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Ask HN: Using alternative keyboard layouts?

30 pointstower1071 comments

Just as a mind exercise, I spent a couple of hours learning to type with the Dvorak keyboard layout last night. After noticing my ZXCVQW shortcuts would be all over the place and not all that practical one-handed with a mouse, I gave the Colemak layout a shot for a few hours tonight (it retains those keys, plus punctuation, in the same place as QWERTY).

What I found really quite suprised me:

- It's way easier to re-train yourself than I thought it would be (faster, at least...it still requires a massive amount of concentration)

- QWERTY is beginning to feel horribly inefficient (I'd read before that your fingers do less walking with Dvorak but I never appreciated just how much more. It feels like even less movement with Colemak.)

What are your experiences with alternative layouts?

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In college I ran across a guy who used genetic algorithms to shift the keyboard around based on his own typing patterns. He took code he typed, blog posts, emails, IMs, everything and logged it and after two weeks of collecting he then ran it through as the data source for genetic algorithms, assigning numeric values determining the viability of the arrangements based on distance a hand has to travel, etc.

He found DVORAK was a very good layout, but he came up with another one which was extremely odd and unusual. I played around with it but found that I never had the time to retrain my hands, I was always in the middle of a semester and thus not really free to be less productive.

This is a good blog post but not what I specifically discovered: http://bit.ly/17e6G

It took me about two weeks to learn Dvorak well enough to type at a reasonable pace. I don't think I type any faster, but it's much more comfortable than QWERTY so I enjoy typing more.

OS X has a Dvorak keyboard map that switches back to QWERTY while you're holding down the command key. I don't know if there's an equivalent for Windows.

I've been using Dvorak non-stop for the past three years, and I absolutely love it. I don't type any faster than I used to either, but I've lost most of the wrist pains that I had when using Qwerty, and I enjoy the fact that everything is in a much more logical position.

I find that most keys are in "better" positions for general development, even in vim (I always use the arrow keys, not hjkl). Having the colon key right next to shit is extremely convenient, as the ability to one-hand `:qa` when I'm done. The dash/underscore key is infinitely easier to reach on Dvorak, which is immensely helpful when dealing with C and PHP code that tends to use underscores for variable and function namings. My only complaint is that the [ ] brackets are further away, but the gains I have from the rest of the layout more than make up for that inconvenience.

I also took the time to remap the physical keys on my laptop, and purchased a couple inexpensive mini keyboards (no numpad) that have laptop-style keys and were reportedly very easy to switch layouts, and I use one at home and took the other to my job. Having physically-mapped keys went a long way towards helping me out, and at least helps out anyone else who sits down at my machines.

> colon ... right next to shit

Funniest Freudian slip I've encountered :-D

I've been typing Dvorak for years. I made the switch concurrently with changing to a TypeMatrix keyboard (http://typematrix.com/). TypeMatrix keyboards aren't radically different (cf. DataHand), but they are radically better. They don't stagger the keys, and they place #\Newline and #\Backspace in the center of the keyboard so you aren't contorting your pinky finger for these common keys (the source of an unbelievable amount of typing pain).

Once you type for a few minutes on a TypeMatrix (Qwerty or Dvorak), you come to understand the gross insanity of continuing to stagger the keys on a modern keyboard.

The TypeMatrix keyboards are switchable (via hardware) between Qwerty and Dvorak with a function key. I use X/loadkeys mapping most of the time anyway, but this is quite useful for boot prompts, BIOSes, and new installations.

As for learning Dvorak if you're already a fast typist, I like to say that it feels similar to how people describe quitting cigarette smoking (I've never had to do that personally). That is, for the first few weeks typing is a conscious process, and painfully slow (I got up to 20 wpm after just a couple days, but getting back up to 100+ wpm takes awhile). So what happens is that things come up, you have to send an email out quickly, or you need to debug some pressing problem, and you'll feel a powerful, visceral urge to switch back, just temporarily, so you can bang out the email or solve the problem. But you know you can't do that; you'll fall off the wagon.

