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Well, here's the comic book edition of the whole story, reasonably well-sourced.

Qwerty is just like the English measurement system. It's horrible, but too deeply set (at least in the US) into society to change easily. I learned the Dvorak layout a while back, and like it waaayyy better than Qwerty. There's not nearly as much strain, and practically everything you type is on the home row. Because most computers are still configured to use Qwerty, I do maintain that layout; it's pretty easy to go from one to the other after some practice. Rarely have I encountered compatibility problems: even Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+S are a habbit now.

Dvorak FTW!

P.S. vim is better on non-qwerty layouts than emacs ;)

That study is bad, and had an ulterior motive.

The Fable of the Keys is an article by some economists (who don't claim to know anything about typing) who are trying to disprove something called "Excessive Inertia Theory". Basically, "Excessive Inertia Theory" uses the Dvorak vs Qwerty history as anecdotal evidence for what the theory is describing: Dvorak is better, but people still use Qwerty because they don't want to go to the trouble of changing (nevermind that almost no one has heard of Dvorak...) The writers attack the theory by claiming that Dvorak isn't actually any better than Qwerty, and that's why it never became popular.

The holes are rampant in their argument, but the most telling is that the study they used was poorly conducted, probably biased, and the original data from it was destroyed. No other study has ever corroborated the results.

On the other hand, August Dvorak himself wrote an entire book called "Typewriting Behavior" about typing, Dvorak's area of expertise. (Instead of a book on Economics for example!) With the knowledge gained and research conducted in the writing of that book, he designed a keyboard layout. People who have used that keyboard layout almost unanimously attest to its improved comfort, efficiency, and ease.

A number of more in-depth responses have been written to "The Fable of the Keys" and its offspring, and I won't embarrass myself by trying to out-write these gentleman: Marcus Brooks: The Fable of the Fable and Randy Cassingham: Letter to REASON Magazine.

(Quoted from here

The keys are right next to each other.

These analysts are idiots.

Is their own IT department even remotely considering using anything other than a standard mouse across their own corporate desktop deployment? How about moving forward into the 1930's by using a keyboard layout that wasn't designed to prevent hammers from jamming, or even using a split-keyboard layout for most of the people in their office?

The only thing I can see happening is some kind of multiple-POV camera that looks at your hands and figures out what you're trying to type or where you're trying to move the mouse, without actually needing to have a physical keyboard or mouse. Until then, the mouse, especially an optical one, solves a problem inexpensively, reliably, and at least acceptably.

It's true that microsoft sells ergonomic keyboards. I think their most famous ones are the "split" or "natural hand" boards (that's the ones I know, and the names I know them under), i.e. the one I linked to.

The problem is that it's not a good keyboard design. If we stick to a (roughly) flat board with buttons on it, you first of all want more space between the hands, since that's how you hold them naturally. Second of all, you want vertically aligned keys (the unaligned keys is a holdover from typewriter manufacturing constraints).

Third of all, you want something that takes the shape and anatomy of the human hand into account. Your fingers don't have equal length. When you rest your palm, you tend to want to let your fingers "hang", being in rest at a lower place than the palm. Your thumb can do useful work besides just hitting the space bar.

Kinesis has made a quite good keyboard, taking the above considerations into account.

If you want to move away from the board-with-buttons, I've heard many good things about the datahand (sorry, couldn't find a picture from the makers).

On top of picking a good keyboard, you may want to pick a good keyboard layout. I'm very happy using dvorak, and I hear that people with RSI can type with less pain (some with no pain at all) on dvorak. Comparison: on qwerty, you move your fingers 15-20 miles per day, compared to 1 mile on dvorak for (I assume) the same workload.

For a longer explanation about dvorak, see dv zine. It's in my experience well worth the time spent learning a new keyboard layout.

So yeah, microsoft sells ergonomic keyboards, but you can get better elsewhere. I've tried both a microsoft ergonomic board and the kinesis, and the kinesis definitely wins any comparison hands down; except when you spill coke into one and not the other.

Also, I don't have trouble switching back to qwerty when using public terminals (and vim shortcuts weren't hard to adjust to).

And I agree that's it's mildly faster, but noticeably more comfortable. Any shot I have to avoid RSI, I'll take.

I'd recommend it to the bold and principled, as long as you have a month to type very slow. Check out http://dvzine.org/ for a great dvorak primer comic.

http://dvzine.org/

My 'defaults' for a new system: rip the keys off and change them to Dvorak, install gcc + build tools, create RSA keys for ssh, certificates for wireless, setup rsync script for backup, install X11, install VNC + rdesktop clients, setting terminal to default to 'screen' for multiple tty goodness. And that's just for the girlfriend.

I'd owned my PowerBook for maybe 3 years when I discovered Quicksilver. That kept me busy for a while. Then I started wrapping shell scripts into apps with Platypus, and launching them with Quicksilver. Installed TypeIt4Me to make notes easier. About a year ago I started doing much of my work in the command line. 4 years later, I'm still 'tweaking' the system, wringing out as much efficiency as possible. Given what I do on it (sys admin), the limiting factor is not the CPU, but file manipulation, batching, networking, etc. and those can be tweaked as long as I'm willing to learn new things.

