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Back and Forth Between Qwerty and Dvorak?
jamesh asks: "I'm interested in switching over to an alternate keyboard layout, probably Dvorak, before I begin to suffer any effects of RSI. I'm almost 30 and have been typing since I was about 8, and these days spend most of my workday in front of a computer, typing away at a keyboard. I've searched the Internet and most people's comments are that within a few months they were up to or faster than their previous speed, with better accuracy. I'm mostly a programmer, but I do spend time at client sites and do need to spend time at various users computers to have a look at whatever hole they've dug themselves into, and so I will need to switch between QWERTY and Dvorak mode fairly frequently.
What others have found when switching back and forth, as required? Can you mentally just flip back between them, or do you 'lose' your QWERTY skills and become 'hunt & peck' when faced with the old keyboard layout?"
I tried the switch out last year when I was starting to get RSI. Despite what people say, you can mentally flip between Qwerty and Dvorak without much of a problem. I noticed my Qwerty speed slowed down some because I'd hit a wrong key occasionally, but nothing major. Just make sure you have a good two weeks when you don't need to type much else. I used this site to learn dvorak.
In the end, I really just stopped using Dvorak. I got over the beginning effects of RSI by not typing much and keeping my wrists straight when I did. Posture's important, too. But my typing speed in Dvorak never exceeded my Qwerty speed, so I just stopped using it. I can still type around 20 wpm with Dvorak, but I really don't have a use for it.
For linux users: "setxkbmap dvorak" and "setxkbmap en_US"
I switched to dvorak about 5 years ago with a kenisis keyboard. I definately like it a lot better than querty...but I have no real problem switch between the two...as long as you go back to querty once in a while you should not have a problem. I would say that my querty speed has only dropped by about 20% and my dvorak speed is about 50% faster than my original querty speed. Just make sure you get used to the means to switch the layouts if you plan on playing games...I have to use querty to play WoW.
My comments may be crap...but they are my crap...and I am brave enough to stand by them...Never post as AC!
I used to type at about 60 wpm on qwerty, within 2 weeks (I went cold turkey, not allowing myself to type qwerty at all) I passed that on dvorak, settling in somewhere around 80-90 wpm. At that time, I could barely type qwerty anymore. But now, 2 years later, my qwerty skills have recovered to about 50wpm. I find it very hard to type qwerty on my computer, and it takes me a few minutes to get used to it if I am able to type dvorak on other people's machines. Somewhere in my brain my computers got connected with dvorak, and all others to qwerty.
I HIGHLY recommend the switch. I type faster, and can do so for longer.
I have no problems flipping back and forth between the two layouts. It's a lot like 2 languages - I can say one sentence in English and the next sentence in Spanish without any problem, so why not keyboard layouts?
With that said, if you totally switch over to Dvorak, your Qwerty skills will get rusty - just like if I don't speak a foriegn language for a while I'll start to forget parts of it. My solution is to have my main machines Dvorak, and let the lesser used machines, and machines that would be hard to switch (like laptops) stay Qwerty. That way, I get practice in both layouts on a daily basis, while still enjoying the benefits of Dvorak most of the time.
Even more useful is the ability to use QWERTY keyboard shortcuts with a DVORAK layout. When typing normally without holding a modifier, the keyboard is pure DVORAK. With this option enabled, holding Command or Option will make it revert back to QWERTY until you let go again. This means you can use the familiar Command+Z/X/C/V shortcuts (for example) from their convenient position near the modifiers without having to stretch all over the place.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
I agree, i'm a teacher, and the computer lab is all qwerty, and i'm able to type fairly quickly on them (but then again, i never learned to touch type with querty) while it only takes a couple of minutes to get back up to speed with dvorak after a while away from it.
I find that I can switch back and forth between QWERTY (for English) and AZERTY (for French) pretty easily.
You may want to consider the SafeType keyboard.
It gives you ergonomic benefits that no "ergonomic" bump-in-the-middle keyboard comes close to.
Besides, does Dvorak make that much of a difference? Sure, the layout might be marginally better but you're still twisting your wrists 90 degrees to make your hands parallel with it (pronation), you're then angling your elbows in 45 degrees and your hands back out 45 degrees to line up with it (deviation), and you're still, likely, tilting it (extension)putting even more stress on.
A better arrangement of keys is only going to do so much for you. At the end of the day, you've still got extension, deviation and pronation going on - even if you're marginally reducing stress within those three.