Those keyboards look absolutely awesome; thank you. :)

I have used Dvorak full-time for 5-6 years now. Back in high school, a friend of mine discovered Dvorak and a few of us switched cold-turkey; everyone else switched back within a week, but I'm still going! It took about two weeks for me to be comfortable with it. If you're like me, it's the punctuation that will screw you up the most when switching.

I'm an Emacs user, but I learned Emacs after I learned Dvorak, so I don't find the keybindings to be awkward. I do some strange things, such as using Escape as the Meta key (with my left thumb on the chord letter).

Vim, however, is hard to use (e.g. "HJKL" are in the "JCVP" positions), which may be part of the reason I gravitated to Emacs. For games, I either rebind the in-game commands, or I switch to QWERTY while I'm playing (e.g. "WASD" being in the ",A;H" positions is just no good).

You do get used to the layout in Vim eventually, but I agree it isn't intuitive. I've been tempted to remap HJKL to HTNS (the right hand home keys in Dvorak) in Vim, but haven't done so yet.

The main reason that I haven't tried out Colemak or other more unusual keyboard layouts is that they aren't installed by default on all OSs yet (unlike Dvorak), which makes it more of a hassle to switch layouts when using other people's machines.

I learned Dvorak over a summer break late in high school/early college (about 10 years). I was never a very good typist, so maybe this colors my 'switch' story. I think that I just generally have a hard time with feats of manual dexterity (no musical instruments, etc.), so I consider myself about the worst case scenario for QWERTY Dvorak switch time; I hope this gives someone who's on the edge the push to give Dvorak a try. It took me about 2 weeks to be able to use it such that it wasn't aggravating, 3 and I was using backspace way less, 4 I could use IM, 5 I was faster than I ever was with any QWERTY method and in 6 weeks it was very natural. So if you think it'll be a painful ordeal, just think that you'll almost certainly do better than me.

I'm also a post-Dvorak Emacs user. The way that Emacs works is just wired into my fingers now, I don't have to think about what the keys are, I just think "Find file" or "Suspend Emacs" etc. Some chords are probably a little tougher to do, but they are the exception rather than the rule. If there is a weird fringe benefit of Dvorak use it is that it makes me way more reluctant to reach for the mouse in any circumstance. I've never moved the keycaps on my keyboard (so there is no "cheating" while looking down) and so I have to depend on my fingers always being on the home row. I have to agree with Steve Yegge ("Effective Emacs") and consider using the mouse to be a pretty grave cache miss.

I'm a relative newbie to vim but I have no trouble moving around, I just developed a "feel" for where the HJKL keys go. It is hard to describe but you can kind of "unroll" their directionality in your brain. In some ways vim is nice (although it won't ever move me from solid Emacsity) in that the commands are simple letters which Dvorak makes really easy and comfortable to hit.

Is it wrong that I use the arrow keys in Vim?

Nah. The navigation keys on the home row are a throwback to when terminals were less likely to handle control keys correctly. If that's not a problem you have, then don't worry about it.

You'll probably benefit from getting the commands to move by paragraphs, functions, pairs of () {} <>,

One of my coworkers uses only C-[pnbf] for cursor movement in Emacs, and so has mapped the arrow keys to scrolling the viewport.

So: "maybe, if you would have used them for something better".

my philosophy is that arrow keys are only bad if you're using them while in insert mode. I find that this was added to appeal to novices, but in the long run, really interferes with learning to use the editor to its fullest.

Only if by accident.

FWIW, I use Emacs more than vim, but don't find the jcvp to be awkward. cv is down/up and jp is rocking the right hand left and right. Were j and p swapped, it would be annoying (pressing the left one to go right), but I think it's fine.

Maybe an improvement over hjkl, which is always one letter off from touch-typing.

