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Ah yes, the fable of the fable of Dvorak being superior. All I know for sure scientifically is that there is flawed data and personal bias supporting and refuting the superiority of the Dvorak keyboard. Read about some of it here: http://dvorak.mwbrooks.com/dissent.html

Ultimately I don't care what the conclusions of these studies are though. As an experienced Dvorak and Qwerty typist, I can say confidently that I find it more comfortable to type in Dvorak, since the letters I need are more frequently on the home row of the keyboard. I have heard many Dvorak typists agree with that assertion. Scientific? No. But possibly compelling.

I don't really care whether or not I'm slightly faster in Dvorak than if I'd invested the same time training in Qwerty because I can put out 80WPM on either, and I don't need to type stuff that quickly very often.

Proper touch-typing training in either keyboard will obviously improve your speed and ergonomic comfort.

http://dvorak.mwbrooks.com/unix.html#xmod

http://austinche.name/maemo/xmodmap.dvorak

http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/ukeyboard/

Happy to help.

And if you in turn wish to be enlightened, then I raise your unscientific and speculative debunking with... another unscientific and speculative debunking: http://dvorak.mwbrooks.com/dissent.html

There are many discussions arguing both sides of this issue for those interested. There is certainly controversy about the validity of the Navy's Dvorak study which concluded Dvorak was superior. And yet the head of the GSA study which concluded Dvorak offered no significant improvement (or worsening) of typing speed appeared to be strongly biased in favor of retaining Qwerty as a standard, and there are scientific validity issues with this study too.

I am not aware of any definitive and scientifically valid studies which compare Dvorak and Qwerty typing speeds and training times. And there has not been any study, even the GSA study, to make a reasonable claim that Dvorak was at all worse than Qwerty.

My personal unscientific opinion, as a converted Dvorak typist, is that if I had put the effort into learning Qwerty touch-typing that I did with Dvorak, then my speed would probably be comparable in each keyboard. Currently I can do about 80WPM in Dvorak, 50WPM in Qwerty, and I use Dvorak for over 90% of my typing. Perhaps more importantly is that in my personal experience the Dvorak keyboard is much more comfortable to use because my fingers move much less from the home row positions and have less same-hand repeat letter combinations than they would with Qwerty. This alone is enough for me to keep using Dvorak in a Qwerty world. This increased comfort *may* make it easier to type at yet faster speeds, 100WPM+, but I'm sure I could hit 80WPM in Qwerty if I had a reason to.

Actually, the whole thrust of the article was how myths get repeated enough that they become accepted as facts. In the case of QWERTY vs DVORAK, that while many people believe DVORAK was superior; properly conducted tests show no inherent advantage to the DVORAK keyboard. As a result, there is no reason to switch.

The artice, and the research it was based on, were both written by employees of a thinktank which set out to prove that the market always finds the best solution, and on misreadings of earlier research. They tried to "debunk" the idea that Dvorak is better than QWERTY because if it is true and the market-dominant QWERTY system was inferior, their thesis was wrong. With such a biased starting point, I'm not sure I trust anything they say or that their research was in any fashion neutral.

There's a very good article here which debunks the article we've been linked to here.

Common sense tells me that Dvorak would be a horrible choice. The layout is based on what letters are most common in english. Yay. For other languages, this doesn't make sense. Do you propose changing the layout completely between languages, or just enforcing the english ones in languages where it doesn't make sense?

There are alternate versions of QWERTY used in other countries, such as the AZERTY layout used in France and Belgium that has Q/A and W/Z swapped, M moved to the right of L, and all punctuation scattered randomly. People seem to be generally OK with this, so why should international versions of Dvorak work any differently?

Certainly Dvorak wouldn't be a good choice for all languages, but it should work pretty well for a lot of them. Keep in mind that most Americans are unilingual, and the most commonly used language other than English in this country is Spanish. The Dvorak layout should work pretty well for Spanish; a Spanish Dvorak layout swaps H/R and moves W to the left of P, with a few punctuation changes. Typing in Spanish on a US Dvorak keyboard would certainly be no more awkward than typing in Spanish on a US QWERTY keyboard (the Mac's Option key makes accents and punctuation much easier than on a PC).

Ever visit a foreign country and have to type a password for something? It's usually a very unpleasant experience. If you're lucky, the characters you used in your password all exist on the keyboard, it'll just take you a few minutes to find them. I don't think I ever did figure out how to type a ~ character on a Spanish keyboard; I believe pressing the ~ key followed by a space yields U+02DC rather than the desired U+007E. That makes typing certain URLs rather problematic as well.

Didn't you know that you can get a Dvorak layout on any keyboard? In almost any OS, the keyboard layout is defined in software. Check it out:
http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/support.html

You can pick up a split-key or "natural" style keyboard for about $20 if you look hard enough.

I switched to Dvorak about 5 years ago. My wrists and fingers are thanking me for it.

Could help bring Dvorak more into the mainstream?

I don't know what kind of crazy keyboard you're using, but on mine, the "i" and the "u" are right next to each other.

http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/layout.html

:-P

I made my own, (granted its white) but it's called using alcohol, qtips, and some extra time.
(By the way, it's a great way to learn dvorak http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/

While voice input will eventually become the de facto method for interfacing with 'puter, for now folks still use the keyboard.

Thus, the best thing you can do for your kids is teach them the Dvorak layout.

If you're not familiar with it, the standard "QWERTY" (named for the first six letters on the top row of a keyboard) layout was created in the 1870's by Christopher Sholes, inventor of the modern typewriter.

Mr. Sholes had a problem, in that the keys in his machine jammed if a person tried to type faster than a few words a minute. His solution was to re-arrange the letters on the keyboard to SLOW DOWN THE USER.

In the 1930's, August Dvorak, an efficiency expert, decided to see if he could improve on the design. The result was the Dvorak Simplified Layout.

We'll never know for sure, but odds are Dvorak did stand a chance to replace QWERTY. However, the outbreak of WWII - where many of the typewriter manufacturers of the time switched production to weapons - hindered its acceptance. By the time the war was over, none of the manufacturers wanted to re-tool their product, so Dvorak lapsed into obscurity.

Tests show that the average QWERTY typist's fingers move around 16 miles a day. With the Dvorak layout, it's down to around one mile a day. (Another way to say that is using the QWERTY layout requires sixteen times the effort as does Dvorak)

There are all sorts of claims that Dvorak is or is not faster than QWERTY , but speed is not the issue, it's effort. Dvorak is designed to reduce the amount of effort one must make to produce typed text (for example, all the vowels are under the left hand on the home row, with the most-used consonants under the right hand).

This reduced effort does help mitigate the effects of RSI, and for that reason alone it's good to teach it to your kids. Why help promote arthritis?

When first released over a century and a quarter ago, one ad campaign showed you could type the word "typewriter" using only the buttons on the top row. Well, that's great, but how many times do you type the word 'typewriter'? And look at the home row; one vowel, "A". With Dvorak, you can type hundreds and hundreds of words without leaving the home row.

For a time, the very popular typing program "Mavis Beacon" had a module for learning Dvorak. Not sure why, but they removed that module after version 5. Repeated attempts to contact them for an answer have been unsuccessful. Oddly enough, their latest version now teaches Spanish, but still won't teach Dvorak! Go figure.

For more information on the Dvorak layout, see: http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/

is bad enough, but alphabetical? If I was ever going to change typing style, I'd change to dvorak

As many of you will know, QWERTY was actually made to slow typists down (to most Slashdot readers however, it seems to have been ineffective) so an alphabetic arrangement, which was the original arrangement of letters on a typewriter AFAIK, would probably speed typing were anyone to learn it. However, some of you will have heard of the Dvorak keyboard layoyut, this was designed with speed in mind locating the most-used keys in the easiest to reach positions. (More about Dvorak: http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/). This seems to be almost stuck in the middle of two ideas: QWERTY being well-known; DVORAK being supposedly the best for speed and ergonomic typing. I'm not sure why anyone would buy this keyboard (or use this layout with another keyboard) although it could come in handy for teaching children to use computers - I know when I was first introduced to a computer I couldn't understand why the keys were where they were.

If stuff is really sensitive, cameras should have been kept out long before. Lock up the USB ports but allow camera? People will just print and snap.

Didn't anyone learn anything from watching old James Bond Movies? http://www.mwbrooks.com/submini/flicks/ Those old Minox camera even had the lanyard marked to let you know the proper focus distance for shooting a document.

It was a joke. http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/layout.html

A better question of course if if they'll have one that can take on an ergonomic shape, and also if keyboard trays are going to accomodate the extra keys on the left side.

The article you link is specious. One of the main ideas behind Dvorak is that it allows you to alternate keys; this guy claims the opposite (that QWERTY has more alternating hands.) Better is this site, which explains both the pros and cons of the layout.

To chip in on the main question, I've been using Dvorak for 5 years now and I can still touch type on QWERTY. I learned to touch-type Dvorak in about two weeks by taping a copy of the layout on my monitor.

I don't know about the studies, but all anecdotal evidence shows that dvorak is easier on the hands. Besides having more common keys on the home row, most english words are typed from the outside-in on the Dvorak layout, which is much easier to do (try tapping either way on your desk).

A reply to that at http://www.dvorak-keyboard.com/dvorak2.html

A more detailed refutation at http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/dissent.html

About a month ago me and two other developers at work took a few days and learned to type dvorak. We learned the layout by working through the website tutorial at http://www.gigliwood.com/abcd/abcd.html/ and printing out the keyboard layout image at http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/layout.html/ (It may also help to highlight the keys on the homerow on your printout). We only had to go through the tutorial once to learn the layout.

After a month, I still slip on some keys but all three of us are typing at about 40 wpm. I do find it more comfortable but it was a lot of work to learn it and I was useless as a developer for a week and a half. I still am pretty slow at vi and java is harder to code with the braces ({}) up where - and + are on QWERTY.

As far as switching back and forth, it isn't easy. Yesterday I used my wife's computer without switching it to DVORAK. I had to look at the keyboard a lot and I was definitely slower. It has also made typing in DVORAK harder today for the first ten minutes.

Overall, I would recommend the switch if you have the time. Good luck.

I've been using Dvorak for about three years now. I used to do tech support for several computer labs at a major university and I would type all day long. Like yourself, even though I used proper posture, aids, and so forth, my hands would hurt from all the constant typing at the end of the day.

Once I switched over to Dvorak, I never had any pain again. I can type faster, longer, and more accurately now. For about a week during the transition, it sucked because my muscle memory was inbetween QWERTY and Dvorak, but once you get past that hurdle, you'll have no problems.

As part of my job, whenever I'm not on my machine, I have to type in QWERTY. That happens alot since, well, no one else but myself uses Dvorak. I've not lost any memory of QWERTY and I do not have to hunt and peck. You could say I'm bikeyboardal. It's just like knowing two languages. So long as you're speaking both, you're not going to forget either. Same with QWERTY and Dvorak.

Brooks' site is probably the best overall Dvorak site on the web:

http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/

There's also a yahoo message board, altkeyboards, where Dvorak newbies and oldies discuss all manner of minutiae about that layout and others:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/altkeyboards/

If you're still skeptical of the benefits of Dvorak, use this QWERTY/Dvorak comparison applet and see for yourself.

http://www.acm.vt.edu/~jmaxwell/dvorak/compare.htm l

My right hand just gets to that l faster than my left gets to the c everytime.

brooks dvorak dissenting

Arguing that market forces will always select the better product is pretty ridiculous. Market forces may always select a product that is good *enough*, but it may be only a local maxima...

Found some on this page http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/national.html, as I was looking for a norwegian layout. There is a swedish layout there aswell.

The link to the norwegian dvorak layout is a bit wrong on the mwbrooks page the correct is http://www.stenling.no/dvorak/

The real joke is when you then change the keyboard mapping to Davorak and double your speed again. QWERTY was designed to be a--s s--l--o--w a--s possible to keep you from jamming the damn keys.

http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/layout.html
Its built into Most OS just change it now in your keyboard setting and give it a try.

You're wrong, John C. Dvorak did not invent the Dvorak keyboard layout on which I now type. It was pioneered back in the 30's, by Dr. August Dvorak. http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/ I hope you enjoy typing on your keyboard which was _designed_ to slow down the typist and be as inefficient as possible (to prevent typewriter jams). But I find Dvorak to be far superiour, and I had 110wpm on QWERTY. (140 on Dvorak) Furthermore, Dvorak is extremely well supported on all operating systems.

That would be the h, t, n and s buttons, you insensitive clod! (dvorak)

Seems to me that there have been a lot of attempts made to come up with better keyboard designs - Dvorak; that alphabetical keyboards; chordic keyboards; split keyboards; weird keyboards; other weird keyboards; and so on.

Call me when one of them has broad market acceptance.

Michael

Wow, you really didn't look very hard, did you?

http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/national.html

Better yet, have you even tried to learn Dvorak? The fact is that it's easier to learn and use than QWERTY. I made the switch a year ago, after typing QWERTY more than half of my life.

