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Ergonomic Keyboards
I've asked this before, but it's been awhile so I'm interested in knowing what people are liking in ergonomic keyboards these days. For the last several months I've been using a split keyboard mounted on my chair, but while overall it is excellent, it is having some problems now (it randomly died, forcing me to reboot and lose my 81-day uptime, but mainly it has only two mouse buttons on the integrated pointer which just isn't cool). My wrists aren't in the greatest shape after typing pretty much non-stop for the last few years, so it's time to try a new keyboard. Anyone have good suggestions? What has worked for you?
I've found that every 5-6 months it becomes painful to type. At this point I need to take a week of vacation (Not less then a week, I've tried it) and let things heal. Come back to typing and I'm fine..
Those weeks of vacation are to do things that do not involve typing. Sometimes I go to a week long church retreat, other times I go hunting and fishing. Maybe just remodel the kitchen. Doesn't matter so long as I'm not using typing motions.
Between vacations I find wrist splints help - though what helps most is not using the mouse.
I talked to a guy that teaches UI design; one of the things he mentioned was that voice interfaces for extensive text entry actually just shift the physical problems - your wrists get better, but you start losing your voice from all the speaking you have to do. It's probably easier to recover from, though.
Regarding ViaVoice, I've been hacking on XVoice recently, since the maintainer is currently tied up on other things. I have it running well enough to use XVoice for working on XVoice. ;) So it can be used for coding. I'm hoping to release another patch this week, which allows complex commands like "go to line 234", "delete 5 lines", etc.
I'm finding two things important when working on code. First, it helps a *lot* to take advantage of scripting and completion capabilities of your editor, so you can say "copy this function", "move to the next function", "delete this switch block", or when entering variable names you only have to say the first couple letters & then use completion.
And second, when you need to send character commands (e.g. for spelling variable names, or sending commands you haven't mapped to phrases), it helps a *lot* to use a phonetic alphabet. ViaVoice (and people, for that matter) have trouble with "b" "p" "c" "t" "d", etc., all those "eeee" sounds are hard to distinguish. But if you map them to "alpha" "bravo" "charlie" "delta", etc., it works well, and as an added bonus you get to sound like an extra in Dr. Strangelove when you're writing code.
Pretty cool.
Anyone interested in XVoice can find info on freshmeat. I've posted some patches against the development version (0.7) on http://thecraftstudio.com/bcboy/xvoice. More to come, soon.
A friend of mine got the Kinesis Ergo Keyboard and loves it. www.kinesis-ergo.com. It does slow you down at first, and it will make it harder to type on a regular keyboard, but it is a real wrist-saver. It comes with QWERY layout but is designed to be able to switch to DVORAK and other layouts easily.
For the lazy, the summary of the keyboard is that it has depressed bowls in which the keys and layed-out. This means your hands are in a much more natrual pose. Also, big keys like return and space are pressed with strong fingers like the index and the thumb. I strongly suggest at least checking out the webpage. Its a pricy keyboard, but it pays for itself in RSI surgary avoidance.
--Nick
Ergo Keyboards are tempting, but are not a magic bullet solution to RSI. The very statement above makes a strong statement: "I've been treating my body in a manner inconsistent with its design." This can be as simple as bad posture, typing technique, and/or insufficient breaks. It may also point towards a need for a more physically active lifestyle in addition to the above. (Kudos to the poster who recommended Aikido or some other physical activity -- sedentary life is the bane of the geek.)
I strongly suggest that anyone exhibiting symptoms of RSI, or who feels they may be at risk, read Repetitive Strain Injury: A Computer User's Guide by Emil Pascarelli, M.D. and Deborah Quilter. This book can help you identify many common bad habits related to extended keyboard use. This includes posture while at the computer, wrist position, taking breaks, relevant stretching and exercise, and more.
RSI needn't be localized to the wrists, even if it feels like it is. The entire upper body musculature (shoulders, neck, upper arms, lower arms, wrists, hands) is involved in providing support as you type. Double-crush syndrome is where nerves are pinched at multiple locations such as at the shoulders and at the elbow. Each individual nerve impingement is not enough to cause a problem, but the two in conjunction can impair hand/wrist function. The problem can often seem to be a "wrist problem" when it is actually more insidious than that.
To use myself as a case study, I was feeling wrecked in the wrists after writing and defending my Ph.D. proposal. The above book helped me to identify many problems. E.g. I'd gotten away for years with bad upper body posture while at the keyboard, not taking enough (or any) breaks, bad mousing habits, and more. The above book helped me to identify these problems and learn to correct them. Even with that knowledge, recovery was a long and uncertain time. Since then, I have made it a point to become more active, including a whole-body approach to strengthening and stretching.
