Even assuming it is faster or more efficient, because I interact with so many keyboards on a daily basis, I’d need to change them all or id quickly be less productive despite having an “optimized” keyboard.
I switch back and forth all the time. I just switch modes depending on where I am.
Personally, it has at least helped me avoid carpal tunnel surgery for several decades. 80s computer keyboards were ergonomic disasters.
I just commented this elsewhere, but I feel like this is always left out of the discussions. When I learned Dvorak I could use both layouts for a time and the comfort level of Dvorak is unmatched. You can only really feel it when you're switching between typing in the two, but QWERTY hands are almost permanently splayed-out out from reaching for vowels. Dvorak on the other hand feels like your left hand barely moves for most words.
With QWERTY it felt like my hands needed to do acrobatics to get anything done. With Dvorak I can easily meet or exceed my old speeds, with far more comfort. It just feels so much more natural
>my hands needed to do acrobatics to get anything done
I have used a keyboard since I was a child and in an office job for 20 years and I would never once describe my hands having to do "acrobatics" to get anything done.
The only time my hands might do acrobatics is some of the worse shortcut combos where it's 5 keys pressed all at once.
Seriously, why is a shortcut ctl+shift+w+d+v. Fuck you whoever did that.
Acrobatics is definitely an exaggeration, but you definitely do notice the difference between qwerty and Dvorak once you learn Dvorak. While I can definitely say that Dvorak feels more comfortable to type on, if you already know qwerty, and you don't experience major muscle fatigue or pain, there are no major advantages to learning Dvorak. Those who say Dvorak is faster are also wrong, as the average hand travel distance plays such a minimal role in typing speed.
yep. i use an ortholinear split keyboard (ergodox) in dvorak layout, and use qwerty on 'regular' keyboards. i absolutely hate qwerty but it's usable. but shit.
It gets better than that.
There is no evidence that 'ergonomics' or making changes to how you use your hands does anything to prevent carpal tunnel.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is likely caused by aging and having wrists that are just predisposed to it. There isn't a lot of money in 'you will either get it or you won't, not much you can do about it' though.
I used to have disdain for Dvorak users, I figured they just use it to feel superior or whatever (and it's probably true in a lot of cases), but then my left hand began hurting and it kept getting worse. I switched to Dvorak and I haven't had any issues since. I'm not an evangelist, I don't care if you use Dvorak, but qwerty caused me pain and Dvorak fixed it. I used qwerty for around 15 years and Dvorak for another 15 years.
QWERTY was intentionally designed so because if you mashed too many close keys together the typewriter jammed. it was meant to put rapidly adjacent letters apart to prevent that. We've moved beyond that limitation as there's no longer hammers physically converging now but the shit stuck.
[That's a myth](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2200664-the-truth-about-the-qwerty-keyboard/)
It was developed by Sholes for ease of use by telegraph users.
The myth is that the purpose was to "slow the typist down". Moving the hammers further apart so that the typist could go *faster* without jams is the correct statement.
The article indicates that touch-typing didn’t come about until significantly later, and that QWERTY was effectively in place by the time Sholes’ first commercial model hit the market. That model, and subsequent models, were designed with hunt-and-peck in mind yet still contained the QWERTY layout. Nobody was maxing out the theoretical hardware limits of the key locations by that point.
It ultimately seems like Sholes had come up with it somewhat randomly while developing and prototyping the first typewriter and just insisted the first model be developed with his own preferred layout in place. It wasn’t until like 60 years later that Dvorak patented his layout, and by that time there was simply too much inertia to change.
Even if this were true (which others seem to be disputing), the conclusion that this makes QWERTY more difficult to use doesn't even make any sense. Letters being far apart doesn't make them difficult to type quickly in sequence. What makes a sequence of characters difficult to type is when the same finger is used for multiple characters in a row.
As an extreme example, the sequence APFJEI is easy to type in QWERTY, but ZAQNHY is not.
It's always amazing how many things in the past that seem weird are from "We did it that way because of the limitations of the time and it stuck even after the limitations no longer exist."
"So why did you hide the details of the new element you discovered in a diorama instead of just making Tony a diagram or something?"
Howard Stark: "Uh, I'm limited by the technology of my time."
I have carpal tunnel. It was caused by playing a viola and typing 100+ wpm on Commodore 64 keyboards.
That said, it seems help keep it in check. There's definitely less finger movement. Have I done a scientific study? no.
That said, going back to QWERTY is just so I can use client systems without a hassle. Oddly if I switch to Dvorak on a client computer it messes me up and vice versa. Brains are weird.
I was diagnosed with carpal (from lots of typing) and told I needed surgery. By luck or maybe divine providence, I met someone who told me about dvorak. I switched, never had surgery, and the pain is 99% gone, decades later.
A sample size of two (person who told me also formerly had carpal) isn't proof, but it does make me go hmmm...
I will tell you that the first few weeks of learning it were torture, simply because I had to retrain my muscle memory and it was sooo slow compared to what I was able to do before, even with the pain slowing me down. Looking back, I'd say it was worth it.
They used to have the 5500 or whatever that was $25~ but now the new model in that style is like $50. I like them and they help but my pinky still gets sore from hitting shift all the time.
As others have mentioned the Alice layout, there are also keyboards (both normal layout and otherwise)* that are split down the middle so you can move and rotate the halves to keep your shoulders and wrists straight.
I switched to a split keyboard and my wrists stopped hurting almost overnight.
......
*(Normal layout would be something like Kinesis Freestyle, Keychron Q11, or FoldKB. Alternatives would be something like Ergodox or Moonlander where there are thumb keys and the keycaps themselves are different sizes.)
I've used the Kinesis Freestyle 2 at my work for many years. It's got the V3 tenting attachements, and I use them as high as they go. I really like that I can adjust the angle, distance apart, and rotation as I need it. It feels way better than a flat keyboard, and still better than the ones like the MS with a fixed split position.
I've got an Advantage360 Pro. It's basically 2 half keyboards, with extreme contouring so it relieves pressure on the wrists. You can reconfigure it however you'd like with some software, but I've not done that.
Even using the QWERTY layout, it took me nearly 2 weeks to get my typing speed back up to being somewhat useful. At this point, I'm much faster on the Advantage360, and using an old keyboard for even short amounts of time is brutal on my hands.
Edit: But this is a very expensive option. I was desperate at the time, and I haven't regretted the purchase.
Also consider swapping mouse to something like a trackball or even better a thumball. I absolutely love the thumball and it reduced a ton of wrist and arm strain while being easier to use than a trackball.
Yeah the comments from people who have never tried Dvorak are wild, every time the subject comes up. Switching during college almost immediately dissipated my crippling tendinitis.
To answer the obligatory questions:
- it took about a week to memorize the layout well enough to touch type, and a month before my typing speed had completely caught up
- I didn’t replace my keycaps, because… I don’t look at the keyboard when typing??
- I can still type in QWERTY - keyboard shortcuts still exist and work in Dvorak?? There are some programs where I’ll switch my layout because I learned the hotkeys pre-switch (photoshop, video/audio editing). I use a program that auto-switches layout based on the in-focus program, but even if I didn’t, there is also a keyboard shortcut to switch the keyboard layout!
- it is easy to access Dvorak on basically any computer; you can set the keyboard layout per-user on any modern machine
- when I have to use QWERTY for large lengths of time for whatever reason, it is totally doable but does it fact make my wrists/hands hurt after a while
- I have no idea how or if switching affected my typing speed, and could not care less
Out of curiosity, how does it work with gaming? Obviously, WASD isn't the exactly the same on Dvorak. Are all games flexible enough to work with the same keys, regardless of “value?” I'd rather not switch to QWERTY for gaming because I use text chat in some games.
I used to have to remember to switch off of Dvorak when gaming, or shenanigans would ensue. At some point in the last decade+ it seems like most games/launchers have figured out some way to do it on their own — I can’t remember the last time I had to think about it when launching a game.
When I was playing more chat-dependent multiplayer games, my brain figured out the switch well enough as long as I wasn’t completely on auto-pilot— I will admit to ending several hundred online matches with “uu” 🤦🏻
I guess my main confusion is about Dvorak enabling one-handed use. It seems it would be no more efficient at that than Qwerty.
Edit: Oh, apparently there are also one-handed variants Dvorak designed, though they're not "the" Dvorak layout
I fucked up my wrist once and had my right hand and arm in a cast for two months.
Left-handed Dvorak was SO MUCH easier than Qwerty, even though I could type 50 words a minute on Qwerty with both hands.