Short version. The two authors are economists who don't know crap about typing. Dvorak wrote a 500 page book about just typing of which only a small part was about his alternative keyboard. So, believe the suits or believe somebody who actually knows what he's talking about.

And here is some nice debunking of other myths about Dvorak, including that GSA study you cited.

It takes about a month to retrain, and employers can easily recoup this cost in fewer workers compensation and health insurance claims.

...i suggest a nifty ergenomic dvorak keyboard, you can get it on ebay fer a bit: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=51083&item=5149151249&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

They are a lot closer together if you're using a Dvorak layout. And yes, the parent should have at least RTFB (read the fucking blurb).

True, the QWERTY wasn't exactly designed with ergenomics in mind (rather to prevent the keys from jamming on early typewriters), unlike the Dvorak layout. I actually used a Dvorak for a short period and taught myself to type on one (albeit slowly) it eventually proved far too annoying being the only guy in the known universe to be using one of these.

Who cares if Dvorak takes over? It's not like everybody has to switch before anybody can use it. I think it's better, and that's why I use it. However, this is a different argument than whether it actually IS better, and whether it was designed for the sake of change.

There is an excellent description of the Dvorak layout on the web, along with a brief history. The inventor of the keyboard conducted extensive keyboarding studies that fed into the design; nevertheless they (and the studies that followed) can only be taken for so much truth before succumbing to the "lies, damn lies, and benchmarks" argument, usually due to whether you believe the study director was biased. Regardless, I think it's clear Dvorak designed the keyboard because he thought he could improve upon Qwerty, not because he just wanted to be different.

In a more general sense, I think it would be stupid to think we can't improve on things that already are functional standards. Quick show of hands: how many /. readers think Windows can't be improved on? How about another one: how many people think the plurality election method is the best one possible? How many people even know there are alternatives? (/. readers are an exception here). Criticizing folks for questioning the status quo is just bad for everybody.

Anyway, back to the point: you're right there's no real cry for improvement, but this could be due to any number of factors. Most people don't even know Dvorak exists; others already know Qwerty and are resistant to change; others have concrete practical reasons for using Qwerty, like the need to use special software like Autocad; or, Qwerty may just be better. Regardless, I don't think anybody's suggesting that everybody switch to Dvorak en masse.

Who cares if Dvorak takes over? It's not like everybody has to switch before anybody can use it. I think it's better, and that's why I use it. However, this is a different argument than whether it actually IS better, and whether it was designed for the sake of change.

There is an excellent description of the Dvorak layout on the web, along with a brief history. The inventor of the keyboard conducted extensive keyboarding studies that fed into the design; nevertheless they (and the studies that followed) can only be taken for so much truth before succumbing to the "lies, damn lies, and benchmarks" argument, usually due to whether you believe the study director was biased. Regardless, I think it's clear Dvorak designed the keyboard because he thought he could improve upon Qwerty, not because he just wanted to be different.

In a more general sense, I think it would be stupid to think we can't improve on things that already are functional standards. Quick show of hands: how many /. readers think Windows can't be improved on? How about another one: how many people think the plurality election method is the best one possible? How many people even know there are alternatives? (/. readers are an exception here). Criticizing folks for questioning the status quo is just bad for everybody.

Anyway, back to the point: you're right there's no real cry for improvement, but this could be due to any number of factors. Most people don't even know Dvorak exists; others already know Qwerty and are resistant to change; others have concrete practical reasons for using Qwerty, like the need to use special software like Autocad; or, Qwerty may just be better. Regardless, I don't think anybody's suggesting that everybody switch to Dvorak en masse.

Look at the Left/Right handed Dvorak Layouts. They were desiged for normal keyboards, but remap the configuration into something designed for fast input by someone with only one hand.

The plus side is that it doesn't require new hardware on any system- it's just a software change (and in most graphical UI(windows, Mac, KDE, etc) you can switch with a simple keystroke)

I personally use the 2 handed Dvorak for my day to day typing, and I'm much faster with it than I ever was with Qwerty (except when I have to type "Qwerty")

Link-
http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/

I also remember seeing 1 handed Handheld keyboards on Scientific American Fronteers a while ago, made by guys at MIT for wearable computers- Another completely different layout too- it used only 5 buttons, but used combinations to get all the keys on the keyboard.

