Is It Time To End Our Love Affair With the QWERTY Keyboard?

Master Moose writes "Brisbane-based entrepreneur John Lambie currently has in beta an alternative to what he calls the 'dysfunctional' QWERTY keyboard. Given the way the world is abandoning their keyboards for smartphones he sees now as the perfect time to introduce a new layout. He calls his new keyboard Dextr and believes it is the natural progression from using a number pad to enter text — This is especially so in developing countries where users have not grown up with QWERTYs on thier phones. While he is not the first to ever propose an alternate or alphabetical keyboard — Are we locked into QWERTY for familiarity's sake, or as we shift to smaller, more mobile and new devices, is Mr. Lambie's project coming at the right time?"

Comments

No

[Anonymous Coward]

No. That is all.

Re:No

[Slashbots]

And don't get me even started with countries that have other character sets like Russia, Germany or Thailand. Come on Slashdot, how hard it is to know anything outside US?

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

That's a compelling argument. I would add to it but TFA seems to be blatant slashvertizing. Dextr is some shitty app they are trying to promote.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

No. That is all.

How the hell did this get insightful?

the problem with texting on smartphones isn't the keyboard layout, it's that big fat thumbs sometimes hit the button next to the intended one. While qwerty is no better than any other layout on a smartphone, it IS a great layout on pc keyboards which is where I do most of my typing, so why should I learn two layouts when the one I use most often is at worst equally bad as any other?

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on Slashdot, how hard it is to know anything outside US?

Pretty hard, apparently.

Even now, in the 21st Century, with our flying cars and Mr. Fusions, /. still doesn't allow the full Latin-1 character set. I can't type a Euro Sign, or a cent or an AE ligature.

WTF /. Get with the times.

Re:No

[eggstasy]

Is it time to stop ending titles with question marks?

Re:No

[mjwx]

How the hell did this get insightful?

Because it references Betteridge's Law of Headlines which states any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no. The rest was just filler to get passed the lameness filter.

Re:No

[agallagh42]

...QWERTY is a HORRIBLE layout and was designed to BE horrible, to slow down typists writing on mechanical typewriters.

From Wikipedia:
"A popular myth is that QWERTY was designed to "slow down" typists though this is incorrect – it was designed to prevent jams while typing at speed, allowing typists to type faster."

Re:No

[todrules]

It's just Shift-3 > #. There ya go.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's called the "hash sign".

This is a pound symbol: £

Fucking yanks.

Re:No

[V-similitude]

The fact that QWERTY was designed for a typewriter, ie with the most-used keys farthest apart, probably is a benefit for virtual keyboards (and I'm saying this as someone who exclusively uses dvorak for regular typing). If you have the vowels all in the same place (like this, or like dvorak), you're going to get a lot more typos that the OS can't fix for you (eg "in" vs "on", since they're both valid choices). Of course, "in" vs "on" is still an issue on qwerty, so we could definitely do better, but it's an entirely different optimization decision than with a physical 10-finger keyboard.

Of course, it doesn't seem like any typing optimizations at all went into this arbitrarily-touted keyboard, so no comment there.

Re:No

[bandy]

Pounds Sterling. Fucking limey.

Leave my keyboard alone!

[Anonymous Coward]

For the love of all that is holy, stop wasting time trying to 'fix' something that is not broken!

Re:Leave my keyboard alone!

[Hognoxious]

there are in fact better alternatives

Sure, but alphabetical order isn't one of them.

Re:Leave my keyboard alone!

[Samantha Wright]

For ten-fingered input, the maximum gains in typing performance brought on by a new keyboard layout are minimal; one or two percent at best. As long as your hands can reach the whole keyboard, the difference in time it takes for any given keystroke is negligible. The real benefit that comes from, for example, Dvorak vs. QWERTY, is a reduction in stress on the hands, and hence RSI. Saying that QWERTY "optimized" typewriter jamming would be overly generous; the improvement over the traditional alphabetical key ordering was only performed to a modest extent, and the typists of the day were not proficient touch-typists as we are now.

In the case of thumb-typing, however, great improvement is possible. The Metropolis keyboard, for example, was generated stochastically by optimising an energy function based on letter pair frequency, and provides a 40% typing speed increase over QWERTY.

Re:Leave my keyboard alone!

[gr8_phk]

Indeed, I would very much expect an alphabetically ordered layout to be technically slightly superior to QWERTY.

