200 karma · joined March 9, 2020
Plus we're overestimating the number of users of alternative keyboard users in the world. There's maybe a few hundred thousands of us. Compared to the millions of speakers these 20+ languages have.
The fact that just learning to touch type in any layout is what contributes to the speed is probably right. But then again, my experience is that speed is primarily a function of practice and much less of technique. I remember reading some AMAs by someone who types at 200+WPM and they mentioned that they use QWERTY and they don't touch type.
Also on the iPad, the two column view is nice too
1. Switching to Dvorak on my computer AND 2. Switching to Colemak on my phone
I already had a feeling that my Dvorak experience on phone wasn't gonna help typing in a physical keyboard and indeed that was the case. But also, the physical keyboard experience with Colemak didn't really help with thumb typing/swiping on the phone. On a physical keyboard, I can only type QWERTY at around 30WPM and Colemak at around 130WPM. However, on the phone QWERTY is my strongest layout (even when I can only type at around 50WPM with it).
Then there's the design philosophy. Colemak aggressively keeps the most used letters on the homerow. Paste a random Wikipedia article into this page and you'll see (https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/ alternatively, here's the heatmap for the introduction to today's featured article about Augustus: https://postimg.cc/9RT8P4N6). On a phone this means that a lot of the times you'll be swiping back and forth horizontally. Resulting in identical swipe paths for a lot of common words.
And if Clearflow was ported to a physical keyboard, most of your fingers won't be doing any work and the active fingers will be doing weird tap dance. The position of spacebar (undoubtedly the most used key on the keyboard) to the sides where you'd be using your pinky would make it an RSI machine.
My point is that if you're comfortable with QWERTY on the phone, that's not because you're comfortable with QWERTY on the desktop. That's because you got used to QWERTY on the phone.
Personally, I think we could make touchscreen typing a lot better if we could move away from QWERTY. QWERTY is relatively better than Dvorak or Colemak on a touchscreen device. But we don't see a lot of innovation on the touchscreen keyboard layouts. One project I'm interested in is the Clearflow Keyboard layout (https://clearflowkeyboard.github.io/) which is already available on Gboard on Android. But there seems to be no way to try this out on iOS right now
Never did tbh. These apps should be one time purchases at best.
In his words: “My experience has been that readers want to support things they like … But if they are at a point in their lives where they can’t, then it’s better to let them read the stories they want … and let them support artists when they’re capable of it. So I am a big fan of giving away books for free.”
Source: https://www.jotdown.es/2016/12/brandon-sanderson-i-want-to-s...
Link to YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pEqyr_uT-k
In my perceived experience, every time a delimiter is opened, it automatically closes, allowing you to move away from it without thinking.
Even in places where this is not available (Slack, comment boxes, etc.), I close the delimiter as soon as I open it