The SafeType sorts all three out. Lower your arms by your sides. Now lift your forearms up so your elbows are at 90 degrees. Nothing else. That's it. You're done. Your arms are in a massively more neutral position, your carpal tunnel is now straight, letting the tendons run through without rubbing against it, all is good in your world. Wouldn't you prefer a keyboard like that to one that's just as bad as every other keyboard with a marginally better layout?
The other advantage of the SafeType is that, if you can already touch type, once you stop overthinking it, you can already use it. All the keys are still in the QWERTY position - they're just broken in to two vertical blocks. Most people I've watched are up and using it within ten minutes, typing naturally within an hour or so.
That advantage translates in to backwards compatability - you're still using QWERTY so you can transfer to a client site without ever having to make a mental switch.
I've tried a lot of ergonomic options and this one's by far the best. It's not cheap - at about $300. Then again, if you're worth anything as a developer, you likely earn that in a single day or less. Isn't one day's pay worth ensuring your career last another 20 years? One day's pay is a lot less than no more days' pay.
(Note: I reviewed the keyboard for one of the IEEE magazines. At the time I was impressed but had enough minor issues that I regarded it as only useful for those who had problems they needed to immediately address. After the review, I kept using it - and I'm completely willing to admit I was wrong. It's a great keyboard and, honestly, well worth the price for anyone who works with computers all day every day.)
Have you done other things to prevent RSI?
Things like making sure your desk and chair are the right height? Also it might make sense for you to not just change the layout, but change the keyboard. Either use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard or something like this: Maltron Keyboard
I've used Dvorak as my primary keyboard layout for about a year and a half now (I'm typing in it now, in fact). Switching took a while -- about 2 weeks for my Dvorak speed to pass my QWERTY speed, but I'm never going back now.
However, I can't use it all the time. At work, I type in QWERTY about part the time. Switching back and forth for me is no problem. After a few keystrokes of thinking where each key is, I'm back up to my old QWERTY speed (which is slower than my Dvorak speed). Dvorak is more "natural" to me, and the QWERTY->Dvorak switch is much easier than the other way around.
I've noticed that if I think about which keys I'm typing, I tend to mess up the layouts, but if I don't think about it at all, I have no problem. I can't explain it any more than that.
The worst part about switching back and forth is the punctuation. A friend of mine that also made the switch commented to me on this, so it's obviously not just me. Maybe this is because punctuation is silent, and is learned a different way than other keys?
For most typing, this isn't a problem. The odd time I'll typo a period as a V or an E, but that's that's few and far between. Programming I can now only really do in Dvorak, because of how common punctuation is. However, I rarely do programming on any computer that I cannot switch to Dvorak, and so I just always use Dvorak for that.
I do recommend switching to Dvorak.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 Whoops, silly middle mouse button...
Shameless plug for a Windows solution.
"Ask me about Loom"
Parent is not a troll. The guy typed his response using qwerty skillz on a dvorak keyboard. Now if I only new the dvorak layout to decrypt that... or would that be a violation of the DMCA?
Exactly. Most of the "benefits" of the DSK (Dvorak) keyboard are pure hype. Read and learn. You should be concerned with the design of the keyboard as a whole, rather than the order of the keys.
from the
Don't see how this could provoke indignant responses. Confused, perhaps, but there was a certain logic underlying the post, and it certainly isn't hard to decipher given the overall topic of discussion - and someone's already done so.
There were no distortions of truth in this, no attempts to mislead, it was relevant to the topic of discussion, and, well, if you're here you're probably wasting time anyway, so, no, I don't think it's a troll, I think someone went trigger happy with the moderator button.
So over the past 9 years of Dvorak use I've found myself switching less and less. Here's an estimate of how my Qwerty speed was affected by Dvorak use:
Week 1 - Dvorak 10% of present speed (130 wpm), Qwerty 100% of original (pre-switch) speed (110 wpm)
Week 2 - Dvorak 30%, Qwerty 90%
Month 2 - Dvorak 80%, Qwerty 90%
Year 1 - Dvorak 95%, Qwerty 70%
Year 2 - Dvorak 100%, Qwerty 60%
Year 5 - Dvorak 100%, Qwerty 50%
Year 9 - Dvorak 100%, Qwerty 50%
Something like that. It now takes me longer to get over the "shock" of switching to Qwerty, too, maybe a day instead of 10 minutes...