That said, this book can also help you determine if you require medical help. At its worst, RSI can permenantly and severely impair your ability to use your hands, leaving you weak and in pain.
If anyone would like more details, other book references, etc. please reply via email, removing all 'spam' from my email address.
Haven't we had this discussion exactly one year ago? That you posted?
:)
Well, there's always Dvorak, though the benefits of that are up in the air. (My inciteful comment on that topic (#47) was soundly defeated. (#190)
I'm not certain that it would help, but you could get a big keyboard and feel like the world's tiniest geek.
And there's those cool one-handed keyboards. Again, I don't know if it would help, but you could use two of 'em and multi-task fiercely.
Of course, the all-thumb keyboard. It's essentially ASL, but while wearing a glove. This one is my personal favourite. Probably not as good for coding (there's a convenience, or at least a learned one, to the location of the squiggly brackets, carets, parenthesis, etc.)
Oh, and programs like ViaVoice. Those are more and more highly rated. Again, probably not good for coding, but a hell of a start. Perhaps that combined with another keyboard, like a chording one, might do ya' right.
My uncle only has the use of three fingers on one hand and two on the other. (airplane hangar doors are heavier than they look) He has had great success with voice recognition software. (under Windoze admittedly) He can compose and send entire emails without touching the keyboard. The keyboard will never dissappear, but it's days as a primary interface may be limited.
Thank you for not thinking.
Years ago, when the Microsoft Natural keyboard was first released I happened to win a little Microsoft contest that basically gave me a lot of free stuff.
One such item was a MS Natural Keyboard. I love it a lot, and when i'm typing on my laptop or a regular keyboard for a while I get wrist pain.
A word of caution however:
1. These split keyboards often put some keys in odd places (backslash, backspace, enter, the number six and seven and a the ever so important forward slash). TRY IT OUT FIRST! Go to CompUSA or your local computer store and try one out... or make a friend buy it first... or hell, but it and return it later if you don't like it. I like the MS one because I like the layout, the large keys, and the way its split.
2. These don't cure your wrist, and it is still up to you to start relaxing a bit. Take a break every hour (pickup a smoking habit if you have to). It is sometimes hard in the middle of hacking to leave your code, but do it anyway.
Find a keyboard that fits your hands. You dont want to be all over the place, and you also want keys that you don't have to punch down with a lot of effort. One of the nicest feeling keyboards (and loudest) was my old Zeos AT keyboard.
The Microsoft Natural Elite (released 98 I think) is crap. They just released a new Natural that looks the same as the original, except with these stupid internet keys up top. (do these work in linux at all.. can i remap them? anyone done this?)
Also, look into getting a quality typing brace.. they feel good.
Your other option is to continue using whatever keyboard you have in hopes that you can retire at 31 as a multi millionaire.
- Hugh
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
burger flipping also contributes to RSI.
Carpal tunnel, for example, is caused by (please don't fault me because I don't know the correct terminology) friction between your tendons and the sleeves that encase them. The friction causes wounds, the wounds scar, and that's bad.
You can have the strongest wrists in the world (try one of those martial arts that involves grabbing people. Wow!) and you can still get carpal tunnel. It's a friction thing (corrected, I believe, by better posture -- but see my advice below).
Basically, consult a physician if you want a physical solution rather than a hardware solution. Wrist strength wouldn't help you if have carpal tunnel, better posture wouldn't help you if you had weak wrists. Only one good way to find out.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
I'm typing this on my Kinesis keyboard. I don't leave home without it, literally, on long trips where I'm going to be typing a lot.
/. Found the old discussion on the same topic. Found Kinesis recommendations. Went to their site, read endorsements from people I knew. Was impressed. Conned company into buying keyboard for me. It arrived....
;-)
.bashrc heavily. I have lots of little aliases that save me from typing things like "vi index.ph3pf" or "cd /home/httpd/com/" dozens of times per day. More macros == good, as long as they're well designed.
;) I like the feel of the little iMac kbd, but after a few days, it was killing my wrists again.
;)
Here's my deal. Nearly 20 years of computer use have taken their toll. I remember having wrist pain when I was 12 after playing Ultima IV for waaaay too long one day. By the time I was 22, it'd become a chronic problem. Finally, last year, I started investigating ways to deal with it, as it was simply becoming debilitating and too painful to deal with. I was having trouble picking things up sometimes. Bad news.
Thinking fast, I looked up this topic on
...and wow. Two weeks of using it as directed (it comes with a manual you should definately read, and advise that you should definately follow), my wrist pain had eased tremendously. I can now do push-ups with only a hint of discomfort. Before, my wrists would have buckled.