I type in Dvorak, and one thing that is always left out in these conversations is just how *comfortable* Dvorak is. When I was transitioning, I could type in both layouts for a while and found that there is a persistent hand strain with QWERTY compared to Dvorak. When typing in Dvorak your left hand basically lives on the home row and is not constantly reaching for vowels.
I just use Ctrl+Shift to switch back to QWERTY when I'm gaming so that hotkeys and WASD work as expected. Switching between the two is basically never a problem.
Agree, everyone seems to think that speed is the only important metric. In my long experience with dvorak it's just a better layout because I can use the keyboard for long stretches of time without discomfort
SO MUCH THIS. I had repetitive stress injuries related to stretching my pinkies out too much in QWERTY that switching to Dvorak solved.
Couldn't care less which is faster/better/whatever on average. DVORAK was a lifesaver for me.
I've spent decades memorizing the QWERTY layout so that I can type without even really thinking about it. For example, I didn't need to look away from the screen to type this comment. I couldn't do that if I switched to a new layout and would have to completely relearn my muscle memory.
yeah, you'd relearn, it'd take like 3 months, then you'd be fine. if i did it, you can too.
you just gotta want to.
that's hard to achieve unless you're trying to avoid doing something, like i was 😂
I guess my typing speed on QWERTY is already fast enough that there's no real reason for me to make a switch. A marginal improvement isn't worth the 3 months or so it will take to relearn. Especially if I have a lot of typing I want to get done in those 3 months. Knowing me, instead of learning a new typing scheme, I'll just avoid typing things and so it will end up taking me longer to learn and I will procrastinate on other things I want to get done.
Which is all well and good but I don't think I've ever heard anyone even make the case that switching to Dvorak is a good idea for virtually anyone? Only that Dvorak is more efficient once you're familiar with it, if for some reason that is valuable to you. The cases against switching are so numerous and obvious that hardly anyone ever does so.
Actually, it was John Typewriter who invented it, John Keyboard stole his invention to make computer keyboards in 1896. Unfortunately, the computer wouldn't be invented for another 60 years but it was still a runaway success.
The virgin typist: meek, needs phony tricks and ergonomic key placement to aid his frail wrists, obsessed with optimal WPM, cries over typing mistakes.
The chad typewriter: confident, deliberately trains finger strength by spacing out keys, lives by autocorrect cleaning up typos, puts his own name dead center because he knows he's worth it.
Which Dvorak are you?
When I was a kid growing up in the 80/90's I read PC Magazine all the time, so I always though the Dvorak keyboard was invented by John C. Dvorak, a columnist in the magazine.
I switched to it for a while for fun and was proficient by the end of the week, and measured being faster like two weeks after (it's been a while). Having all the vocals together was also really fun, I felt like I was playing guitar hero.
This was on pc of course, I'm pretty sure it's useless on mobile. Not worth the hassle in general anyway.
Not quite. QWERTY being made to prevent type arms from jamming wasn't a matter of typing speed, it was a matter of arm placement. Keeping the type arms for common letters some distance apart meant they wouldn't collide with each other even when typing quickly. Plus it encourages the typist to alternate hands, so you aren't limited by the speed of moving just one hand.
>Plus it encourages the typist to alternate hands, so you aren't limited by the speed of moving just one hand.
You're right, but this is actually the Dvorak secret sauce. It's specifically designed to alternate hands as you type, mainly by having all the vowels on the left-hand home row.
>Keeping the type arms for common letters some distance apart meant they wouldn't collide with each other even when typing quickly.
?
>The typewriter arms would collide with each other because you are typing too fast. QWERTY was intentionally set that way to prevent this.
The common myth is that QUERTY was designed to avoid jams *by intentionally slowing the typist down with awkward letter placement.* It wasn't. Quite the opposite. It was designed to allow typing at *faster* speeds by ensuring that the most frequently typed letters were positioned in a way that would keep the arms from hitting each other when struck in quick succession.
Just adding on here that as part of spacing them further apart they also put them on different hands which is where most of the speed comes from, as alternating hands for letters is faster than not doing so. They could've put the letters further apart yet still on the same hand if they wanted to prevent jams while slowing down typists.
> think
the arms would jam as they struck the paper in rapid sequence. The sequence of letters is dictated by the language. So it doesn't matter where the arms originate?
Not really. The reason why the rows are [slightly offset](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2BDR34K/keyboard-of-an-old-retro-typewriter-with-the-english-alphabet-2BDR34K.jpg) is because they need room for the arms. Without introducing un-needed complexity, the placement of the keys were directly related to the arms on the most basic of typewriters. Ball/daisy wheel typewriters and electronic typewriters of course can be mapped in any way.
There was clearly some reason it was chosen over the obvious alphabetical order layouts. Avoiding common letter pairs next to each other to avoid mechanical collisions sounds like a decent reason until you notice ER
It's not about separating the keys, it's about separating the arms on a very old style of typewriter that used gravity instead of springs to return the arms. I don't know the exact layout, but it's very possible that E and R were not next to each other.
It's built-in as an option for Google Keyboard. I've been using Dvorak on my phone almost exclusively since switching to Android in 2014. Though I can't really comment on efficiency I think it's quirky & neat.
My typing speed using QWERTY on phones when using someone else's device has gone to shit but that doesn't happen enough to be a problem
Given the proliferation of phones being used to authenticate you for other things I cannot stress enough that sharing phones should be very rare these days.
There have indeed been scams where people will ask to borrow a phone and quickly transfer money using apps. Thankfully, most apps now verify your identity again before allowing that, but it is something that has been done and probably will be done again.
Edit: Also another warning, even with apps that ask for a password confirmation someone in possession of your phone has access to the typical methods needed to reset a password, namely your email and text messages.
It is, but just barely. Even in the "good" multilingual keyboards. Most languages besides English is stuck in qwerty.
I guess catering to multilingual Dvorak enthusiasts is too niche, but it's also literally just a few more lines of code to allow toggling a layout that's already been coded and debugged.
I tried it for a few months. I actually didn’t like it because I felt like my right hand did too much work, especially with the pinky, and my left hand did too little work
That being said, I now use the Colemak layout, and it’s much superior (for English). Is it “faster”? Irrelevant. It’s _more comfortable_ and that’s what I like about it.
I tried but for me it was really hard to switch.
I could type well slowly but if I sped up the typos came in force. Getting up to a good speed would have taken too long. I think the big advantage of QWERTY is that it’s easier precisely because it’s inefficient. The rights sequence of keys usually not being right next to each other just makes it less error prone and more gross motor.
QWERTY is perfectly fine, which is part of why I haven't made the switch yet. If you use keyboard shortcuts a lot, then you have an extra layer of learning curve. Heck, I have my backspace where capslock is, and it already throws me way off when using a different keyboard. There's not really any need to switch keyboard layouts, which is why relatively few people do. Touch typing is also not what I'd call a common skill, so there's even fewer people that could benefit. Colemak is closer to the QWERTY layout than Dvorak, with Tarmak having very few modifications, and Colemak-DH is designed to help with the issue you brought up. It would be handy to learn Colemak, and I might benefit and like it better, but there's no need or incentive for me to do so.
For people considering a switch--I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts and didn't have that much of a problem switching to Colemak since it keeps a lot of most common use (zxcv/s) in the same or similar places. The thing I reallly struggled with after tho is Illustrator and Photoshop shortcuts. Idk if designing and typing uses different parts of your brain or what, but man, that was tough.
Tarmak. Lets you get to Colemak in phases so you only have a few keys swapped at any given time. I just typed like normal and would switch every other week or so.
Gotta go cold turkey full tryhard. I lost a lot of internet arguments the first month because I couldn't respond quickly enough.
I found it much harder to learn strict and "perfect" touch typing with every finger having a strict role. Once I knew that, the switch to Colemak was pretty natural since I just needed to learn what my fingers were supposed to do.
if you want to get good at it fast, I highly recommend playing Epistory!
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/398850/Epistory\_\_Typing\_Chronicles/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/398850/Epistory__Typing_Chronicles/)
it's beautiful and fun so you'll WANT to practice typing. After I played the whole thing and got good at Colemak, i went back and played it all over again just because
I love Colemak.
I've been using it since the start of 2024 basically, and while I'm still not faster or more accurate with it than I was with QWERTY, I am MUCH more comfortable (a split ortho/columnar keyboard doesn't hurt either), and fast/accurate enough that it's not problematic.
RSI was a very frequent problem for me in the past, and the combination of better peripherals and switching layouts has made an absolutely massive difference in terms of frequency and severity of issues.
I have used Dvorak for more than 10 years now and I tell people the same thing when they ask about it!
With qwerty, my knuckles would ache after a day of computer use. With Dvorak, I never feel that.
Speed wise, they are about the same for me. Dvorak may be slightly faster in games like typeracer, but in normal use, it just doesn't matter. Both are fast enough.
> How hard was it to not mix up Dvorak with Qwerty?
Super easy if it's the only layout you use. I use a dvorak layout but my key caps are set up for qwerty and it's actually pretty nice. I touch type everything anyway but on the rare occasions I need to do something in querty it's not so bad to hunt and peck. Also windows makes it really easy to swap layouts with a ctrl+shift combo.
I switched to Colemak too because I'm writing a book and typing so much in QWERTY started hurting my hands (I did two back to back NaNoWriMos and it just about killed me). Once I made the switch, all issues completely disappeared.
HEY A FELLOW COLEMAKIAN THERE ARE DOZENS OF US!
The main annoyance is games that don't autoconvert keys, so I have to remap a lot of keys when I play a new game, but it's not that big of a deal. I've never learned to properly touch type with qwerty; only colemak.
been using Colemak for over a decade.
glad to see it mentioned here.
it's great. way easier and more comfortable to touch-type with while preserving the familiar shortcut keys (Z X C V)
I feel like the average person is so slow at typing, I doubt a vague performance improvement is even relevant, maybe if you're at 200 wpm and are hitting a bottleneck.
An acquaintance who had worked as a programmer said he usually spent 7 hours in meetings and then wrote two lines of code at the end of the day.
Would that be roughly accurate to your experience?
I'm a very slow typer (slightly faster than hunt and peck) and I don't do enough continuous office work to get truly proficient at typing. I have found after a day in the office my wrists hurt, would dvorak alleviate some of that?
Dvorak (and even better, Colmak) are more ergonomic because when applying proper typing technique you're required to take your hands off the middle row of keys far less often.
I suspect that if you're pecking rather than using proper technique, it probably wouldn't make much of difference. Maybe learning proper technique might help, not 100%
Honestly though, typing uses specific muscles, so if you don't type very often most of the time, but then have days where you type a lot hurting yourself is kinda normal. Like running after being sedentary for ages. Trying to keep it as consistent as you can would be best.
The point of alternative keyboard layouts is the ergonomics of the finger movement, not increased speed. I use Colemak and it's so much better than QWERTY. Not because I can type any faster, but because the typing is so smooth and comfortable in comparison.
I use the Dvorak keyboard. The reason I switched was because I was having bad cramps in my hands, especially the right hand, and I read that it might make my hands feel better because it requires less finger movement due to the fact that all the most common English characters are on the home row.
I type slower and less accurately now, but the pain has decreased so I haven't switched back.
Using one of these for the first time would be like your first time ever trying to drive a manual transmission car after spending your whole life only using auto.
Classic post. My favorite post along those lines is the person who accidentally switched their UI to Spanish. Everyone was so helpful in the comments...in Spanish.
Anecdotally, I stopped having a ton of wrist pain after switching. It's nice balancing the workload between my two hands, rather than have my non-dominant hand do most of the work. I've got Dvorak on every device I use.
I switched to Colemak because of wrist pain, now the pain is gone. It's way better than QWERTY. I'm also way faster typing now, I was 65-70 words per minute with QWERTY and I'm easily 95-100 with Colemak. It's so much more fun to type with.
I chose Colemak because it moves fewer keys and keeps the Z, X, C, and V keys in the same spots as QWERTY, which are the most used keyboard short cuts. I also love the backspace in the caps lock location, it's so much easier to use. Colemak just seemed easier to learn. If you want to really look into it, Colemak is slightly better for key usage on the home row. That was my reasoning and I haven't regretted it at all. Whatever you choose, you should make sure that you learn to use the correct fingers for all keys so you can eventually learn to not look at the keyboard. I type a lot for work, so I just brute forced the change one day and within a month I wasn't thinking about it anymore.
If you're going to learn, I recommend Colemak-DH. It moves a few more keys around and demands you curl the fingers on your left hand much like you do on your right. I find it a bit more ergonomic and if you're going to learn a new layout, might as well try and go for the most comfortable.
https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/
Same here. People talking about the WPM of Dvorak like it matters anymore. I type as fast as I come up with stuff to say, which can be a lot slower, LOL.
You're fingers go through a lot fewer hard reaches with Dvorak and it makes a huge difference with RSI. That makes Dvorak WAY faster than QWERTY if you measure words per year. Having to spend weeks in wrist braces really slows down your typing.
Similar, my wrists were hurting incredibly bad until middle of last year, so much so that I couldn’t type for more than 10 minutes. Switched to Colemak and can now type for hours.
I switched to Dvorak about 20 years ago when my buddy tried it and gave it top marks. I was getting RSI in my wrists, haven’t had that problem since switching. It took me about a month to reach the same speed and accuracy as before. Switching does seem to require the skill of typing without looking, though, so it’s probably not for everyone.
>Switching does seem to require the skill of typing without looking
That was probably the biggest benefit, honestly. You basically *have* to learn touch-typing, because your key legends are wrong. Still can't touch type numbers though 😭
The orignial qwerty keyboard layout was made so that typewriter arms had a lower chance of colliding with each other, the layout moved letters away from each other if they had a high chance of being used sequentially.
In theory there are much better layouts than qwerty.
I don't really think that this is that weird. Who else would be incentivized to run those kinds of studies?
If his methods were sound, it shouldn't really matter who conducted the study.
Also I've literally never heard anyone who switched to dvorak say it wasn't faster. Just that it's probably not worth it for most people.
I knew a Princeton mathematician who was mentally unstable and flipped his keyboard on his MacBook to usd this pattern and fuck was it annoying to fix his laptop when he broke shit.
It's annoying to use `vi` with Dvorak.
For that matter, it's annoying for "normal" computer users because Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V wouldn't be next to each other.
On MacOS there is a Dvorak-QWERTY⌘ layout. So you get the dvorak layout but your shortcuts are the same as they'd be on qwerty. Been using this for years now.
It was shockingly easy to switch. I started playing on a "learn to type" website one morning and switched my work computer like a week later. Unless you rearrange the key caps (and have a keyboard where they'd fit together), you're touch typing by default.
I'll try it!
My initial assumption is that since I've been typing QWERTY for so long and have it etched into my brain, this will be *very* difficult if not impossible. Let's see!
Bring along a regular USB keyboard and plug it in when you need to work on his. Then temporarily switch the OS layout back to qwerty and you're good to go.
I would always do the reverse on work trips, bringing my Dvorak keyboard with me.
I imagine the reason we have QWERTY as a standard is because something had to be, and the most successful machine at the time had this layout. Being the most successful machine may have been a combination of factors, only one of which was the key layout.
The computer design we mostly use is the IBM machine. Its popularity is from marketing. IBM had more money than the competition and could afford this strategy.
For anyone sorting by new, [try my keyboard!](https://asetniop.com/) It's not superior to QWERTY in terms of speed, but it only uses ten keys, which opens the door for all kinds of things like touch-typing on a touchscreen (which I'm doing right now!) or devices like gloves and such.
The Biggest Scandal in Speed Typing History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maCHHSussS4
Okay, okay, it was not really about Dvorak keyboard history, but the claim was made using Dvorak keyboard. I find the video rather entertaining, (except for the inserted sponsored ad section, though, you can easily skip it.)
I learned Dvorak and Colemak and Colemak is better than QWERTY.
Most of the benefits people get from learning Dvorak is that they didn't know how to properly touch type before. By learning how to properly type they alleviate a lot of finger strain, improve their typing speed, and figure the reasoning for that must have been Dvorak and not learning how to type properly. Note I'm saying type properly and not type quickly - many people who made the switch could type 100+ WPM but they were not typing _properly_ at those speeds.
I'm a rather proficient typist. I typed 170~ wpm with QWERTY before wanting to learn Dvorak for its ergonomic claims. I found no difference and being left handed the right-handedness of Dvorak actually made it feel worse. By the time I was comfortable typing up to 100wpm again I had decided on switching to Colemak instead.
I still use QWERTY due to office work but the mental switch only takes a moment or two. I'm not as fast of a typist on QWERTY as I used to be (closer to 140wpm now) but Colemak is comfortable enough to be worth it.
Re: Qwerty vs Dvorak, Dvorak is superior on wrist movement if you're touch typing.
Too many people cite speed as their reason for switching, but that's not a good motivation. I switched to Dvorak due to wrist issues, and it helped a ton, but my typing speed vs. Qwerty only went up about 5%. And Dvorak introduced annoyances (for example, rebinding all my games that don't do it automatically, which is probably 99% of them).
So if you're going to switch, do it for comfort, not speed... because it's not much faster.
I write code not English. Code is optimised for the US layout.
I will have a conversation with you about programmer layouts, but I can't be bothered to optimise my typing while my hands are still faster than my brain most of the time
He also claimed his typing demonstrator, Barbara Blackburn was the fastest typist in the world thanks to his keyboard layout.
[This is almost certainly false](https://youtu.be/maCHHSussS4?si=rlt84NyvH1buSCXZ).
I know nothing about keyboard layouts and which ones are good or not. But this fella was pretty fucking shady about how he promoted his layout and certainly wasn’t above making shit up to sell them.
Optimized keyboard, yes. But it takes a LONG time to get fast with a Dvorak. Large learning curve.
And BTW there at others that are faster to use. But again, large learning curve.
Meh, the guy who invented the layout ran the study. So what? That's how inventing things works. He wasn't the only one running it, and measuring words per minute isn't exactly an easily fudged thing. That's true for literally everything today. Who do you think runs the safety and efficacy trials for all your drugs? In science, every study to test a hypothesis is done by the person who came up with the hypothesis. (edit: I'll add that as a guy with patents, I WISH there were people lined up to volunteer to test out every idea you come up with. It's all on you. )
I've used Dvorak for years, and it's 100% more efficient, but not for the reasons that everybody assumes. I probably type maybe 5% faster on it on a wpm basis, but I type orders of magnitude faster on a words per year basis. I switched to Dvorak because I was getting work-stopping RSI. Dvorak solved that problem for me. Not having to stop typing for weeks at a time makes a big difference.
Fun weird neurological fact. I'd already tried using an ergonomic keyboard for my RSI. It didn't work, but I meant I learned Dvorak on a MS split keyboard. If I was at another computer with an ordinary keyboard on someone else's computer, I wast typing QWERTY without even thinking about it. Then I'd sit down to my ergo keyboard and I'd use Dvorak without thinking about it. Just the angle of my wrists was enough to tell my brain what I was using on a totally automatic level.
> Meh, the guy who invented the layout ran the study. So what?
Yeah, there's no ethical concern as long as the study is double-blind and someone else has repeated the study and found similar results. (I don't know if that was done in this case and can't be arsed to google it.)
Yea, like there hasn't been millions of case studies or professionals who have opted for an alternative layout.
I chose to learn colemak 15 years ago (I like that it preserves most the bottom row for copy/paste hotkeys) and I'll never go back. I can still type qwerty as well, it just takes a little switch to flip in my head. And when on mobile it's qwerty, I don't even think about them.
The home row should be the most used keys, they are prime real estate. Instead Qwerty has low value keys such as mostly consonants and a fecking semicolon... Designed for typewriter to avoid jamming. It doesn't take a study to figure out which is better.
The real issue here is you're not using semicolons enough!
Kidding aside I used to use Dvorak so I get it, but I had to stop when I was working a job that required sitting at multiple different computers throughout the day and I couldn't bring my own keyboard. If I ever get into it again I might have to take a look at Colemak instead just for the hotkey placement
Could the Dvorak layout be a better solution to those who never grasped Qwerty? Despite my several decades on this planet, my fingers just can't deal with Qwerty, and I've never become fluent in typewriting (I still chicken peck the keyboard).
it could be. mechanically you're learning the same skill, but the letter orientations in dvorak were easier for me to learn. All the vowels are under your left hand, and the most common consonants are under your right, so "aoeui dhtns" feels less arbitrary than 'asdfg hjkl;'
If you use a typing game to learn dvorak, you'll be typing full words on level 1. A qwerty typing game will have you typing gibberish until you have most of the keyboard unlocked.
My experience might not translate to yours, your mileage may vary, etc., etc., but:
I was finally able to learn to touch type after years of failure simply by purchasing a cheap split ergonomic keyboard. Putting my hands in a more natural, comfortable position set me up for success, letting me practice more each day until I got faster than hunting-and-pecking. I was also eventually able to use standard keyboards (that is, not ergonomic split ones) with little discomfort.
An interesting video I was just watching yesterday about someone trying to use computer algorithms to create better keyboard layouts.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOaPb9wrgDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOaPb9wrgDY)
Real life dvorak user here, going on 15 years using dvorak everywhere.
Do I actually think its better? maybe. Do my fingers/hands hurt less after typing all day long? yes. Going back to qwerty creates some awkward 'stretching' of my fingers. I'm not sure if this is because I don't ever type with qwerty or if dvorak is really better.
One thing that does make a ton of sense (for me, at least) is having the vowels on the home row -> aoeui (replacing asdfg) are typed all the time, but are very easy to type as they are right there on the home row.
I've never proselytized dvorak to anyone, in fact, I dont talk about it and do my best to hide the fact I'm using a 'wierd' keyboard layout.
I've been typing on it since high-school. I never learned to touch-type on Qwerty, but bought a blank key-cap keyboard and just kept practicing Dvorak until I could type.
It's well-optimized for general conversation, but the lesser-used keys being in odd places can make doing data-entry / coding a little annoying.
The Dvorak keyboard is a really good idea, just like 3d goggles is a good idea.
It's a good *idea* but not a good product because hardly anyone wants to use it.
Stenography is far superior to qwerty, dovrak or any other single keypress system.
This is why court reporters are required to type above 225 words per minute to be considered ready for court reporting duties.
Here's an [explanation of how Stenography works](https://www.openstenoproject.org/).
Anyone can try out Stenography if you have a Mechanical keyboard.
Relearned how to touch type on a ergonomic split keyboard using Dvorak and I can tell you it's much more balanced between left and right hand, at least in English typing. Been carting that keyboard around for about a decade now.
Even assuming it is faster or more efficient, because I interact with so many keyboards on a daily basis, I’d need to change them all or id quickly be less productive despite having an “optimized” keyboard.
When Dvorak patented his keyboard, only secretaries/typists used keyboards, so it made sense then.
This makes sense! Thank you!
I switch back and forth all the time. I just switch modes depending on where I am. Personally, it has at least helped me avoid carpal tunnel surgery for several decades. 80s computer keyboards were ergonomic disasters.
I just commented this elsewhere, but I feel like this is always left out of the discussions. When I learned Dvorak I could use both layouts for a time and the comfort level of Dvorak is unmatched. You can only really feel it when you're switching between typing in the two, but QWERTY hands are almost permanently splayed-out out from reaching for vowels. Dvorak on the other hand feels like your left hand barely moves for most words.
With QWERTY it felt like my hands needed to do acrobatics to get anything done. With Dvorak I can easily meet or exceed my old speeds, with far more comfort. It just feels so much more natural
This user is obviously on the take from big keyboard.
>my hands needed to do acrobatics to get anything done I have used a keyboard since I was a child and in an office job for 20 years and I would never once describe my hands having to do "acrobatics" to get anything done.
The only time my hands might do acrobatics is some of the worse shortcut combos where it's 5 keys pressed all at once. Seriously, why is a shortcut ctl+shift+w+d+v. Fuck you whoever did that.
What does that even do
Saves me 5 clicks in a company specific application.
Seems like something you can replace with a simpler macro then?
Except I can't. Can't add any macros, company computers won't let that happen for security reasons
Acrobatics is definitely an exaggeration, but you definitely do notice the difference between qwerty and Dvorak once you learn Dvorak. While I can definitely say that Dvorak feels more comfortable to type on, if you already know qwerty, and you don't experience major muscle fatigue or pain, there are no major advantages to learning Dvorak. Those who say Dvorak is faster are also wrong, as the average hand travel distance plays such a minimal role in typing speed.
Pretty sure that is QWERTY in comparison to what you do in Dvorak.
yep. i use an ortholinear split keyboard (ergodox) in dvorak layout, and use qwerty on 'regular' keyboards. i absolutely hate qwerty but it's usable. but shit.
[Ergodox](https://ergodox-ez.com/) for the curious. You can also [roll your own](https://www.ergodox.io/).
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It gets better than that. There is no evidence that 'ergonomics' or making changes to how you use your hands does anything to prevent carpal tunnel. Carpal tunnel syndrome is likely caused by aging and having wrists that are just predisposed to it. There isn't a lot of money in 'you will either get it or you won't, not much you can do about it' though.
I used to have disdain for Dvorak users, I figured they just use it to feel superior or whatever (and it's probably true in a lot of cases), but then my left hand began hurting and it kept getting worse. I switched to Dvorak and I haven't had any issues since. I'm not an evangelist, I don't care if you use Dvorak, but qwerty caused me pain and Dvorak fixed it. I used qwerty for around 15 years and Dvorak for another 15 years.
QWERTY was intentionally designed so because if you mashed too many close keys together the typewriter jammed. it was meant to put rapidly adjacent letters apart to prevent that. We've moved beyond that limitation as there's no longer hammers physically converging now but the shit stuck.
[That's a myth](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2200664-the-truth-about-the-qwerty-keyboard/) It was developed by Sholes for ease of use by telegraph users.
The myth is that the purpose was to "slow the typist down". Moving the hammers further apart so that the typist could go *faster* without jams is the correct statement.
The article indicates that touch-typing didn’t come about until significantly later, and that QWERTY was effectively in place by the time Sholes’ first commercial model hit the market. That model, and subsequent models, were designed with hunt-and-peck in mind yet still contained the QWERTY layout. Nobody was maxing out the theoretical hardware limits of the key locations by that point. It ultimately seems like Sholes had come up with it somewhat randomly while developing and prototyping the first typewriter and just insisted the first model be developed with his own preferred layout in place. It wasn’t until like 60 years later that Dvorak patented his layout, and by that time there was simply too much inertia to change.
Even if this were true (which others seem to be disputing), the conclusion that this makes QWERTY more difficult to use doesn't even make any sense. Letters being far apart doesn't make them difficult to type quickly in sequence. What makes a sequence of characters difficult to type is when the same finger is used for multiple characters in a row. As an extreme example, the sequence APFJEI is easy to type in QWERTY, but ZAQNHY is not.
> but QWERTY hands are almost permanently splayed-out out from reaching for vowels This was intentional to help prevent typewriters from jamming up.
It's always amazing how many things in the past that seem weird are from "We did it that way because of the limitations of the time and it stuck even after the limitations no longer exist."
"So why did you hide the details of the new element you discovered in a diorama instead of just making Tony a diagram or something?" Howard Stark: "Uh, I'm limited by the technology of my time."
Lol. “I’m a Stark, I have to be extra and flamboyant when I have the oppertunity”
Do you think it was the Dvorak keyboard helping you avoiding carpal tunnel, or was it the switching back and forth?
I have carpal tunnel. It was caused by playing a viola and typing 100+ wpm on Commodore 64 keyboards. That said, it seems help keep it in check. There's definitely less finger movement. Have I done a scientific study? no. That said, going back to QWERTY is just so I can use client systems without a hassle. Oddly if I switch to Dvorak on a client computer it messes me up and vice versa. Brains are weird.
I was diagnosed with carpal (from lots of typing) and told I needed surgery. By luck or maybe divine providence, I met someone who told me about dvorak. I switched, never had surgery, and the pain is 99% gone, decades later. A sample size of two (person who told me also formerly had carpal) isn't proof, but it does make me go hmmm... I will tell you that the first few weeks of learning it were torture, simply because I had to retrain my muscle memory and it was sooo slow compared to what I was able to do before, even with the pain slowing me down. Looking back, I'd say it was worth it.
Are there keyboards that are somewhat normal but have ergonomic advantages?
The Microsoft natural ones where the two halves are butterflied out - those are comfy and easy enough to relearn
They used to have the 5500 or whatever that was $25~ but now the new model in that style is like $50. I like them and they help but my pinky still gets sore from hitting shift all the time.
Alice layout keyboards are an ergonomic shape that are somewhat normal (I think Microsoft sells a cheap keyboard in this layout).
As others have mentioned the Alice layout, there are also keyboards (both normal layout and otherwise)* that are split down the middle so you can move and rotate the halves to keep your shoulders and wrists straight. I switched to a split keyboard and my wrists stopped hurting almost overnight. ...... *(Normal layout would be something like Kinesis Freestyle, Keychron Q11, or FoldKB. Alternatives would be something like Ergodox or Moonlander where there are thumb keys and the keycaps themselves are different sizes.)
I've used the Kinesis Freestyle 2 at my work for many years. It's got the V3 tenting attachements, and I use them as high as they go. I really like that I can adjust the angle, distance apart, and rotation as I need it. It feels way better than a flat keyboard, and still better than the ones like the MS with a fixed split position.
I've got an Advantage360 Pro. It's basically 2 half keyboards, with extreme contouring so it relieves pressure on the wrists. You can reconfigure it however you'd like with some software, but I've not done that. Even using the QWERTY layout, it took me nearly 2 weeks to get my typing speed back up to being somewhat useful. At this point, I'm much faster on the Advantage360, and using an old keyboard for even short amounts of time is brutal on my hands. Edit: But this is a very expensive option. I was desperate at the time, and I haven't regretted the purchase.
Also consider swapping mouse to something like a trackball or even better a thumball. I absolutely love the thumball and it reduced a ton of wrist and arm strain while being easier to use than a trackball.
I use Microsoft Sculpt ones, though they seem to be discontinued. Basically anything that allows you to spread your wrists more than your fingertips.
Yeah the comments from people who have never tried Dvorak are wild, every time the subject comes up. Switching during college almost immediately dissipated my crippling tendinitis. To answer the obligatory questions: - it took about a week to memorize the layout well enough to touch type, and a month before my typing speed had completely caught up - I didn’t replace my keycaps, because… I don’t look at the keyboard when typing?? - I can still type in QWERTY - keyboard shortcuts still exist and work in Dvorak?? There are some programs where I’ll switch my layout because I learned the hotkeys pre-switch (photoshop, video/audio editing). I use a program that auto-switches layout based on the in-focus program, but even if I didn’t, there is also a keyboard shortcut to switch the keyboard layout! - it is easy to access Dvorak on basically any computer; you can set the keyboard layout per-user on any modern machine - when I have to use QWERTY for large lengths of time for whatever reason, it is totally doable but does it fact make my wrists/hands hurt after a while - I have no idea how or if switching affected my typing speed, and could not care less
Out of curiosity, how does it work with gaming? Obviously, WASD isn't the exactly the same on Dvorak. Are all games flexible enough to work with the same keys, regardless of “value?” I'd rather not switch to QWERTY for gaming because I use text chat in some games.
I used to have to remember to switch off of Dvorak when gaming, or shenanigans would ensue. At some point in the last decade+ it seems like most games/launchers have figured out some way to do it on their own — I can’t remember the last time I had to think about it when launching a game. When I was playing more chat-dependent multiplayer games, my brain figured out the switch well enough as long as I wasn’t completely on auto-pilot— I will admit to ending several hundred online matches with “uu” 🤦🏻
As a member of the ESDF > WASD contingent since '99, most games allow remapping. The ones that don't, suck.
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What? What does this have to do with Dvorak?
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I guess my main confusion is about Dvorak enabling one-handed use. It seems it would be no more efficient at that than Qwerty. Edit: Oh, apparently there are also one-handed variants Dvorak designed, though they're not "the" Dvorak layout
I fucked up my wrist once and had my right hand and arm in a cast for two months. Left-handed Dvorak was SO MUCH easier than Qwerty, even though I could type 50 words a minute on Qwerty with both hands.
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I didn't even know left handed Dvorak was a thing so we all learned something today.
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I type in Dvorak, and one thing that is always left out in these conversations is just how *comfortable* Dvorak is. When I was transitioning, I could type in both layouts for a while and found that there is a persistent hand strain with QWERTY compared to Dvorak. When typing in Dvorak your left hand basically lives on the home row and is not constantly reaching for vowels. I just use Ctrl+Shift to switch back to QWERTY when I'm gaming so that hotkeys and WASD work as expected. Switching between the two is basically never a problem.
Agree, everyone seems to think that speed is the only important metric. In my long experience with dvorak it's just a better layout because I can use the keyboard for long stretches of time without discomfort
SO MUCH THIS. I had repetitive stress injuries related to stretching my pinkies out too much in QWERTY that switching to Dvorak solved. Couldn't care less which is faster/better/whatever on average. DVORAK was a lifesaver for me.
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I've spent decades memorizing the QWERTY layout so that I can type without even really thinking about it. For example, I didn't need to look away from the screen to type this comment. I couldn't do that if I switched to a new layout and would have to completely relearn my muscle memory.
yeah, you'd relearn, it'd take like 3 months, then you'd be fine. if i did it, you can too. you just gotta want to. that's hard to achieve unless you're trying to avoid doing something, like i was 😂
I guess my typing speed on QWERTY is already fast enough that there's no real reason for me to make a switch. A marginal improvement isn't worth the 3 months or so it will take to relearn. Especially if I have a lot of typing I want to get done in those 3 months. Knowing me, instead of learning a new typing scheme, I'll just avoid typing things and so it will end up taking me longer to learn and I will procrastinate on other things I want to get done.
