Dvorak Layout Claimed Not Superior To QWERTY

Michael Pyne sends in an article published at Reason Online 13 years ago, dismantling the entrenched myth that the Dvorak keyboard layout is a superior technology to QWERTY. The odd thing is that this 13-year-old article recaps research (refereed and published in a respected economics journal) 19 years ago. While we have discussed Dvorak many times over the years, I don't believe we have dug into this convincing-sounding refutation of the Dvorak mythology. The article is in the context of arguing against the conventional wisdom of "first mover advantage" — that the first product to market gains a large entrenchment benefit, such as VHS vs. Beta, MS-DOS vs. anything, etc. It's very much a pro-markets piece.

Comments

Dvorak

[gEvil (beta)]

Is that old blowhard at it again? Why do you keep posting stuff about this bozo?

Re:Dvorak

[jonasj]

Blaarrh.... old joke.

Though I wouldn't want to type on him.

Re:Dvorak

[reboot246]

Hey, I like Dvorak! His New World Symphony is awesome.

Re:Dvorak

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed your handle was about sexual intercourse with ancient computing equipment. I've descended to inform you that no electronic machinery will surpass the conventional branches of sexual intercourse, and doing what you do could be a danger to your health.

Thanks.

Re:Dvorak

[martin-boundary]

Poor guy. So young, and already typecast...

Not good enough

[astrosmash]

The world is full of people who tried Dvorak and didn't think it was all that special.

Re:Not good enough

[digitalchinky]

I quite literally scraped off all the key labels from all my keyboards both at home and at work. It doesn't just discourage the keyboard illiterate, it actually leaves them questioning your sanity, so they tend to stay well away.

Re:learning curves

[x78]

clearly never played EVE-online

gotta say

[EpsCylonB]

tl;dr

Re:gotta say

[ChienAndalu]

Still learning the new layout?

.nnw C mgoy oaf

[windsurfer619]

Ydco b., nafrgy co k.pf jrbugocbi abe jrgby.p cbygcyck.

Re:There's more to Dvorak than the two-handed layo

[Anonymous Coward]

... right, you just watch a lot of porn.

Re:i like dvorak but stick with the standard qwert

[SteveWoz]

Italian doesn't have a 'y'? Well, at least Italy does.

OMG HaXX0r!

[Mr. Underbridge]

I know that the Slashdot editing has a very low reputation around here but I was pretty interested to see how much work was done on this article writeup. You can see mine at the Firehose entry. The Slashdot editor even went to the trouble of looking up prior Dvorak-related articles (and taking the trouble to notice the article I submitted was 13 years old -- whoops)

Wow, you're right. I'll fire off an email to Taco letting him know that kdawson's account has been hacked. That sort of compromise can't be tolerated, even if it's by a benevolent professional editor.

Re:Depends on the Language

[Veggiesama]

For an example of a keyboard for a non-Latin alphabet, look at the alternate symbols on this Japanese keyboard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MacBookProJISKeyboard-1.jpg

Obviously, that's not a real Japanese keyboard, because it's missing they keys for ^_^, o_O, and =3.

Re:i like dvorak but stick with the standard qwert

[Sique]

But Italy is called Italia in Italy ;)

Re:i like dvorak but stick with the standard qwert

[commodoresloat]

y?

Well

[Merc248]

I don't know about you guys, but I prefer QWERTY because I can easily type "lol" repeatedly on one hand while having the other hand ready to cover my mouth in laughter, depending on how many "lol's" I type.

This comes really handy in conversations which use internet in pluralized form and conversations with cats with "lol" as the prefix.

Re:There's more to Dvorak than the two-handed layo

[snowgirl]

... WTF doesn't Slashdot understand UTF-8 input?