One of our developers has his plugged into his G4, which has no ADB ports -- it's USB only. Happily, the keyboard's "natural" port is a PS/2 keyboard port, which can easily be adapted to Apple ADB, or to USB. This is good, as sooner or later I'm going to have more USB hardware.
I also got a good three-button mouse. Being a PowerPC (read: Apple hardware) user, my computers shipped with one-button mice. Having a three-button mouse with Linux is darn near necessary, and I was tired of using our keyboard shortcuts for the mouse buttons. The new mouse (USB, plugged in via a PCI USB card) helped a lot. Less keystrokes == good.
Other things: I bought the foot switch for the Kinesis along with the kbd. I got the 2-btn switch, which is programmable (like the keyboard). It mostly does the shift key for me. It's nice. I should use it.
Other: Customize
So, Kinesis in my experience has turned my life around, insofar as my computing life. I get pain when I have to use other keyboards for a long time, like when my hard disk crashed and I had to use her iMac. (It's got LinuxPPC and the MacOS installed.
Exercise also helps. We geeks probably don't get enough. But anyway. Kinesis. I'd endorse 'em for the company. Do you hear me, Kinesis?
-- haaz.
Bottom line -- it's a very unique keyboard and has a lot of dedicated users, but it isn't for everyone and it has a high price tag and learning curve. And they lied about their money back guarantee. After I tried to return mine, I got hit with a very hefty restocking fee.
Personally, I would love to see a speech recognition product that lets me type with noises. Forget word/phrase recognition! It should be possible to make audio character recognition much more accurate. To me, this would be the real hand-saver. Open source, anyone?
Hey.. Rob, I was thinking of trying that very same keyboard despite the somewhat prohibitive cost. Would you recomend using? I'de wrather keep using my regular mouse if that's possible - maybe mount it seperately on the chair
itself... Any thoughts?
I am wondering exactly when in the process of typing with a "normal" keyboard do you develop wrist degradation or damage. I have been typing for a while and still suffer no damage that I can tell.
What level of actual improvement are these keyboards over standard things you would find on a typewriter or a computer.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Wrists sore? Here's your solution: Aikido.
No, it's not a keyboard, it's not a hardware manufacturing company, or even anything (directly) related to computers. It's a martial art, and it does wonders for wrist strength.
I've been using a dinky flat keyboard for six years, and have been training with Aikido for half that time, and believe me, the second half of those six years were the better. Though I'm not suggesting every geek join a dojo, I am suggesting that every geek with sore wrists go out and do something physically demanding which will strengthen them.
Funny looking keyboards can help reduce strain, but if you want to be rid of bad wrists, you've got to strengthen them before you weaken them any further. Aikido worked for me, find something that works for you.
------------
"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
Disclaimer: I'm about to marry a professional ergonomicist. :-)
Take a look at the message subjects, ( "I don't leave home without my Kinesis kbd" and "I HATE the Kinesis kbd!" ) you'll find the single most important and fundamental truth of ergonomics.
We're all built differently.
There is no single solution. There is no solution that will work for more than a certain percentage of the population. Furthermore, when you start to push your limits, the percentage that a given solution works for drops drastically.
Let's apply this specifically to keyboards.
If you use a keyboard for an hour or two per week, you can probably get away with almost any keyboard on the market. If you use a keyboard an hour a day, then some general purpose keyboards won't work for you. Others will. If you use a keyboard eight hours a day (or more!), then you are pushing the limits of what your hands and wrists can sustain, and will have to find the _precise_ ergonomic solution that works best for you. In other words, you have to go out and try as many keyboards as you can to find the one that causes the least problems ***FOR YOU***!!! The guy beside you might have stronger forearm muscles, narrower shoulders, double-jointed knuckles, or a thousand other more subtle variations which would make his perfect solution a disaster for you. EXPERIMENT! Try 'em all out, and try 'em again.
However, there's another side to the coin. If you're looking to minimise pain and/or damage, there's a good chance you're spending too much time at it. With the death of mechanical typewriters and manual carriages, we're currently often spending eight solid hours typing (with the odd bit of mousing on the side--the next time you give your sweetie a backrub, pay attention to where the tightest muscles are. If they use a computer extensively, I almost guarantee it'll be on their mouse side), without moving any other parts of our bodies. This is not what we were designed to do!
Make a point of getting some flexing in during the day. Get up and walk around for a minute every half hour or so. Shake your hands out after typing a long block.
If, after finding a good ergonomic solution and loosening up your muscles, you're still suffering, take a (real--weeks!) break, and see a professional.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban