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I think a shockingly high number of people really do type Z with their little finger, X with their ring finger, and C with their middle finger. It's the only way I can explain how they end up that way in columnar layouts so often.

This is madness to me. That would wreak havoc on a wrist. Type Z with the ring finger, X with the middle finger, and C and V with the index finger, just like you type M with your right index finger.

I cannot for the life of me understand the claims by ortholinear fans that fingers travel in a straight line as they expand. Mine don't. My fingers are much farther apart when I extend them than when I pull them in, and I think I have a fairly ordinary set of hands.

I do type Z with little finger, etc, because that's how the typing software I used long, long time ago taught it. But I don't accommodate by messing up my wrists, which are still in a natural position. My fingers just adapted to the needed flexibility. My left pinky hitting the Z is trivial and less effort, IMO, than my right index finger hitting Y. And yes, I use a conventional straight keyboard, not an ergonomic one.

I totally agree

All typing guides I’ve seen recommend keeping fingers on home row. If you do that you end up pretty close to what that drawing shows.

Homerow centric posture is imho the main cause of keyboard related pain.

> All typing guides I’ve seen recommend keeping fingers on home row. If you do that you end up pretty close to what that drawing shows.

I type at 130 - 135 wpm with my fingers on the home row. I don't have a posture anything like that drawing. In fact I have to make a conscious and uncomfortable effort to contort my hands into that position. It's far more natural (for me) to curve my fingers to hit the right keys rather than curving my wrists so that my hands are perpendicular to the keyboard. Like this:

https://p2.piqsels.com/preview/893/842/416/laptop-business-m...

The base idea behind keeping your fingers on the home row makes sense, as it promises that you can reach most of the commonly used keys by just curling or straightening your fingers, without moving your wrists at all. This doesn’t appear true in your picture. How does the person reach T with a finger that’s already straight, while still keeping a finger on A?

This is obviously not an exact science and I’m sure you manage to type just fine. However, if given a choice of regular and split, I don’t see how one could argue that they’re just the same. For me personally, I used to type with a lot of wrist movement and had trouble learning true touch typing for decades, but learned it on a split in a few weeks.

I'm not sure I can answer the first question, because I can reach the T just fine with my other finger on A and without contorting my wrist. Also, not that it changes my point, but I don't conform to a rigid version of the home-row rule or the standard touch-typing method, and I think that's how I achieve faster typing speeds than most. My hands dance around the keyboard and each movement is relative to where my fingers were on the last movement, while keeping the home row as a base. For example, in the standard method you'd use the right index finger for both Y and U. For me, if I've just typed a Y, I'll use the second finger to type U because that's more natural than re-using the index finger in different positions.

Also, just to be clear, I wasn't arguing that regular and split are the same. I have both types of keyboards and I'm planning to switch to split once I've mastered a new keyboard layout. My point was only in support of the original comment; namely, that that drawing is misleading.

Yeah, I get that. From how you describe it, I think my typing style was similar to yours. It works, but it’s significantly distinct from what’s presented as proper touch typing form. In my case, the downside was that due to all the movement, even tough I knew where the keys are, I tended to hit wrong keys a lot.

Wait have you been thinking "keep them on the home row" means any finger not actively typing a key must be in physical contact with its home row key??

This would at least help me make sense of people's wrist problems. Holy cow. Never mind how much it would slow somebody down. None of my fingers is ever stationary long enough to bring it back to a specific place typing 135 wpm.

Many years ago, I was lucky enough to discover a keyboard training program called Stamina. The author suggested using a more ergonomic hand position: instead of placing your fingers on ASDF and JKL;, you place them on SDFV and NJKL. This way, your hands rest in a position similar to what you would use on an ergonomic keyboard. In addition, the characters on these keys are more frequent, so your base typing speed should increase (especially for cyrillic layout). It was over 20 years ago, and I wonder why nobody uses it and everyone still uses that uncomfortable orthodox hand position.

This is almost exactly what I do. Keep my wrists in line with the forearms, such that they're angled relative to the keyboard. So the home keys aren't ASDF, it's more like QWEF and HUIO. (Although it's more like the home position is in the crevices between those and the keys just below.) I've always done this just naturally and have never had any problems with typing stress or fatigue in 40 years.

It's really quite easy to keep your fingers on the home row and avoid bending your wrists. I've done it for decades without any wrist problems.

It's even easier than the bent wrist position. Take a look at your hands. What is the shortest finger? Your pinky.

The straight wrist position lets you put your pinkies on the home row without the unnatural stretching that the bent wrist requires.

Try it: Keep your wrists straight and start by placing your index fingers and pinkies on the home row. Then let your middle and ring fingers settle into place.

You may notice that your middle and ring fingers arch higher than the index fingers and pinkies. That's fine!

Then start typing. If you're used to the bent wrists, the keys above and below the home row may not be where your muscle memory is used to. Keep at for a while and your fingers will re-learn where the keys are. Just don't let yourself slip back into the bent wrist position, and you will be back up to speed in no time.