I wouldn't. Alphabetical order is only good for people who need to search for the keys. Anyone who has even moderate typing ability does not need to look at the keys. So placing the keys in a way that takes into account letter frequency and doublet frequency and human dexterity would seem to be the way to go - that's a complicated problem which I would bet does not have alphabetical order as an optimal solution.

As I type this looking at the screen and not the keyboard, I realize that my biggest problem is getting my hands misaligned when returning to the home position - this is due to my tendency to not use my pinkie fingers which mean I need to move side-to-side more. I either need a keyboard that helps me get back home, or I need to learn to use all my fingers when they are supposed to - hey, I used a pinky for an "a" - go me!

Amazing how he has the only solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like there already are better keyboard options out there. Dvorak, I weep for your absence in everyday life.

Re:Amazing how he has the only solution!

[Derek Pomery]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/221/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists
"Baloney, say the authors of the article you enclose, S.J. Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis. They point out that (1) the research demonstrating the superiority of the Dvorak keyboard is sparse and methodologically suspect; (2) a sizable body of work suggests that in fact the Dvorak offers little practical advantage over the QWERTY; (3) at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands; and (4) the QWERTY keyboard did not become a standard overnight but beat out several competing keyboards over a period of years. Thus it may be fairly said to represent the considered choice of the marketplace. It saddens me to know I helped to perpetuate the myth of Dvorak superiority, but I will sleep better at night knowing I have rectified matters at last."

Totally agree on spreading the keys apart. Easier on the fingers.
Kinda like in gaming where if you repeatedly press keys in almost the same location, repeatedly, you start getting RSI.

Re:Amazing how he has the only solution!

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Alternate hands is much, much, much more common on Dvorak than QWERTY. I know this because it was one of my major frustrations with the Dvorak layout--all sorts of things I used to be able to type one-handed, I no longer could. I've used Dvorak every day for almost 10 years now, and I still don't have any one-handed combos unless you count "ls", which I don't, because I never need to type that one-handed, and it uses the mouse hand anyway.

Try it out--just take random words, and see if they're typable one-handed on each layout. Tally the results, stop when you're satisfied.

Actually, screw it, here:

# Words typable with left hand only, Dvorak:
# aspell dump master | grep -E '^[pyaoeuiqjkx]+$' | wc -l
144

# Words typable with right hand only, Dvorak:
aspell dump master | grep -E '^[fgcrldhtnsbmwvz]+$' | wc -l
95

# Words typable with left hand only, QWERTY:
aspell dump master | grep -E '^[qwertasdfgzxcvb]+$' | wc -l
2192

# Words typable with right hand only, QWERTY:
aspell dump master | grep -E '^[yuiophjklnm]+$' | wc -l
292

Betteridge's Law of Headlines

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Inertia

[zrbyte]

It didn't change at the transition to the PC from typewriters and it's not going to change now (in any significant way).

Re:Inertia

[JWSmythe]

    It may change in time, but just because someone invents a better keyboard layout, or a more innovative way to type, doesn't mean it will meet common acceptance.

    It would have made sense if people adopted the abcdef keyboard (alphabetical), but as most devices are qwerty (or whatever your region uses), they'll remain. People aren't going to flock to buying new keyboards, for home and work, and swap out their cell phones with keypads for newer ones.

    Even the shift from regular keyboards to ergonomic never happened, because it was difficult for people to switch back and forth quickly. I got used to it, switching when I'd get on a client's computer. A lot of people had problems trying. If they really stuck with it, they'd buy new keyboards for their home and office, usually out of pocket for the employer.

    The biggest migration of keyboard style I can think of is from the old mechanical typewriters, which didn't have the zero or one keys (redundant for "o" and "l") That was an obvious one, since the newer mechanical typewriters did have the full set of numbers, and distinguishing marks on the numerals.

Re:Inertia

[fearofcarpet]

I learned to type on a typewriter. Now I use this keyboard at work (I do a lot of writing for my job). Since there are no labels on the keys, I can see the wear patterns and they are concentrated around the home row (and space bar) exactly as intended. I suppose the home row makes no sense on virtual keyboards, but then again virtual keyboards make no sense, which is why there are a zillion "swipe" and "predictive" keyboards on the Android market... so, yah, as you say, interta; I already have to deal with f***ing French keyboards, why would I want to complicate my life even more by adding another non-QWERTY keyboard to the mix?