One option for frequent "switchers" is to use Dvorak for typing, and Qwerty for commands. Mac OS X comes with a "DV - Qwerty command" keymap that lets you keep your muscle memory for all those command (CTRL)-C, V, etc. combinations. And it should be theoretically possible to set this up under Unix with an appropriate xmodmap, too.
Good luck!
How much would you hate to invent something used by hundreds of millions of people every day and have no one know that you invented it.... The qwerty keyboard layout was invented by a mister Sholes (i think we all know why- because it is the layout that leads to the fewest typewriter hammers sticking together during normal typing), so why not call it the Sholes layout to stave off any qwert v. qerty confusion....
I am guessing that it is much like second language skills- Studies are always showing that the younger you are when you pick up a second language, the more easy it is to become conversationally fluent.
I used to be fluent in German and had an easy time switching between English and German (Please no jokes from our fine British friends about how we Yanks aren;t fluent in English...). But the the greater the difference in ratio between the two, i.e. if I spoke 30 % German for a week and 70% English, it was tougher to go back into German right away...
I wonder if people who are bi/multi lingual have an easier time switching between keyboard layouts, as they are used to switching between things.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
"Yes, you might make sme goofs on whichever keyboard you're not using full time."
I'm not even sure it's that dire a circumstance. When I'm on qwerty, I don't think I make any more typos than I did before I started using Dvorak.
For me, the only effects I've noticed is typing the first few words in the wrong layout immediately after switching and having to delete them.
(Windows's treatment of layouts exacerbates this problem because it keeps the active layout on a per-application instead of a system-wide basis, so you'll be typing along happily, change windows, and BAM, you're in the opposite layout. There have been many times when I've been appreciative of the way it does things, but overall I think it causes more headaches than it solves.)
damnit, why do my modpoints expire just before threads like this spring up.
Dvorak keyboards have only won in tests administered by Dvorak himself.. The truth is that he was looking to make money off of his patented configuration.
Still, the Dvorak story is very interesting to me in a sociological sense. The Dvorak keyboard's superiority has existed as a sort of counter-culture convential wisdom but has all the underpinnings of an "urban legend" -- a false or heavily-embellished story that survives because the story evokes a strong emotional response, serves as a cautionary tale and/or plays into feelings or ideas felt by a community. In this case the Dvorak story survives not because of the flimsy, circumstantial "proof" but rather because it evokes people's sense of outrage of the "Little Guy with new ideas" being unable fight the tide of convention.
That said, there *are* keyboards specifically designed to be easier on your fingers. I like the split keyboards because it's easier to keep my wrists straight.
Switch, you'll be fine.
I use QWERTY at work and when I'm doing work on other people's PCs. I do fine on QWERTY for letters for the most part but have a little more difficult time finding punctuation marks without looking for them.
Dvorak is ideal for programmers and anyone who uses brackets etc... since they seem to fall in more ergonomic places.
I was having to do some PHP coding on someone else's computer with a QWERTY layout and my only issue was when I had to put in quotation marks and curly brackets. Other than that, I type about 70wpm (QWERTY), a far cry less than the 140 I used to go at, but when I'm at home it's a different story.
This applies more than usual in this case. The guy said that he's a programmer.
Any benefit to be gained by moving the keys into a less-movement-more-natural order for English is likely to be minimized or lost completely when writing code.
Besides, if you haven't seen a Dvorak keyboard -- you should see what it does to your CTRL-* key combinatons! That brings most "power-users" to tears.
It was "designed" for touch typing natural english, not for programming. There are quite a few common commands that were easy to type on Qwerty but become finger-twisters on Dvorak.
That being said, I do use Dvorak. But I am not a 100% all day programmer -- most of my typing is natural english.
I have to agree. I switched about 3 years ago, after several years of wrist pain. I've hardly had pain like this since.
And to answer the original poster, I'm afraid I've become hunt-and-peck on QWERTY, except for certain words such as my userID, which I have to enter in QWERTY mode on occasion before my layout preference has taken effect.
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
The world record for words per minute (170) was typed on a Dvorak keyboard.
h tml
http://sominfo.syr.edu/facstaff/dvorak/blackburn.
- IP
There's been research that shows that people who use typing a lot in their lives do not develop RSI in any greater percentage than in those who do not.
That's funny. I'd like to see that research. Or any reference you could provide.
I've been typing away at a PC for a few hours a day for the last fifteen years. It wasn't until I started binge coding (8-10 hours a day) in 2002 that I began to develop RSI. By the end of 2002 I was wearing ice packs on my arms halfway through the day, and mixing painkillers in my coffee. One month I emptied every first aid kit in the building of cold packs quicker than they could replace them.