Here's a comment from years ago with some crude ASCII art illustrating the difference:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20663540

I don't know. Hands on the home row is pretty comfortable for me. My arms are coming at the keyboard on an angle though, so there's no real wrist strain. Certainly if I kept my hands at a 90 degree angle to the front of the keyboard like in the diagram, it would be uncomfortable.

>If you do that you end up pretty close to what that drawing shows.

It doesn't have to. It will depend on the distance to the keyboard, the height difference between you and the keyboard, where on your desk the keyboard is placed. It also depends on the person writing ofc.

Sometimes you are forced into the ulnar deviation for other reasons.

For example:

- I have long arms (6'3" fingertip to fingertip)

- I have bad vision (20/40 is best I can get even with glasses)

- B/c of the above I like to have the monitor close to me (or I sit closer to the monitor)

- For a long time (5 years) I worked on a trading floor with a desk with very limited depth so my wrists were often turned inward

So I ended up getting a split keyboard (Kinesis Freestyle) so I could spread my hands farther apart so I didn't get the ulnar deviation.

I’ve been a consistent split keyboard user for a quarter century now. My current daily driver is a Redox, which uses a columnar layout. I got into them when I first started having problems with tendinitis. I feel like they help, but I’m not sure what the science says about it.

Anyway, I’ve always hated that diagram because it’s so obviously hyperbolic. I also use standard keyboards on a daily basis, and while there are some posture differences, the bending to make hands perpendicular to the keyboard just does not happen. Comfortably placing your fingers on the home row requires angling your hands a bit because the fingers are all different lengths. Are there some posture differences? Sure. But from what I’ve seen they’re really quite minor.

What I would guess makes more of a difference is tenting. Which is admittedly only possible with a split design. But also, not all split keyboards do tent.

Also, and this one might be specific to my particular problem, moving keys the thumb strikes to a position that it can reach with less stretching has helped a lot. (I suspect that the space bar in particular might have been the source of most of my woes.) And that’s another variable that’s highly correlated with - but still not the same as - the keyboard being split.

So do you have advice? You’ve hooked me with this post I want to hear more.

Try things and see for yourself. I know that’s not super satisfying advice, but everyone has a different experience with these things so there are no easy answers.

Start small. Don’t feel pressured to dive straight into the $300 keyboards. I have a fancy custom mechanical keyboard myself, but that’s because a few years back I decided it would be fun to get into using a more hackable keyboard. For a very long time I was more than content with the (sadly now discontinued) Microsoft Sculpt keyboard, which was one of the least expensive options.

Unfortunately, many Qwerty typing guides group keys in left-leaning columns [1], requiring many to twist their left wrist. And this is why I hope the angle mod [2] from the Colemak community gets more mainstream recognition: instead of learning to twist your wrist, just shift the keys to let them adapt to you. This "un-kinks" the layout, allowing your left wrist to remain perfectly straight while your arm approaches the keyboard at a natural, relaxed angle like the person in the right side of the drawing.

[1] https://www.keybr.com/

[2] https://colemakmods.github.io/ergonomic-mods/angle.html

The guy on the right side doesn't even have elbows.

The person on the right side is sitting in a more elevated position, and so with their shoulders relaxed and upper arms at their sides, they only need to extend the forearms to reach the keyboard.

The "numeric keypad" hazard also illustrates why I was motivated to switch my Sun mouse to the left-hand side, and I reversed the buttons in my X11 mappings. This was a reliable way to perplex my coworkers.

There are a few keyboards out there that move the numeric keypad to the left side of the keyboard, so that right-handed people don't have to move their right hand quite so far to use the mouse. Basically, like a tenkeyless (TKL) keyboard, but keeping the keypad.

I'd love to try one of these for a while.

I use a Keychron Q14. Keypad on the left can be found by searching for "southpaw". The only issue I have with it being on the left is that I was used to sometimes pressing the numpad enter key with my thumb while holding the mouse. It does take a while to get used to using it with the left hand though. Maybe having it mirrored would help, idk.

Many-many moons ago I moved my mouse to the left side because I didn't have enough room on my desk on the right side. I became equally good with both hands and this has been paying dividends for years. Except I didn't reverse buttons, my brain just adapted and I never confuse which button to press.

Yup, I do exactly the same... left hand for mouse, right hand for arrow keys.

Yes. I'd swear that people that unfortunately fall into RSI also fall into a negative cycle of moving less and favoring a static position at all levels - fingers, wrists, shoulders.

Our bodies love movement and it's often a recipe for solving all sorts of issues.

What gets me the most is that all the "correct typing posture" images seem to indicate that it's best to keep the keyboard low, close to you, elbows bent around 90 degrees. In this position the palms are naturally positioned so thumbs are pointing up, and you need to force the palms to be level with the keyboard (that's pronation/supination if I recall correctly). That's just madness to me, I can't last more than few minutes in that position.

Maybe it's related to finger length. On the home row, my index finger is somewhat stretched and my little finger is bent.

Because ergonomics is largely pseudo science. Everyone’s body is different. I actually developed RSI for the first time using a kinesis advantage because it forced a certain posture that doesn’t work well with my long arms.

For me the best position is to move my non split keyboard fairly deep into the desk and keep my arms relatively straight. In my 40s and no issue with this after decades.