Wrists killing you? Not in 2 weeks. Learn Dvorak.

All of which was why dontclick.it originally drove me to add an iGesture touch pad to my Christmas 2003 wishlist. At the same time I chased after my first Tablet PC. I'm happy to report in response to "news" of dontclick.it that consumers thinking differently have some great hardware alternatives, granted some of them may lock you into software "alternatives" the typical /.er might rather avoid. UMPCs with the Touch Pack have taken it to the glorious next level, where finally no other tool (pen) need be held to work with the PC, and sans anything too futuristic still like eyeball tracking lasers or brain implants. Thank you, Microsoft et al. for making it real.

How's it going? For machine performance, worky reasons I do have a desktop, with which I'm still using that iGesture, right now in fact. With a little learning, it's fantastic -- far more comfortable, natural, and powerful than any classic form mouse. Are iGesture pads the future of hardware? Hardly, sadly. Almost all people wouldn't even consider remapping for a Dvorak keyboard or any other arrangement despite numerous benefits, so good luck prying the mouse from their hands.

Aside from the mouse itself, for pure click reduction I doubt the extremity of dontclick.it can be considered a likely end for most of site or application design. One other thing dontclick.it led me to, however, was to more actively reduce the number of clicks in my user interface designs. Back in 2003, this User Interface Engineering post was also new, regarding the practicality of the Three-Click Rule. "Every piece of content should take no more than three clicks to access." The article finds via pointed clicking research that the number of clicks itself is not an issue, but it acknowledges that for designers to focus on reducing clicks is a useful means to the end of better, more user centric design.

As a software UI designer/developer, I keep it in mind. I think in terms of click reduction and it leads to simple, usable sites and software. Thank you, dontclick.it for raising the point, but yes, despite great alternatives in hardware and great intentions in software, most users still must click.

Any program worth its salt has keyboard equivalents; she should abandon the mouse if at all possible until the true cause of (and possible cure for) her pain is discovered.

If the user is able to make that transition (some folks don't adapt to change that well) I would also recommend her looking at the Dvorak keyboard layout, and possibly a different keyboard as well (Kinesis, TypeMatrix, etc.)

Also, as another poster mentioned, there are foot solutions (Kinesis makes one, for example, though I've never tried it).

Let's all remember that the standard (US English, i.e., worldwide) keyboard layout was invented some 130 years ago, and purposefully designed to slow down the typist so they wouldn't jam the individual dyes that made up a typewriter.

August Dvorak's solution came some 60 years after that, and may have caught on except for WWII, which caused most typewriter manufacturers to switch to guns. By the time the war was over, they'd had enough of re-tooling, and here we are another 60 years later, still with a dumb layout.

Here are a couple of other links on alternative keyboard layouts, courtesy of altkeyboards:

Dvorak Tutorial: http://www.gigliwood.com/abcd/

General Info: http://www.theworldofstuff.com/dvorak

Humorous History: http://dvzine.org/

Another Input Solution: http://www.datahand.com/

Best of luck to your employee. Losing the use of ones hands is like ... losing the use of ones hands. Awful!

Placing common pair of keys far from each other, at random, and puting all the letters for typewriter on the top row effectively reduces the speed of the typist.

More on DVZine.

Placing common pair of keys far from each other, at random, and puting all the letters for typewriter on the top row effectively reduces the speed of the typist.

More on DVZine.

It's easy, that's how I did it. The current keyboard I'm using is actually QWERTY, but I've changed the locations of keys to match DVORAK and then I simply changed my keyboard type in X11 config file. Now I have a fully working DVORAK keyboard :)

So yeah, just use some tool, like a screwdriver, to pop up all the keys and then replace them to match dvorak.
Here's some tutorial on how to do it (with nice photos): http://dvzine.org/type/reconfig.html

  -- dbg

I rearranged the keys on my PowerBook G4 in about 10 minutes. I did this when I switched to Dvorak, but I decided to clean my keyboard (top and bottom) at the same time. The keys were remarkably easy to move around, especially compared to those in the keyboards in the original iBooks.

Now I'm looking for a way to change the default keyboard layout in the loginwindow...

As an aside, I referred to the onscreen Keyboard Viewer (found in the Localization status menu) extensively during my transition to Dvorak. I found that this was much more practical than the physical hard copy recommended by DVzine.org.

I had a number of "hand" problems in '98 and had to find a number of solutions--I needed arm bands to take care of the tennis elbow and I got a split keyboard to take care of the early Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but then I got a nasty little problem whose name I never caught. The ligaments or tendons or whatever that make your hands work when you type would become inflamed and pushed the bones apart in the back of my hands and they turned into little more than clubs. I tell you this because what many in this discussion have overlooked is the nature of the problem and how to solve it. The solution, Jamesh, depends on what problems you are experiencing or wish to prevent.

