Hacker News Reader

Comment by SomaticPirate | Hacker News Reader

Until I see a study that actually shows that “ergo” keyboard layouts actually make a difference I will continue to use QWERTY.

I still believe the actual contour of the keyboard (ie Kinesis or Microsoft’s ergo keyboard) have a much larger impact than key layout.

View on HN

While I do agree that the physical layout of the keyboard has a larger impact (my hands love a split keyboard with tenting), QWERTY is objectively a bad layout and almost any alternative layout (dvorak, colemak, workman, etc) will give a huge benefit regardless of what measure you use (finger travel distance, rolls, hand alteration etc).

I agree with you but I dread the day I need to change layout and train my brain and my muscle memory for another keyboard layout.

I'm past my 40s- I rather teach my kid to use Dvorak.

The QMK and ZMK projects let you do this in firmware. Programmable boards are going to stick around long after we're gone. At least until Elon sells his brain-to-USB HID.

I’m kinda of the opposite. I think alt-layouts are only a marginal improvement (you can get most of the benefit with a small number of changes), but I think it’s a fun brain teaser.

I first learned Colemak-DH and I am currently trying RSTHD and I am upto 32 WPM in a few days.

In my 40ies.

Many people have tried alternative layouts and stick with them.

I have not seen many anecdotes where people get used to an alternative layout, and then revert to using QWERTY because they find QWERTY more comfortable to use.

I have seen people go back to QWERTY because the improvement was only marginal and not worth sacrificing a ubiquitous layout for.

(Disclaimer: I use Colemak-DH.)

Let's not kid ourselves: switching to a new layout takes a lot of effort, so many people quit and revert back to qwerty before they've gotten comfortable with the layout.

Other kinds of bias I'd be concerned about: because learning a new layout takes effort, probably there's emotional investment to avoid having to switch (for those who haven't learned another layout); or probably there's emotional investment for those who have learned, such that they'd be less likely to admit the effort is a waste.

If you look at alternative layouts in a vacuum and you base it on things like word frequency or character frequency, I'm certain you're right, but outside of the bubble and when you're interacting with software that all assumes that you're using qwerty and organizes its own keyboard interactions with that assumption, the advantages become much less clear.

In fact, trying to account for that is why colemak uses the zxcv keys where they are, if I'm not mistaken.

So I don't really agree with the notion that you get a huge benefit at all. You are potentially getting some ergonomic benefit in certain contexts (like typing out essays) while at the same time sacrificing ergonomics of keyboard shortcuts you may or may not be able to change and the mental overhead required to remap your muscle memory to fit it.

These tradeoffs are remarkably apparent to me as someone that uses a Kinesis board (and have used a variety of small, bespoke keyboards). There's a lot of tasks that simply aren't suitable for this keyboard, even if I remap the keys with QMK to try to better suit that context. If you need a key to be immediately accessible, having it placed inside a layer just isn't good enough.

With that being said, I'd encourage people to try these things out and see for themselves. I personally don't think they're all that useful, but there's dozens of others that I'm sure swear that using dvorak or workman or colemak or whatever alternative layout changed their life. Just don't expect miracles.

There's always tradeoffs of course.

How beneficial it will be depends on your use-case. I personally use Vim with an alternative layout for instance and have zero problems.

The standard ctrl-c/v/x/z is a consideration but it's perfectly fine to have then on another layer or under a combo.

I really do get a huge benefit, as +90% of my time I type inside Vim with the keyboard. Slightly less efficient shortcuts for rarely used programs just doesn't bother me.

For reference I use a 34 key keyboard using qmk.

If you're goal is ergonomics, the physical layout will get you 90% of the benefits. Ditching qwerty might get you that 10% but at a higher cost since almost all computing is built around qwerty.

I've been QWERTY-free since 2012. I do the layout in firmware so I don't need to change the mapping in the OS. And I use QMK and ZMK and I have a travel board that's bluetooth.

This concern might have been real back on OS/2 and MS-DOS. Not now.

Sure I was just thinking for most people. I just got a ZMK keyboard and I'm I've been practicing Coleman and qwerty. After less than an hour on Coleman, I was struggling on qwerty and had to wait for qwerty to switch back on my brain. Are you able to switch to qwerty with out issues if you need to?

Microsoft's split board keyboard mostly only-addresses the wrists. It does not deal with redirects, SFBs and doesn't eliminate stretching (keyboards that reduce the number of keys help with that).

QWERTY is an alternating layout. It wasn't designed for comfort. It was designed in the 19th century for a particular purpose that no longer exists (how many documents do you need to prepare that require a non-electric typewriter?)

Changing your keyboard layout does play a big role in relieving hand pain than just shelling out money for boards.

> eliminate stretching (keyboards that reduce the number of keys help with that).

I think the more significant detail about "keyboards with reduced number of keys" is instead "keyboards with multiple thumbkeys".

On a standard keyboard, your thumbs only get to use spacebar. With these small keyboards, my thumbs get to use space, backspace, enter, escape, tab, delete. (And I put the modifier keys as Home Row modifiers).

Albeit, this is almost entirely orthogonal to how the alphabetical keys are arranged. Having 2-3 keys per thumb would be a benefit to any keyboard; where the main downside is "keyboards with 2-3 keys per thumb are expensive or diy".

I agree with this, especially in the context of the MS Sculpt which GP brought up. I loved that keyboard until it stopped working, but the huge dual space bar was such a waste. They could have easily split each space bar into at least three keys.

Difference in what: long term hand health, comfort, efficiency?

Anecdotally, I taught myself Dvorak for a couple of months. I never reached speed parity, but typing felt significantly better. The number of common words which roll off of the home row was a treat. I could easily believe that this would put less pressure on keyboards than QWERTY.

My ultimate blocker was keyboard shortcuts. You get into a weird spot if you choose to maintain the original character chord (DVORAK CTRL-C would be CTRL-I on QWERTY) or force the QWERTY layout character.

You should take a look at Colemak. It keeps the zxcv at the same place, particularly for shortcuts.

I’ve switched now 6 years ago. I had a speed of about 80-85 wpm on Qwerty. And now recently I’m on the same speed with Colemak. So that took about 5 years, without deliberate practice. However after 4 months I was already at 57 WPM which is perfectly fine to be productive.

I still type with thumbs on qwerty though. So I haven’t changed my phone to colemak. I must say though that when typing at a colleague's keyboard, I have to type with 4 fingers in order not to confuse the layout. I’m not able to do both as touch typing

I had the same issue, so I implemented the following workaround: https://github.com/tbocek/dvorak. This remaps on Linux CTRL-I back to CTRL-C when using a Dvorak keyboard layout.

I see people occasionally mention shortcuts or vim as reasons they can't switch layouts, but I've done it multiple times and you just learn the new spots, same as typing words with all the letters that moved. It never felt like a showstopper for me.

Alas, it's not only about learning new spots. I never use any of the super useful motions with [ and { in Vi simply because they're only accessible via AltGr in my national layout.

As someone who built a split ergonomic keyboard and ended up changing layouts anyway, I don't think you can buy your way out of learning something new. I still had issues on an ergo split keyboard even with dvorak, had to switch to workman to really make the discomfort go away.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com