I've found that Yoga is more effective in preventing wrist pain. Also I don't think typing speed is typically the limiting factor in coding speed. Even if it was, maybe switching to a less verbose language would be more useful than switching keyboard layouts, in my opinion.

I taught myself Dvorak many years ago during lunch breaks using this tutor (I think the webpage was much simpler back then, though the content looks the same).. http://www.gigliwood.com/abcd/lessons/

Although I could type quite well from an early age (despite the ZX Spectrum's rubber keys) I never learnt to touch type Qwerty. Learning Dvorak forced me to touch type and rest on the home keys properly. Using a "normal" keyboard also meant I couldn't cheat and look at the keys when using Dvorak.

Probably due to now touch typing, Dvorak is faster for me (and more comfy). I'm forced to use Qwerty often enough however that I can switch between the two fairly easily.

I'm in the UK but use the US-Dvorak layout as that is standard with Windows. I'm therefore missing the pound sign but ALT-156 gets me through the odd occasions I need it. I have tried the UK version on Linux but couldn't find the exact same layout for Windows and am too lazy to re-create it myself. The US version is good enough for me.

I tend to use the old DOS style keys for cut/copy/paste (Shift-Delete, Ctrl-Insert, Shift-Insert) due to the odd xcv layout others have mentioned. I learnt emacs after the switch so the layout seems fine to me. I haven't taken the time to learn VI.

Windows is a little awkward as switching layout with the taskbar icon only changes the active window and changing the default input language seems to miss things like the start menu.

I think an ergo keyboard is the next step (I can feel my wrists are pushed into a slightly unnatural position) but am yet to try one. This makes a lot of sense to me also but again I'm yet to try it.. http://www.tlb.org/keyboardchop.html

I haven't tried an alternative layout, but I do use a Kinesis countoured keyboard and that has made typing less painful for me. My hands rest very naturally on the keyboard and there's less distance to travel when tapping the keys. http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage_pro.htm

I went whole hog and switched to the Kinesis Contoured and to the Dvorak layout. I'm an Emacs user, and had been one since before the switch. I'd also touch typed qwerty before the switch.

A few comments:

* The first week or two is almost completely unproductive. You spend most of your time screaming at your fingers to just shut up and get used to the new arrangement.

* Once you make the adjustment, although your typing speed goes up, it doesn't go up by a large amount. The real benefit of Dvorak is typing comfort. Also, your accuracy will probably increase a bit.

* Switching to dvorak while using Emacs was not a problem at all. Not sure if it would be more difficult for Vim users.

* Switching to the Kinesis Contoured is a vast improvement over those "regular" keyboards most people use.

* After the switch, I rapidly and completely lost all my ability to touch type in qwerty. It just vanished in that first week or so. Nowadays, if I'm stuck on a machine without dvorak, I'm reduced to ridiculously slow hunting-and-pecking. If I were to open Emacs or Vim on such a machine (and I know the basics of Vim), I would scarcely be able to quit either program without damaging something.

* Things are a bit of a pain on Macs, since they have that extra "Command" key, and the Contoured only really makes Ctrl and Alt readily available (2 Ctrl keys and 2 Alt keys). You can remap Command to one key of one of those, but you don't want to lose any of them if you're an Emacs user.

Things are a bit of a pain on Macs

Do what I do:

(Here's the default layout for reference (ignore the Dvorak stuff for the purposes of this comment). Note the placement of the thumb keys: http://www.ergocanada.com/products/keyboards/advantage_image...)

Remap both of the keys next to the control keys (Alt/Option on the left hand; Command/Win on the right hand) to the Mac Command key. There's a handy extra key cap provided with my Advantage Pro that lets you put the same Command/Win key cap on each of these keys, so it will even look right. (Alas, that trand won't last; see below.)