I took a three-pronged approach: I started learning Dvorak to A) slow my immediate typing down, which kept the clubs--er, hands from becoming inflamed as readily. I typed more slowly all day, but I could type for longer periods. B) By learning Dvorak, I could do the same work without as many "reaches" from the home row, which also kept my hands cooler. I had to take notes for programming changes and for whatever reason, that would cause my right hand to tighten up, so I started learning shorthand--not to write more quickly, but to write more easily. This turned out to be ineffective because I didn't write as much as I typed, so I dropped that approach. However, these days I use a modified version of Palm's Graffiti symbols to keep notes for myself. Cursive is too intensive for what it gives me and I can actually read my own handwriting better now than ever before. I do have to switch some things when I know someone else will read my handwriting, however. The third prong was to investigate alternative pointing devices, like touchpads and the like. However, plopping your hand down on a mouse and pushing your arm around on the table is less finger-intensive than anything else out there, so I ultimately abandoned that idea.

Today, I still type Dvorak everywhere I can, but some places I don't have priviledges to change the layout or I won't be at that particular keyboard long enough to bother. I switch back and forth all the time. In the beginning, however, I was tripped up by keyboard shortcuts, because I still wanted to ^C ^X ^V all down in the lower lefthand corner, but I got used to it. Also, it took awhile before I was able to switch back and forth quickly. I could do in about 5-10 minutes and the time reduced the more I got used to doing so. Today, I still have a couple of keys from Dvorak that I stubbornly will try to type in QWERTY and (surprisingly) vice-versa. The biggest one for me is that the Dvorak "E" is where the QWERTY "D" is located.

The way I learned was from something I found suggesting to start typing five minute stretches every day with a reduced set of letters. I would take a newspaper article and type for five minutes to a metronome set at about 30 beats per minute. I would type every vowel as it came up (left hand home row) plus the letter "M", because "M" and "A" are in the same place in both layouts, but I would hit the space bar for every other letter. After I got used to that, I would add 2 or 3 letters and kept doing so until I had the whole keyboard mapped out. At that point, I sped up the metronome a little at a type until I was typing at a decent speed. The point of the metronome is to keep you from typing quick little bunches and then pausing to figure out the next bunch, which is essential to building your speed. I've found that learning to touch-type the second time left me with better habits than when I first learned to type QWERTY. However, being a programmer, I will never be able to type very fast, because I have to punch in finger-locking symbols all day long.

If you want an option to trying to mentally switch before you're really comfortable doing so, try Dvortyboards: http://dvortyboards.com/ The last holdout resource on the web is DVZine: http://dvzine.org/

To answer your questions, I

One thing I noticed was that even at the very beginning, when typing was maddeningly slow, it just... felt right. When my finger would hit a key, it just felt like that was where the key should be. Hard to explain, really, until you try it.

Of course I also found that QWERTY (man that's weird to type!) is a bit harder to get back into. I bet I'd have trouble typing it because the switch is still so new to me. But people seem to agree that after you start typing QWERTY for a few minutes it comes back to you. Frankly, after getting used to Dvorak, I've never saw the point of using QWERTY for even that long. :)

On your own computer, the best bet is to buy a vinyl CafePress sticker from DVZine. I printed out my own, and it looked awful and the glue melted. The CafePress stickers are a lot better.

I really don't know how well you'll be able to type QWERTY, but like I said I bet if you need to use it it'll come back after 10 minutes or so. That, or you could use a USB keyboard or something.

The supposed "showdown" on Jay Leno was a highly unscientific and inaccurate test which pitted the world's fasted morse coder using very expensive morse equipment against a teenager using a cheap cell phone with a membrane keypad.

If the pro-morser had been forced to enter morse on a phone keypad instead of his $200 morsing 'bug' then I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have won. It takes several keypresses to send a single character in morse and just because it's morse, it doesn't mean that you can press the keys any quicker. He could only key quicker because of the equipment he was using.

Add to that the fact that it takes ages to learn morse and only a few minutes to learn standard texting or T9 predictive text, I think you'll find that the take up on morse on phones would be pretty much zero.

I think anyone's efforts would be better spent designing better keypads or improving predictive text rather than wasting time trying to put morse code (designed for carrier wave) onto a phone (designed for voice and data).

The only part of his idea that I think is sensible is the idea that you can answer and redirect calls without having to look for the key to press (not that I find that hard after I've had my phone a few days, because you know where the main green and red buttons are without having to look). Having said that, most phones have any key answer if you enable it, and on a lot of bluetooth handsfree kits you can answer and make calls using a single button and voice tags (obviously requires phone support).

Also, the reason morse is as fast as it is is because you hardly have to move your finger at all. The article author is suggesting that you use your fingernail for a "dit" and the flat of your finger for a "dah". This would be ridiculously slow and very painful after the first few characters as it would be a very unnatural movement!

If you want to type seriously fast on your phone, then you need a way to plug in a standard sized keyboard (preferably Dvorak!).

Look at this page, third row, second panel. The article claims that with 52 hours of training, you can be back to your QWERTY typing speeds.

Now, given that claim, you'd expect to be at least slightly proficient after a few days - enough so you'd 'have the hang of it'. A 'few days' seems perfectly reasonable.

I am much more pain-free on Dvoark

Not to engage in something as base as spelling flames, but it would help if the Dvorak advocates were to spell it correctly, including in the title of http://dvzine.org/type/index.html.

:-)