Have you ever tried Dvorak? This piece is a good counterargument to that Reason article. And the authors miss the point. I use Dvorak and true, I don't type any faster than with QWERTY. But that's not the point. No one can say the Dvorak doesn't have better ergonomics. People use it for comfort, not for speed.

"...a keyboard that re-aranges the keys into a layout that is physically quicker to type with and makes more sense."

Here you go:
The Dvorak Keyboard

And the best part? All current OS's support it, even if the physical keyboard is still QWERTY.

P.S. Dvorak doesn't improve speed. That's a fallacy. Navy did a study, no improvement (even with newly trained typists).

While you're at it, why not make the switch to Dvorak? I did, and now that I've remapped my CAPS LOCK and ctrl I've never been happier! Or more ergonomic!!

And make your school offer Dvorak! Why are we teaching kids on old, badly designed key layouts???

http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/dissent.html

As you are probably aware, DVORAK is an alternate key layout that is based on statistical frequency-of-use of each letter. The QWERTY layout is a hold-over from manual typewriter days; its design was meant to SLOW DOWN the typist to prevent the metal hammers from jamming in the original typewriters.

I realize everyone has a huge investment of time and training using QWERTY, but we should certainly teach kids the better DVORAK layout. All major OSes natively support DVORAK, and after three years I can attest to its increased comfort and efficiency. Switching takes committment, but it's so much easier to learn and type.

This site has some info about DVORAK keyboard layouts.

Dvorak the PC Magazine columnist and the Dvorak keyboard layout are, perhaps surprisingly, unrelated. The keyboard is older than the columnist. It just never caught on until the era of computers, with their easily-remappable keys. (Arguably, it still hasn't really caught on; but anyway...)

just don't switch to the dvorak keybord!

This work reminds me of the work that Douglas Englebart was doing in the 1960s. And while I think this new interface work is great and needed I also believe that the biggest impediment to adopting new methods are cultural ones. While you could (and should) say that the delay in adoption of Englebart's ideas (windowing systems, a mouse for input) was the technical challenge of bringing these methods to home computing mahcines, you can't forget that cultural forces were also at work slowing down people's acceptance of the GUI.

But a more dramatic example of the slowness of cultural change is the fact that I am typing this on a QWERTY keyboard. Dvorak has been around for years but still we type on devices that show their Victorian age heritage. Even when there is no need at all for the random shuffling of the alphabet across the current keyboard in the way we use it!

Another fine example is the red-headed stepchild of the Englebart revolution; the BAT keyboard. The BAT is supposedly easier to learn to use (I've never tried it myself) than a regular keyoard and is also supposedly more ergonomic than a keyboard, as well. It is aslo easier on the joints (or so they say). Now it's mostly sold for people who have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other injuries/disabilities. But it was originally thought to be a better method for input for everyone (injured/disabled or not) to use.

Englebart was right about most things (which were later refined by others into the form in which we now recognize them), but the BAT just never caught on. Too different, probably, from what people had already been using for over a century.

Why would you buy a new keyboard? Just rearrange the keys on a QWERTY and choose a new keymap file (or change your Control Panel settings). Should handle most of the differences. I haven't tried this myself, but now I'm tempted. :)

Since you're coming at it fresh, you might consider typing on a Dvorak keyboard. I've typed on one for about seven years. While it's not significantly faster than a QWERTY, it is *far* more comfortable. I was up to about 80 WPM on a QWERTY when I stopped using it seven years ago, and can now do 100 on a Dvorak, which I might be doing on a QWERTY anyway. But, when you look at me typing on a Dvorak, I don't look like I'm typing that fast, because my fingers are barely moving compared to a QWERTY typer at the same speed.

Instead, we should be using the Dvorak keyboard which was designed in the Computer Age to allow faster typing by putting vowels on the home row and intuitive placement. I've seen some claims that once learned, you can type up to 80 wpm faster than on the qwerty. This is simple and already included in Windows, so why don't people use it? They don't like change.

So no, we have not perfected the keyboard, it is the exact opposite of perfect, but because people don't want change, we're stuck in the dark ages.

When I was learning Dvorak, I printed out a Dvorak keyboard layout and had it rest against my monitor and the function keys of my keyboard.

That way, when I _really_ needed to know where a letter was, I would just look at the picture, rather than the keyboard. After a few hours, you stop looking at the paper -- and you don't have to worry about starting the bad habit of looking at the keys on your keyboard.

You can still learn Dvorak on ergonomic keyboards / converted typewriters / etc without having to mash the carefully-designed hardware.