since the thumb's the strongest finger. I'm seriously considering getting a split keyboard after realising just how much I'm going to type in the following years and how much Emacs and/or Vim I'm using.

Something something Emacs pinky.

Binding Caps Lock to Control helps with that. It's still far from ideal, but it is at least no longer actively terrible.

s/Control/Escape perhaps?

That's what I do. It definitely helps. Heavy vi(m) users tend to map it to Escape, but I find that:

- I use Control a lot more than Escape (especially in the shell, where I spend a lot of time); and

- Escape is already not in a horrible position, and it's not a modifier key so I don't need to twist and curl my wrist and fingers in order to type a combination of keys.

I have capslock configured to act as control when held down, and as escape when tapped. Best thing since sliced bread.

I don't understand why one would set Caps Lock to Escape. As a vim user, I set it ton Control. Control+[ is effective for my Escape needs.

Spacemacs leader key setup is very nice (I'm sure you could achieve it without needing Spacemacs) as nearly every command you do begins from the spacebar, and thus your thumb. Haven't gotten a sore pinky since. Well, actually, I never used the normal Emacs keybindings. I learned my Emacs knowledge starting with Spacemacs, but I never cared to learn the default bindings anyways.

I think there is already better keyboard designs but it's hard to compete with the one that everybody is already familiar with, fits easily on laptops and costs dirt cheap to buy and make because the volume is huge. Most people aren't going to spend $300+ on a keyboard that they have to learn how to use and businesses aren't going to want to spend the money and time training employees how to use it. The inertia of the standard keyboard is far too high.

I suppose if one has the issues mentioned in the article, a few hundred dollars isn’t much

The only thing that prevents some ergonomic keyboards from becoming mainstream is the price. Low price is the only great thing about standard keyboards.

Very skeptical of this take. If it were the case you would expect most or all rich people to be using ergonomic keyboards, since even an expensive keyboard would easily be affordable to them. Yet when I look at the folks who work at my office (none of whom make less than $200k/y), fewer than 15% have non-standard keyboards.

I think the real issue is that for most people, ergonomic keyboards do not offer a real benefit.

> I think the real issue is that for most people, ergonomic keyboards do not offer a real benefit.

Or they are not aware of the benefit until RSI strikes, which is arguably too late.

They will as soon as they get RSI. This is the other side of the problem, people is reactive, not preventive, towards RSI problems. IT needs to get the into the mindset that not using an ergonomic keyboard is a problem.

For the fraction of people who end up developing RSI, and for whom the RSI is treatable or preventable merely by switching to an ergo keyboard, it's great. However,

- not all RSI is treatable by using an ergonomic keyboard, and

- many people do not develop RSI no matter what keyboard they use.

It's not clear to me the exact fraction of people who end up developing RSI and what fraction of those cases would be prevented by ergonomic keyboards. However, I can say that most people I work with are not newbs. It seems likely that if they were ever going to get RSI, at least some of them would have done already.

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