Which is all well and good but I don't think I've ever heard anyone even make the case that switching to Dvorak is a good idea for virtually anyone? Only that Dvorak is more efficient once you're familiar with it, if for some reason that is valuable to you. The cases against switching are so numerous and obvious that hardly anyone ever does so.
I used one for a while, it's like being multilingual, I just switched back and forth
When I first saw the layout, I was disappointed that he didn’t spell out his name somewhere on the keyboard. Just DVORAK, right in the middle.
Yeah well Qwerty already did that, so it wouldn't be original.
Ah yes when it was invented in 1784 by William S. Qwerty. A man clearly ahead of his time.
John Keyboard himself.
Actually, it was John Typewriter who invented it, John Keyboard stole his invention to make computer keyboards in 1896. Unfortunately, the computer wouldn't be invented for another 60 years but it was still a runaway success.
Johannes Guttenberg: Am I a joke to you
Qwerty U. Iopa Truly a man ahead of his time
Shower thought: A QWERTY keyboard would have been one of the earliest UIs, and they knew it this whole time.
The virgin typist: meek, needs phony tricks and ergonomic key placement to aid his frail wrists, obsessed with optimal WPM, cries over typing mistakes. The chad typewriter: confident, deliberately trains finger strength by spacing out keys, lives by autocorrect cleaning up typos, puts his own name dead center because he knows he's worth it. Which Dvorak are you?
Lol, I thought Dvorak was an equivalent name to Qwerty. Like, there was a row of keys that went D V O R A K.
When I was a kid growing up in the 80/90's I read PC Magazine all the time, so I always though the Dvorak keyboard was invented by John C. Dvorak, a columnist in the magazine.
I was wondering if someone was going to mention this!
I switched to it for a while for fun and was proficient by the end of the week, and measured being faster like two weeks after (it's been a while). Having all the vocals together was also really fun, I felt like I was playing guitar hero. This was on pc of course, I'm pretty sure it's useless on mobile. Not worth the hassle in general anyway.
So how do you think it would go on a typewriter, which would have been the only option back then?
The typewriter arms would collide with each other because you are typing too fast. QWERTY was intentionally set that way to prevent this.
Not quite. QWERTY being made to prevent type arms from jamming wasn't a matter of typing speed, it was a matter of arm placement. Keeping the type arms for common letters some distance apart meant they wouldn't collide with each other even when typing quickly. Plus it encourages the typist to alternate hands, so you aren't limited by the speed of moving just one hand.
>Plus it encourages the typist to alternate hands, so you aren't limited by the speed of moving just one hand. You're right, but this is actually the Dvorak secret sauce. It's specifically designed to alternate hands as you type, mainly by having all the vowels on the left-hand home row.
What if I have to type queueing? Not very efficient then, dvorak!
Dvorak?? More like dork-vorak!
>Keeping the type arms for common letters some distance apart meant they wouldn't collide with each other even when typing quickly. ? >The typewriter arms would collide with each other because you are typing too fast. QWERTY was intentionally set that way to prevent this.
The common myth is that QUERTY was designed to avoid jams *by intentionally slowing the typist down with awkward letter placement.* It wasn't. Quite the opposite. It was designed to allow typing at *faster* speeds by ensuring that the most frequently typed letters were positioned in a way that would keep the arms from hitting each other when struck in quick succession.
Just adding on here that as part of spacing them further apart they also put them on different hands which is where most of the speed comes from, as alternating hands for letters is faster than not doing so. They could've put the letters further apart yet still on the same hand if they wanted to prevent jams while slowing down typists.
That’s a myth tho - qwerty is an arbitrary layout that just won overall popularity.
Ah, I see- “possibly apocryphal”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#History
If you think about you can link the arms to any key
Where's the any key?
> think the arms would jam as they struck the paper in rapid sequence. The sequence of letters is dictated by the language. So it doesn't matter where the arms originate?
Not really. The reason why the rows are [slightly offset](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2BDR34K/keyboard-of-an-old-retro-typewriter-with-the-english-alphabet-2BDR34K.jpg) is because they need room for the arms. Without introducing un-needed complexity, the placement of the keys were directly related to the arms on the most basic of typewriters. Ball/daisy wheel typewriters and electronic typewriters of course can be mapped in any way.
There was clearly some reason it was chosen over the obvious alphabetical order layouts. Avoiding common letter pairs next to each other to avoid mechanical collisions sounds like a decent reason until you notice ER
It's not about separating the keys, it's about separating the arms on a very old style of typewriter that used gravity instead of springs to return the arms. I don't know the exact layout, but it's very possible that E and R were not next to each other.
What about an electric typewriter?
> I'm pretty sure it's useless on mobile. It is available in iOS at least. I suspect it's available in some form on Android.
It's built-in as an option for Google Keyboard. I've been using Dvorak on my phone almost exclusively since switching to Android in 2014. Though I can't really comment on efficiency I think it's quirky & neat. My typing speed using QWERTY on phones when using someone else's device has gone to shit but that doesn't happen enough to be a problem
Given the proliferation of phones being used to authenticate you for other things I cannot stress enough that sharing phones should be very rare these days. There have indeed been scams where people will ask to borrow a phone and quickly transfer money using apps. Thankfully, most apps now verify your identity again before allowing that, but it is something that has been done and probably will be done again. Edit: Also another warning, even with apps that ask for a password confirmation someone in possession of your phone has access to the typical methods needed to reset a password, namely your email and text messages.
It is, but just barely. Even in the "good" multilingual keyboards. Most languages besides English is stuck in qwerty. I guess catering to multilingual Dvorak enthusiasts is too niche, but it's also literally just a few more lines of code to allow toggling a layout that's already been coded and debugged.
Nor for any language other than English.
I tried it for a few months. I actually didn’t like it because I felt like my right hand did too much work, especially with the pinky, and my left hand did too little work That being said, I now use the Colemak layout, and it’s much superior (for English). Is it “faster”? Irrelevant. It’s _more comfortable_ and that’s what I like about it.
I've practiced some with Colemak, and it is much more comfortable. I haven't been able to put in enough time to swap yet.
I tried but for me it was really hard to switch. I could type well slowly but if I sped up the typos came in force. Getting up to a good speed would have taken too long. I think the big advantage of QWERTY is that it’s easier precisely because it’s inefficient. The rights sequence of keys usually not being right next to each other just makes it less error prone and more gross motor.
QWERTY is perfectly fine, which is part of why I haven't made the switch yet. If you use keyboard shortcuts a lot, then you have an extra layer of learning curve. Heck, I have my backspace where capslock is, and it already throws me way off when using a different keyboard. There's not really any need to switch keyboard layouts, which is why relatively few people do. Touch typing is also not what I'd call a common skill, so there's even fewer people that could benefit. Colemak is closer to the QWERTY layout than Dvorak, with Tarmak having very few modifications, and Colemak-DH is designed to help with the issue you brought up. It would be handy to learn Colemak, and I might benefit and like it better, but there's no need or incentive for me to do so.
For people considering a switch--I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts and didn't have that much of a problem switching to Colemak since it keeps a lot of most common use (zxcv/s) in the same or similar places. The thing I reallly struggled with after tho is Illustrator and Photoshop shortcuts. Idk if designing and typing uses different parts of your brain or what, but man, that was tough.
Tarmak. Lets you get to Colemak in phases so you only have a few keys swapped at any given time. I just typed like normal and would switch every other week or so.
Gotta go cold turkey full tryhard. I lost a lot of internet arguments the first month because I couldn't respond quickly enough. I found it much harder to learn strict and "perfect" touch typing with every finger having a strict role. Once I knew that, the switch to Colemak was pretty natural since I just needed to learn what my fingers were supposed to do.
if you want to get good at it fast, I highly recommend playing Epistory! [https://store.steampowered.com/app/398850/Epistory\_\_Typing\_Chronicles/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/398850/Epistory__Typing_Chronicles/) it's beautiful and fun so you'll WANT to practice typing. After I played the whole thing and got good at Colemak, i went back and played it all over again just because
I love Colemak. I've been using it since the start of 2024 basically, and while I'm still not faster or more accurate with it than I was with QWERTY, I am MUCH more comfortable (a split ortho/columnar keyboard doesn't hurt either), and fast/accurate enough that it's not problematic. RSI was a very frequent problem for me in the past, and the combination of better peripherals and switching layouts has made an absolutely massive difference in terms of frequency and severity of issues.