Now remap Home to Option. Remap Page Up to Option as well. Now you've got Control, Command, and Option under both thumbs. The only problem with this is that total strangers who are trying to use your keyboard will be unable to find your Option keys, but who cares about them? ;)

This takes away your Home and Page Up keys. I like having Page Up/Page Down available, so I remapped Ctrl-PageDown to PageUp. So I can hit PageDown to page down, and C-PageDown to page up.

I don't use the Home or End functions at all. I remap End to Escape, the Escape key to Caps Lock, and the Caps Lock key to F9. Then I set up F9 in Emacs to trigger my own personal keymap and, lo, I have an entire keyboard full of new two-keystroke shortcuts that I can program. (e.g. CapsLock g g instantiates Magit; CapsLock s opens a new shell in another emacs window, CapsLock m opens a manpage, CapsLock j is dabbrev-expand, etc, etc, ad infinitum)

Kinesis keyboards are fun!

I'm in the same boat as you mazer. A few weeks ago I ordered a Kinesis Advantage keyboard and used the opportunity to switch over to Dvorak.

The first 2 weeks were really frustrating, particularly since I was a relatively fast Qwerty typer (125wpm). About a month and a half in I'm hovering somewhere around 50-60wpm.

The keyboard itself is a lot more comfortable than anything I've ever used. The Dvorak layout makes typing as a whole a more efficient process but on the down side some common shortcuts are a pain to use. Although the Kinesis allows you to remap the keys I have not yet taken the time to do so.

I do see myself gradually improving as time goes by, but it's a long process and requires a lot of patience. For anyone interested in switching over make sure you give yourself at least a week to adjust. In the end it's all about practice.

That's one reason why I'm not so keen on learning Dvorak - you won't be able to write efficiently on any other computer than yours. Until now, it was just my assumption, that by learning Dvorak (or any other layout as a matter of fact), you'll lose your QWERTY-fu. Thanks for sharing.

I'll probably stick with QWERTY and a Kinesis keyboard.

I've been using Dvorak/Kinesis for about 4 years, and I agree mostly with what's said. After a while, I found I could still use QWERTY, at least at a decent enough level that I could just grab someone's computer and not bother remapping (though sometimes I do that too).

The funny thing is every time someone grabs my laptop, they are totally freaked out.

> you won't be able to write efficiently on any other computer than yours.

Not my experience, at all. It takes a second to switch gears mentally, but it's not at all different from people fluent in multiple languages. Context helps, though: I type Dvorak on my desktop, my laptop, and my computer in the office, but Qwerty on other computers.

I was a mediocre QWERTY typist when I switched to Dvorak. I lost what little ability I had in QWERTY. I heard of people who could switch between the two, but I haven't even tried. In some 5 years I haven't missed the ability to write efficiently in other computers.

I've played with one of these as well, and I've noticed that while typing raw text is considerably easier, I'm frustrated by the limited support for modifier keys. The control, alt, and Windows keys are put under the thumbs, which I found awkward to type. Also, they are distributed among four keys, so you can't have them all on both the left and right. You thus can't follow the recommended typing practice of pressing a modifier key with the opposite hand as the key being modified.

The function keys are also unusually small and difficult to locate by touch (and, given the above, some function key/modifier combinations are quite challenging). The Windows context menu key is gone entirely, which means you have to use shift-F10 instead, if you need it.

You thus can't follow the recommended typing practice of pressing a modifier key with the opposite hand as the key being modified.

One of the reasons for that practice is that modifier keys are typically pressed with your pinkie. You also use that finger for typing characters, so for these characters you need to break your habits. Eventually you build new ones, but it'd be better not to need this. Even for characters that you don't type with your pinkie, you may need to stretch your fingers in awkward ways.

Thumbs are only used for the space bar, which is seldom used with modifier keys --and you can use either thumb for it, so you can alternate. Also, thumbs are less 'coupled' with the other fingers.

I'd still prefer my modifiers duplicated on either side, but I can see how this may matter less if they go under your thumbs.