I've since left that situation, and am back to 2-3 hours a day. RSI gone, of course. But I really think that a better keyboard arrangement would have helped.
JB
I actually did this back in 1999 or so, for similar reasons. I found it pretty easy to learn Dvorak. It did help with pain, but I suspect this had more to do with slowing down and learning how to type (any layout) "correctly" than it being a more ergonomic layout. After about 3 years, I ended up going back to QWERTY. Several reasons why I switched back:
It's been maybe 2 years since I switched back, and surprisingly I can still type fluently on Dvorak. Probably because I learned "proper typing" for Dvorak, whereas with QWERTY I was just winging it.
I am not a doctor, but here is what has helped me concerning pain while typing: learn to type (your country's native layout) PROPERLY. Use BOTH sides of the keyboard when chording. You have two shift keys, two ctrl keys, two alts, etc. Don't try holding down ctrl with your left pinky while you press another key with the same hand. I think programmers are notorious for this kind of behavior (even to the point of turning caps lock into a 3rd ctrl key.) And use your caps lock when typing more then 2 capital letters in succession. All of this will slow you down a lot in the beginning, but I think the end result is well worth it.
I have no commented about the RSI~~But I would like to share my changing experience here.
:)
Of course I were also an QWERTY user for more than 10 years, and I decided to change to Dvorak two years ago for fun. Now I can type in both layout, without any speed loss. I dunno if I do type faster in Dvorak or not but I feel that it gives much less loading on my hands. However, it takes some time to adopt the Copy and Paste shortcut, because the CXV combination were designed for QWERTY, now I prefer using Ctrl/Shift+Ins/Del more than Ctrl+CXV for that.
Some word for Changjie Typist: BTW, I am a Chinese (Cantonese to be exact) speaker living in Hong Kong, and of course I do type Chinese (Traditional) a lot too, using the famous ChangJie IME. At almost the same time, I changed my Chinese IME from ChangJie to http://www.array.com.tw/Array, again for Fun and geeky feeling...However things doesn't happen like QWERTY->Dvorak, I have a long period forgetting/messing up with my ChangJie skill. I would conclude that because the fundemental idea of ChangJie and Array is similar, and we learn Chinese IME by remembering the building blocks but not by key and hence the result. It takes almost a year for me to be able to type equally fast with ChangJie.
Anyway, I would encourage everyone to change to Dvorak, and in fact three more people have been a Dvorak typist since then
I switched to dvorak for a couple of weeks, just to see how it was. It is ok for typing letters, and such things, but for programming it's really anoying. For example, the > chars for html are not so handy, and *all* shortcuts are messed up...
If you take your time to fix all shortcuts and such things, then perhaps you gain something...
It's very simple.
If you don't want severe RSI do not use Emacs, and certainly do not use Richard Stallman's default key bindings. Stallman has some of the worst RSI in the industry but apparently no-one has thought to put it down to Emacs. My friend Andy Gavin also has severe RSI and he's a long-time Emacs user. I used Emacs for 2 years and developed RSI. It went away again when I switched back to Dev Studio.
Ctrl+X as the first combo of two is a killer for anyone with a human hand.
I never use the numeric section on my keyboard. I'm not an accountant. Yet it has been occupying my desk space for many years now. I want keyboard's without that fluff.
The Maltron, however, makes it the center of their design. *ploink*
I do the same between AZERTY and QWERTY; in Belgium, AZERTY is the default keyboard layout, but some friends swear by QWERTY for coding and sometimes I have to use their comps. And what's worse: lots of games even in this day and age have the keyboard layout hardcoded to QWERTY instead of just asking the OS what character corresponds to the pressed key, so this means I have to switch between the two fairly often. Although I'm not as fluent in QWERTY than in AZERTY I can type on a QWERTY board pretty well.
So I wouldn't bother too much; your QWERTY skills are pretty much hardcoded in your brain by now, and it's like riding a bycile... You may not ride it as well as ten years ago if you haven't ridden a bike during that time, but you'll still be able to get to where you wanna be.
I must admit though; the difference between AZERTY and QWERTY is of course a lot smaller than the difference between QWERTY and DVORAK, so YMMV. For me, the trick is to type in a made-up language: type a Z wherever I want to type a W, type a Q wherever I want to type an A, switch the M and the ","... This trick would probably not work to make the switch between QWERTY and DVORAK.
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?