I have used Dvorak for more than 10 years now and I tell people the same thing when they ask about it! With qwerty, my knuckles would ache after a day of computer use. With Dvorak, I never feel that. Speed wise, they are about the same for me. Dvorak may be slightly faster in games like typeracer, but in normal use, it just doesn't matter. Both are fast enough.
How hard was it to not mix up Dvorak with Qwerty? Sometimes when writing code I mix up the different languages.
> How hard was it to not mix up Dvorak with Qwerty? Super easy if it's the only layout you use. I use a dvorak layout but my key caps are set up for qwerty and it's actually pretty nice. I touch type everything anyway but on the rare occasions I need to do something in querty it's not so bad to hunt and peck. Also windows makes it really easy to swap layouts with a ctrl+shift combo.
I just write everything in JavaScript, compile it, and then decompile it in the target language
I switched to Colemak too because I'm writing a book and typing so much in QWERTY started hurting my hands (I did two back to back NaNoWriMos and it just about killed me). Once I made the switch, all issues completely disappeared.
Whoooo Colemak!!
HEY A FELLOW COLEMAKIAN THERE ARE DOZENS OF US! The main annoyance is games that don't autoconvert keys, so I have to remap a lot of keys when I play a new game, but it's not that big of a deal. I've never learned to properly touch type with qwerty; only colemak.
been using Colemak for over a decade. glad to see it mentioned here. it's great. way easier and more comfortable to touch-type with while preserving the familiar shortcut keys (Z X C V)
I feel like the average person is so slow at typing, I doubt a vague performance improvement is even relevant, maybe if you're at 200 wpm and are hitting a bottleneck.
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Senior devs know the important thing is not speed, but how hard you can hit the keys when you angry type.
That's why you get the loudest mechanical keys on the planet.
Exactly. I have MX Blues and they’re deafening.
An acquaintance who had worked as a programmer said he usually spent 7 hours in meetings and then wrote two lines of code at the end of the day. Would that be roughly accurate to your experience?
Not OP but yes, the more senior you get the less code you have time to write
I'm a very slow typer (slightly faster than hunt and peck) and I don't do enough continuous office work to get truly proficient at typing. I have found after a day in the office my wrists hurt, would dvorak alleviate some of that?
Dvorak (and even better, Colmak) are more ergonomic because when applying proper typing technique you're required to take your hands off the middle row of keys far less often. I suspect that if you're pecking rather than using proper technique, it probably wouldn't make much of difference. Maybe learning proper technique might help, not 100% Honestly though, typing uses specific muscles, so if you don't type very often most of the time, but then have days where you type a lot hurting yourself is kinda normal. Like running after being sedentary for ages. Trying to keep it as consistent as you can would be best.
For me and many others, it's about comfort. Less stress on the hands.
The point of alternative keyboard layouts is the ergonomics of the finger movement, not increased speed. I use Colemak and it's so much better than QWERTY. Not because I can type any faster, but because the typing is so smooth and comfortable in comparison.
I use the Dvorak keyboard. The reason I switched was because I was having bad cramps in my hands, especially the right hand, and I read that it might make my hands feel better because it requires less finger movement due to the fact that all the most common English characters are on the home row. I type slower and less accurately now, but the pain has decreased so I haven't switched back.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_keyboard_layout
Using one of these for the first time would be like your first time ever trying to drive a manual transmission car after spending your whole life only using auto.
Nah. I learned it in a week. Just had to do a few "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog" as warmups.
Yeah, you can learn to drive manual in a week, too
Did you also come across that redittor who got their keyboard stuck in Dvorak?
Classic post. My favorite post along those lines is the person who accidentally switched their UI to Spanish. Everyone was so helpful in the comments...in Spanish.
Haha that's what I'm thinking, just saw the posts
Anecdotally, I stopped having a ton of wrist pain after switching. It's nice balancing the workload between my two hands, rather than have my non-dominant hand do most of the work. I've got Dvorak on every device I use.
Preach brother. The speed benefits are nice, but the wrist strain reduction is the real game changer
Amen! Words per minute is nothing. Words per year is what matters and avoiding the wrist brace makes a huge difference there.
I switched to Colemak because of wrist pain, now the pain is gone. It's way better than QWERTY. I'm also way faster typing now, I was 65-70 words per minute with QWERTY and I'm easily 95-100 with Colemak. It's so much more fun to type with.
As a slow typer who has to look at the keyboard often while typing, which in your opinion would be better to switch to, dvorak or colemak?
I chose Colemak because it moves fewer keys and keeps the Z, X, C, and V keys in the same spots as QWERTY, which are the most used keyboard short cuts. I also love the backspace in the caps lock location, it's so much easier to use. Colemak just seemed easier to learn. If you want to really look into it, Colemak is slightly better for key usage on the home row. That was my reasoning and I haven't regretted it at all. Whatever you choose, you should make sure that you learn to use the correct fingers for all keys so you can eventually learn to not look at the keyboard. I type a lot for work, so I just brute forced the change one day and within a month I wasn't thinking about it anymore.
If you're going to learn, I recommend Colemak-DH. It moves a few more keys around and demands you curl the fingers on your left hand much like you do on your right. I find it a bit more ergonomic and if you're going to learn a new layout, might as well try and go for the most comfortable. https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/
Same here. People talking about the WPM of Dvorak like it matters anymore. I type as fast as I come up with stuff to say, which can be a lot slower, LOL. You're fingers go through a lot fewer hard reaches with Dvorak and it makes a huge difference with RSI. That makes Dvorak WAY faster than QWERTY if you measure words per year. Having to spend weeks in wrist braces really slows down your typing.
Similar, my wrists were hurting incredibly bad until middle of last year, so much so that I couldn’t type for more than 10 minutes. Switched to Colemak and can now type for hours.
I switched to Dvorak about 20 years ago when my buddy tried it and gave it top marks. I was getting RSI in my wrists, haven’t had that problem since switching. It took me about a month to reach the same speed and accuracy as before. Switching does seem to require the skill of typing without looking, though, so it’s probably not for everyone.
>Switching does seem to require the skill of typing without looking That was probably the biggest benefit, honestly. You basically *have* to learn touch-typing, because your key legends are wrong. Still can't touch type numbers though 😭
The orignial qwerty keyboard layout was made so that typewriter arms had a lower chance of colliding with each other, the layout moved letters away from each other if they had a high chance of being used sequentially. In theory there are much better layouts than qwerty.
He also made left and right versions for disabled one hand typists. Switching to Dvorak Left has made a big difference in my life
I don't really think that this is that weird. Who else would be incentivized to run those kinds of studies? If his methods were sound, it shouldn't really matter who conducted the study. Also I've literally never heard anyone who switched to dvorak say it wasn't faster. Just that it's probably not worth it for most people.
I knew a Princeton mathematician who was mentally unstable and flipped his keyboard on his MacBook to usd this pattern and fuck was it annoying to fix his laptop when he broke shit.
I like how you preface with "mentally unstable" to excuse his choice to use dvorak.
The people I know who use Dvorak also have Mathematics degrees.
It was trendy with the CS majors back when I was in school. I like the idea of common letters on the home row, but not enough to relearn touch typing.
It's annoying to use `vi` with Dvorak. For that matter, it's annoying for "normal" computer users because Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V wouldn't be next to each other.
On MacOS there is a Dvorak-QWERTY⌘ layout. So you get the dvorak layout but your shortcuts are the same as they'd be on qwerty. Been using this for years now.
You also should theoretically be able to do the same if you use a keyboard that uses qmk or a fork of it with tap layers
Okay, that's freaking dope. I'd give it a shot on my work machine, but then I'd be SOL on my personal machine.
It was shockingly easy to switch. I started playing on a "learn to type" website one morning and switched my work computer like a week later. Unless you rearrange the key caps (and have a keyboard where they'd fit together), you're touch typing by default.
I learned by practicing on http://dvorak.nl
I'll try it! My initial assumption is that since I've been typing QWERTY for so long and have it etched into my brain, this will be *very* difficult if not impossible. Let's see!
i use dvorak, does that mean i should have a maths degree? finally my parents would be proud of me
I use it and I don't... although I have a PhD in Chemistry and do a lot of math... so.. nevermind.
Bring along a regular USB keyboard and plug it in when you need to work on his. Then temporarily switch the OS layout back to qwerty and you're good to go. I would always do the reverse on work trips, bringing my Dvorak keyboard with me.
John Nash or a different Princeton mathematician who was mentally unstable?
They all are... loll
I imagine the reason we have QWERTY as a standard is because something had to be, and the most successful machine at the time had this layout. Being the most successful machine may have been a combination of factors, only one of which was the key layout. The computer design we mostly use is the IBM machine. Its popularity is from marketing. IBM had more money than the competition and could afford this strategy.