I was looking to get my thumb more involved in the action, which is what led me to the Kinesis Advantage. After seeing the built in Dvorak support and the natural contour, I was sold. 6 months in, I love it, and am considering buying a second for my home setup.

I remapped a LOT of the keys however. Caps -> Ctrl is crucial, put escape on an elevated thumb button... all the navigation keys to the "4th row"... basically I sat down and thought about where i wanted my control keys to be for easy access, and remapped them there. That solved all of my initial control key problems.

If you're the kind of person who's interested in learning Dvorak, and shelling out $200 for a keyboard, that's not much of a stretch.

A warning: I switched immediately to a Kinesis keyboard after first getting wrist pains. But Kinesis keyboard uses the thumbs (much stronger digit, right?) to press the modifier keys usually pressed by the little fingers.

Not a good move for me: despite eventually going off all keyboards and using voice dictation software, I have permanent damage in both hands and my thumbs are the first to start hurting.

What I've been told by experts is that the best thing to do is to switch among different layout keyboards every couple of days. Each uses slightly different muscles, and if you switch often enough, you may not fatigue any of them--but there are no guarantees on anything!

yeah, there's alot more emphasis on using the thumbs for the most repetitive motions. interesting idea to keep switching. I'll have to give that a try.

I've been using the Dvorak layout for at least 9 years, and with the right hardware I've been able to get around the weird ZXCV placement. I currently use a 2030 from http://www.typematrix.com . It has function key mappings that place cut, copy, and paste directly below the ZXCV portion.

Also, you may want to try the Capewell-Dvorak layout by Michael Capewell at http://www.geocities.com/smozoma/projects/keyboard/layout_ca... . Mr. Capewell has an evolved layout as mentioned by trickjarrett, but the Capewell-Dvorak layout attempts to be a simple correction to some glaring issues in Dvorak like the inconvenience of the ZXCV placement, typing G and H on the same finger, placing A under the pinky and O under the ring finger, etc. I haven't had the time to spend to learn it, but I think it would be well worth the endeavor for someone just learning their second layout.

There is quite a bit of evidence that Dvorak superiority is a myth:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/29944.html http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/221/was-the-qwerty-...

And quite a bit of evidence that suggests that the "myth" arguments are recycled propaganda from a guy in the early twentieth century who had an axe to grind. Since nobody's actually done significant, unquestionable science on the topic, it's hard to know.

The concept of somebody having an axe to grind about keyboard layouts strikes us as weird in the 21st century when switching keyboard layouts is one quick command in Linux, but back then there was money at stake. I take the whole argument both ways with a grain of salt and say that since there is no respectable science, personal experience is the only thing that you can use to decide.

(A lot of people come to understand that science is superior to anecdotes and personal experience, but when there is no science, anecdotes and personal experience are still better than nothing. If that bothers you, consider the contrapositive, and what it would mean for that to be false.)

I note that I modded you up, though, because the articles are still informative and useful to come to your own conclusion about what I've said in my comment.

> And quite a bit of evidence that suggests that the "myth" arguments are recycled propaganda from a guy in the early twentieth century who had an axe to grind.

Really? Where? (I'm not being sarcastic-- you are being specific enough that you clearly have something specific in mind.)

I'm not the poster above, but the best-known example of propagandizing about them is a paper called "The Fable of the Keys" by Liebowitz and Margolis (http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html), which dragged the Qwerty vs. Dvorak issue into the middle of an academic holy war about the free market. Much of the resulting Qwerty vs. Dvorak arguments have really been about economics, not their actual merits as keyboard layouts. (The only argument about the layouts themselves in the paper concerns whether typing on Dvorak is inherently faster.) The two links lliiffee gave above are by the authors of "The Fable of the Keys" and a newspaper column including a refutation by marketing professor, respectively. (I'm not sure who the "guy in the early twentieth century who had an axe to grind" jerf mentions is, though.)

Now, I really don't care about economic ideology, but I like facts. The Dvorak keyboard places more frequently used letters on the home row than Qwerty* . Also, all of the vowels are on the left hand, which means that typing will generally alternate between hands.

If you agree that it is better to spend most time typing on the home row (to reduce finger travel and general hand contortion/RSI) and to not type several letters in a row on the same hand (compare "reverberated" to "antiskepticism" on Qwerty, for example), then Dvorak is objectively better by your standards. (All bets are off if you're typing in Czech or something, of course.)

* Specifically, "asdfg hjkl;" vs. "aoeui dhtns". Semicolon! I suppose Qwerty could have PrintScrn/SysRq there instead, though.

That's definitely the biggest one I was thinking of. QWERTY v. Dvorak has gone in many strange directions, but if you look for the actual science, it is at best quite split, and at worst, all the relevant studies were done by people with very strong preexisting opinions, leaving us with not much to go on. (I include Dvorak's own studies here, for the sake of argument.)

But the claims that Dvorak has no advantages over QWERTY really don't pass the smell test. It's almost certainly more a matter of whether it's worth it for someone to switch, on which I'm very ambivalent.

There's also the interesting question of whether it would be better to start on Dvorak, which I'll have to ponder here in the future now that I have a baby. Personal experience would suggest that someone raised on Dvorak is much more likely to learn actual touch typing.

(I was on QWERTY for over a decade and still doing the same wandering-hands thing everybody else does, because QWERTY doesn't reward touch typing. Touch typing on QWERTY is like the official way to swing a baseball bat; everybody has to learn it, but hardly anybody does it and even at the pro level everybody does their own thing. Dvorak and most of the other alternate layouts reward it very strongly. You don't even have to teach it, it just happens.)

> It's almost certainly more a matter of whether it's worth it for someone to switch[.]

Agreed. For programmers, I would say the odds are good - you'll be doing a lot of typing, and RSI is a real concern. For people who do a lot of typing on other peoples' computers, planning around what's widely available (qwerty & vi on Unix, for example) is probably a better choice.

> QWERTY doesn't reward touch typing.

Good observation! Dvorak seems more clearly designed with touch-typing in mind, I think.

(As a data point: I type "wandering-hands" on Qwerty at 95-105 wpm, and about same on Dvorak. The typing isn't the bottleneck.)

Thanks. It was really that "guy in the early 20th century" part that was really confusing to me.

Anyway, I guess we agree. I find it plausible that Dvorak would be more efficient (I've even switched briefly before), but don't think there is any credible scientific evidence of it.

I use Dvorak, and have for about two and a half years. At this point, the benefits seem sufficiently obvious that I wouldn't go back to Qwerty. It took me maybe two or three weeks to get reasonably proficient with it, and after a month or so it was a non-issue. (It's a completely different matter if your primary keyboard layout is German or something, though.)

FWIW, I use Emacs (heavily), and Dvorak works quite well with it -- all the C-x C-v C-c C-s etc. stuff isn't all clustered on the left hand, which is usually also the hand pressing Control.

Also, as a data point: I don't have any problem switching between Qwerty and Dvorak as necessary, though now the former feels like a parody of a good keyboard layout. (Seriously. Semicolon, home row. J, home row. Why?)

I've been using colemak for the last 3 months and the result has been very positive: - The wrist pains I used to have disappeared (since that was the main reason to switch, the switch is a definite succes) - It took me about 1 month and an half to regain my normal speed (my biggest problem was the inversion of 'r' and 's')

I never really managed to type in a proper way (though I did touch type with 7 fingers, I didn't have my fingers in the proper row and the proper position), since starting colemak I started having a correct finger position since it just feels more natural to keep your finger in the home row when so many letters are there.

Dvorak. It's not faster but your fingers get a lot less tired. Cured my carpal tunnel syndrome.