For anyone sorting by new, [try my keyboard!](https://asetniop.com/) It's not superior to QWERTY in terms of speed, but it only uses ten keys, which opens the door for all kinds of things like touch-typing on a touchscreen (which I'm doing right now!) or devices like gloves and such.
FYI your app doesn't seem to be available anymore which is a pity
The Biggest Scandal in Speed Typing History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maCHHSussS4 Okay, okay, it was not really about Dvorak keyboard history, but the claim was made using Dvorak keyboard. I find the video rather entertaining, (except for the inserted sponsored ad section, though, you can easily skip it.)
Absolute legend.
[удалено]
I learned Dvorak and Colemak and Colemak is better than QWERTY. Most of the benefits people get from learning Dvorak is that they didn't know how to properly touch type before. By learning how to properly type they alleviate a lot of finger strain, improve their typing speed, and figure the reasoning for that must have been Dvorak and not learning how to type properly. Note I'm saying type properly and not type quickly - many people who made the switch could type 100+ WPM but they were not typing _properly_ at those speeds. I'm a rather proficient typist. I typed 170~ wpm with QWERTY before wanting to learn Dvorak for its ergonomic claims. I found no difference and being left handed the right-handedness of Dvorak actually made it feel worse. By the time I was comfortable typing up to 100wpm again I had decided on switching to Colemak instead. I still use QWERTY due to office work but the mental switch only takes a moment or two. I'm not as fast of a typist on QWERTY as I used to be (closer to 140wpm now) but Colemak is comfortable enough to be worth it.
Re: Qwerty vs Dvorak, Dvorak is superior on wrist movement if you're touch typing. Too many people cite speed as their reason for switching, but that's not a good motivation. I switched to Dvorak due to wrist issues, and it helped a ton, but my typing speed vs. Qwerty only went up about 5%. And Dvorak introduced annoyances (for example, rebinding all my games that don't do it automatically, which is probably 99% of them). So if you're going to switch, do it for comfort, not speed... because it's not much faster.
I write code not English. Code is optimised for the US layout. I will have a conversation with you about programmer layouts, but I can't be bothered to optimise my typing while my hands are still faster than my brain most of the time
He also claimed his typing demonstrator, Barbara Blackburn was the fastest typist in the world thanks to his keyboard layout. [This is almost certainly false](https://youtu.be/maCHHSussS4?si=rlt84NyvH1buSCXZ). I know nothing about keyboard layouts and which ones are good or not. But this fella was pretty fucking shady about how he promoted his layout and certainly wasn’t above making shit up to sell them.
Now just hear me out here: I think there's a chance (only a tiny one) that he was biased
Optimized keyboard, yes. But it takes a LONG time to get fast with a Dvorak. Large learning curve. And BTW there at others that are faster to use. But again, large learning curve.
Meh, the guy who invented the layout ran the study. So what? That's how inventing things works. He wasn't the only one running it, and measuring words per minute isn't exactly an easily fudged thing. That's true for literally everything today. Who do you think runs the safety and efficacy trials for all your drugs? In science, every study to test a hypothesis is done by the person who came up with the hypothesis. (edit: I'll add that as a guy with patents, I WISH there were people lined up to volunteer to test out every idea you come up with. It's all on you. ) I've used Dvorak for years, and it's 100% more efficient, but not for the reasons that everybody assumes. I probably type maybe 5% faster on it on a wpm basis, but I type orders of magnitude faster on a words per year basis. I switched to Dvorak because I was getting work-stopping RSI. Dvorak solved that problem for me. Not having to stop typing for weeks at a time makes a big difference. Fun weird neurological fact. I'd already tried using an ergonomic keyboard for my RSI. It didn't work, but I meant I learned Dvorak on a MS split keyboard. If I was at another computer with an ordinary keyboard on someone else's computer, I wast typing QWERTY without even thinking about it. Then I'd sit down to my ergo keyboard and I'd use Dvorak without thinking about it. Just the angle of my wrists was enough to tell my brain what I was using on a totally automatic level.
> Meh, the guy who invented the layout ran the study. So what? Yeah, there's no ethical concern as long as the study is double-blind and someone else has repeated the study and found similar results. (I don't know if that was done in this case and can't be arsed to google it.)
Yea, like there hasn't been millions of case studies or professionals who have opted for an alternative layout. I chose to learn colemak 15 years ago (I like that it preserves most the bottom row for copy/paste hotkeys) and I'll never go back. I can still type qwerty as well, it just takes a little switch to flip in my head. And when on mobile it's qwerty, I don't even think about them. The home row should be the most used keys, they are prime real estate. Instead Qwerty has low value keys such as mostly consonants and a fecking semicolon... Designed for typewriter to avoid jamming. It doesn't take a study to figure out which is better.
The real issue here is you're not using semicolons enough! Kidding aside I used to use Dvorak so I get it, but I had to stop when I was working a job that required sitting at multiple different computers throughout the day and I couldn't bring my own keyboard. If I ever get into it again I might have to take a look at Colemak instead just for the hotkey placement
Could the Dvorak layout be a better solution to those who never grasped Qwerty? Despite my several decades on this planet, my fingers just can't deal with Qwerty, and I've never become fluent in typewriting (I still chicken peck the keyboard).
it could be. mechanically you're learning the same skill, but the letter orientations in dvorak were easier for me to learn. All the vowels are under your left hand, and the most common consonants are under your right, so "aoeui dhtns" feels less arbitrary than 'asdfg hjkl;' If you use a typing game to learn dvorak, you'll be typing full words on level 1. A qwerty typing game will have you typing gibberish until you have most of the keyboard unlocked.
My experience might not translate to yours, your mileage may vary, etc., etc., but: I was finally able to learn to touch type after years of failure simply by purchasing a cheap split ergonomic keyboard. Putting my hands in a more natural, comfortable position set me up for success, letting me practice more each day until I got faster than hunting-and-pecking. I was also eventually able to use standard keyboards (that is, not ergonomic split ones) with little discomfort.
Big Keyboard entered the chat; with one hand
An interesting video I was just watching yesterday about someone trying to use computer algorithms to create better keyboard layouts. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOaPb9wrgDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOaPb9wrgDY)
I wonder if there's a study about ortholineal qwerty kbs, and ortholineal Dvorak kbs and workman too. 🤔
Yes but he couldn't overcome the lasting influence of Fred Qwerty
Real life dvorak user here, going on 15 years using dvorak everywhere. Do I actually think its better? maybe. Do my fingers/hands hurt less after typing all day long? yes. Going back to qwerty creates some awkward 'stretching' of my fingers. I'm not sure if this is because I don't ever type with qwerty or if dvorak is really better. One thing that does make a ton of sense (for me, at least) is having the vowels on the home row -> aoeui (replacing asdfg) are typed all the time, but are very easy to type as they are right there on the home row. I've never proselytized dvorak to anyone, in fact, I dont talk about it and do my best to hide the fact I'm using a 'wierd' keyboard layout.
Always check who funds the studies
I've been typing on it since high-school. I never learned to touch-type on Qwerty, but bought a blank key-cap keyboard and just kept practicing Dvorak until I could type. It's well-optimized for general conversation, but the lesser-used keys being in odd places can make doing data-entry / coding a little annoying.
I will only consider a switch to Dvorak if someone can prove it makes playing QWOP easier. This is my requirement.
The Dvorak keyboard is a really good idea, just like 3d goggles is a good idea. It's a good *idea* but not a good product because hardly anyone wants to use it.
Shoutout to professional musicians feeling betrayed this is not about THAT Dvorak
Stenography is far superior to qwerty, dovrak or any other single keypress system. This is why court reporters are required to type above 225 words per minute to be considered ready for court reporting duties. Here's an [explanation of how Stenography works](https://www.openstenoproject.org/). Anyone can try out Stenography if you have a Mechanical keyboard.
You should check out the [Blomfu](https://youtu.be/yWoDSsCX1S8?si=B2bB2f14s9vu5VcI) keyboard.
I wonder what u/HystericalGD has to say about this
I learned to type on QWERTY by playing a game called Dvorak teaches typing
This teaches you to question and scrutinise any study by asking who wrote it, who payed for it, when was it released and why was it commissioned?
I tried it, and it was fast until you had to use anyone else’s computer.
Relearned how to touch type on a ergonomic split keyboard using Dvorak and I can tell you it's much more balanced between left and right hand, at least in English typing. Been carting that keyboard around for about a decade now.