I switched over to the Dvorak layout about 2 months ago and I'm getting pretty good with it, but still am not up to speed mostly because when trying to 'think' type I end up making alot of mistakes. I'll do really well with a little concentration on typing but as I focus on the thinking I tend to make what I'll call mistake streaks where I'll get the same letter wrong 3-5 times before getting it right.

My Qwerty fingers are completely gone and I find it a pain to use since I learned to touch type in the early 90s and now have to lift my hands and look at the keyboard all the time when using that layout on someone elses computer.

Keyboard shortcuts and punctuation have been my least favorite parts of the switch. I still get them wrong all the time and not having the shortcut keys on the left hand is a bit of a pain.

I'm going to stick with Dvorak in the hopes that I things get better as I move forward. I switched mostly as a preventative measure to avoid the RSI issues I see in this industry alot, but I can't yet recommend switching to others.

I switched just over a year ago - it didn't take me too long to get up to an acceptable speed (45wpm), but it's taken quite a lot longer to get up much higher than that. I'm currently between 60 and 70 wpm, and I still find I need to think about the typing to get up to that type of speed.

The 'mistake streaks' do get better as you go along though - I find that I just switch between thinking about what I'm typing and the keyboard layout when I make a mistake, which helps avoid repeated mistakes. The context switch is annoying though, ideally I'd like to do around 90wpm with 100% accuracy, which is why I've started practicing with a typing program again.

I really tried using DVORAK layout in 2003. The short cut keys and the punctuation were bad, but the worst part was that I would lose about a month's worth of progress if I took a week to two weeks vacation from DVORAK (when stuff we due in University). Also, I hated having to remap FPS games all the time, so I eventually just decided 60 wpm with QWERTY was good enough.

I also learned dvorak, but it did not impair my quert(y|z) abilities. In fps games I either go with querty or I'll remap the keys anyway.

I've been using Dvorak for about three years (+ Caps Lock -> Backspace for about six months).

I find complaints about keystrokes in emacs to be overrated. I think the problem people have is that even though the keystroke for, say, "go to beginning of the line" may be "CTRL-a", in your brain it manifests as a separate keystroke and will require distinct time to re-learn, even after you've mastered a. Not a lot of time, but time.

I play Angband sometimes (in the laptop keyboard configuration), and for that I always go back to QWERTY, because I don't "press the letter p to pray", I "press the Pray key", and having that remapped and trying to relearn everything is just silly.

Personally, I'm not sure I recommend switching. But if you do switch, I do recommend keeping it. The anecdotal wrist pain mitigation evidence is anecdotal, but since nobody's done a study, it's all we have to go on.

I switched to Dvorak about 10 years ago. I never regained my full QWERTY speed (which was 100+ WPM--from what I hear, the faster you type, the harder it is to regain your full speed. I type fast enough that I don't care that much, but it's still annoying), and always find it annoying when I have to use a QWERTY keyboard. I found no particular demonstrable benefit (more ergonomic, better speed), except that it's more aesthetically pleasing... your fingers don't fly around as much. If you type QWERTY after typing Dvorak, you feel like you're trying to make your fingers fly around some computer for a 1950s science fiction movie (exaggerated, pointless).

Overall, I don't really regret it or think it was a good decision. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't bother, but I'll be using Dvorak for life.

I've been using a modified Dvorak for about 5 years.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=351137

I had never been a great typist with QWERTY, so while I noticed obvious performance gains after some time, I can't attribute them to the layout switch. I got proficiency faster, but if you are already good at QWERTY this is irrelevant to you.

It did feel more comfortable from very early on, and this I do attribute to intrinsic advantages of Dvorak.

My error rate with parens/brackets/braces used to be high until I put them in matching fingers of the opposite hand, in the numbers row, unshifted. Even though this makes numbers harder to type, it's a net gain since I don't type in many numbers when programming. And I make less mistakes with them too.

I used a different layout based on dvorak optimized for the german language. You get very, but it sucks if you have to use a different computer, then you hack with two fingers. I switched back. If you only use your own computer go for it. Otherwise I wouldn't do it.

Rockin Regards, Marco

I never had a problem switching between layouts I know. Perhaps because I do it often enough?

One of the main reasons I stick with QWERTY is because it is not uncommon that I will switch to a German keyboard layout when talking with German friends. Dvorak and Colemak are English-optimized and so switching to or from them has a much higher mental cost than switching from English QWERTY to German, which closely resembles QWERTY.

I think I'll try it out, anyways. There's already a bit of re-learning that has to be done when switching from English to German, so maybe in practice it will be easy. I already notice that I sort of context-switch, so maybe my brain will seperate the layouts sufficiently so that it's no harder than switching like I already do.

I do switch between US Dvorak and German Quertz --- everytime I have to type an Umlaut. (It's just one keypress.)

Works good enough for me and I have been to lazy to get a German Dvorak or try the NEO layout that was designed for German.

I used Dvorak for a while but I wasn't really happy with it and went back to QUERTY because it was different enough that I found it annoying switching a lot. That was when I had to use a number of different desktop machines though.

Now I mostly use a primary laptop and I've been playing with Colemak which I've found surprisingly easy to get into. I would advice doing a typing tutor for a while though before you take the jump to use it for work related stuff. This means you can train your hands to a decent speed in "game" mode.

I use a DataHand keyboard where the layout you use would not make a big difference because every key is easy to hit. Unfortunately they just stopped producing these things...

yeah, I looked in to buying the DataHand. It looks like the future of human-computer IO (right before cybernetics). It's an amazing product, but sadly in the hands of a totally inadequate company.

I could possibly be inclined to be interested in an alternate keyboard layout, but the prospect of adapting my Emacs keybindings makes me curl into the fetal position.

They are great if you only use a few systems. However if you are working on other people's systems or some other case where you are not the sole user of the machine, it is difficult to deal with switching between QWERTY and Dvorak; which is the main reason I do not use Dvorak. A friend uses Dvorak exclusively and it works well for him - he only touches his own systems.

For the people who have made the switch: Is there a real benefit to be had for people who are currently fast to very fast typists in QWERTY (say.. 80wpm+)?

Mostly I'm curious about typing performance more than RSI type issues.

Well, let's see here, I've been using Dvorak fooooorrrrrr... 12 years now. I think I've got everyone else beat! ;-)

I even remember having to write my own custom key layout files for Unix and DOS...those were the days!

Sounds interesting... How do I change to the Colemak layout on Windows XP?

If you want to create a keyboard layout or use a new layout, this is the tool: http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx

I've been playing with this Portable Keyboard Layout utility and it works nicely: http://pkl.sourceforge.net/

You can also try it online: http://blite.iki.fi/lab/alternative-keyboard-layouts/colemak

You can download a ready-made keyboard installation package at http://colemak.com/Windows.

I love dvorak, cant live without it. When i switched i bought the cheapest keyboard i could find and i rearranged the keys. I still have a spare qwerty keyboard if someone wants to use my pc.

An interesting post comparing piano playing and typing

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=35481&cid=3832754

I switched to Dvorak until I was good at it, and then switched back to QWERTY. It was just too difficult to mentally switch to QWERTY when using keyboards not under my control.

This is off topic. But I use Microsoft ergonomic keyboard. My hands are positioned much more naturally when I type.

I have been using dvorak since 2005 and wouldn't go back. I had trouble with my hands with qwerty but don't now.

i've been using colemak for about a year and a half, and i'm very happy with it. the few times i'm forced to go without it, i can feel how much more my fingers are moving. emacs is quite usable with it, but vim requires some remapping (i'm an emacs guy so i haven't put too much effort it).

I use colemak and it feels a lot better.

Check out http://www.datahand.com

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