Re:Inertia

[Dogtanian]

It would have made sense if people adopted the abcdef keyboard (alphabetical)

Why? Just because it's the most obvious layout, doesn't mean it's the optimal one for typing. At most it's going to make it slightly easier for complete beginners to find keys before they've learned where they are.

I'm not claiming that QWERTY is the best layout for typing- in fact, it's generally accepted that it almost certainly isn't.

But as you say, there have been countless attempts to do alternate layouts, and few have gained much traction. If we're talking about mobile devices (where, after all, people learned to "type" on a non-QWERTY 12-digit keyboard (*)) perhaps sticking with a full keyboard- albeit with different layout- isn't thinking far enough (**), and we should be considering something like Microwriter- which first appeared 30 years ago!

(*) And showed no inclination do use that on a computer
(**) I was going to say "not thinking far enough outside the box" but I really loathe that stupid cliche even though I can't think of anything better. Always found it ironic that "thinking outside the box" is such a cliched, unoriginal, unimaginative, corporate, stuck inside the damn box phrase(!!)

Re:Inertia

[bluefoxlucid]

No kidding. Dextr is just alphabetic with the vowels in a column. It's stupid. A Qwerty style keyboard in a Dvorak layout (slide-out wide keyboard) would actually work great on a phone--because your thumbs would alternate, just like you alternate hands on Dvorak. Of course that's biased to English, but the principle stands: give me a reason to use a different layout, don't just throw something stupid but pretty in front of me and claim the old thing is outdated and the new hotness is new. We know it's new. Getting herpes would also be a refreshing change, but I think I'm better off with the mundane life of being STD free.

Re:Inertia

[jawtheshark]

I already have to deal with f***ing French keyboards

You think that's bad? I cope on a daily basis with Belgian, French, German, Swiss, US and UK keyboards. Sure some of those are only slight variations, but believe me, it ain't fun.

My opinion: everone migrates to US-International and we're done with it.

Re:Inertia

[rbrausse]

It would have made sense if people adopted the abcdef keyboard (alphabetical)

Douglas Adams answered this one many years ago:

The principle behind the decision to have an alphabetical keyboard is based on a misunderstanding. I believe that the idea is this: not everybody knows qwerty (it's an odd feeling actually typing qwerty as a word. Try it and you'll see what I mean) but everybody knows the alphabet. This true but irrelevant. People know the alphabet as a one dimensional string, not as a two-dimensional array, so you're going to have to hunt and peck anyway.

Re:Inertia

[somersault]

Thankyou for your valuable insights.

Re:Inertia

[sentientbeing]

Stupid sexy Flanders

Re:Inertia

[gstrickler]

And putting the vowels in a column will make it difficult to adapt something like Swype to the layout, because it makes a problem Swype has even worse. Suppose you want to type "pit". Using Swype on a qwerty layout, you have to be careful with stopping on the i, because o and u are right next to it, and pot and put are also valid words. With all the vowels in a column, if you're a bit too high, you get "pet", too low = "pot", significantly too high = "pat" and significantly too low = "put". Five valid words distinguished solely by the vertical position of the vowel. There are thousands of other examples. Swype with qwerty has that issue with u, i, & o, (& y) this layout extends the problem to all 5 vowels.

Another problem, an extra two rows of keys on many mobile devices presents a space problem. Even on touchscreen devices, the 4 row layout (3 qwerty + space, shift, etc.) used by Android and iOS takes up a lot of screen space already, adding two more rows means you either make the rows shorter (aggravating the problem above), use up too much screen height, or move the space, shift, enter, etc to the sides of the layout. Either way, you compromise usability even more.

Alphabetic ordered keyboards may initially be faster for those unfamiliar with qwerty, but they're not faster for for anyone experienced with qwerty, even for two-finger typists. My in-dash GPS/nav system uses an alphabetic layout, and it's definitely slower for me than qwerty would be. Of course, as slow as that nav system is to respond, qwerty wouldn't actually be faster, bit it would require less searching and therefore be less distracting and frustrating. The alphabet is useful for ordering/filing, but it bears no relationship to letter frequency or digraph/trigraph patterns, so it doesn't help with typing words.

Since dvorak, colemak, and other optimized layouts haven't really caught on, I'm afraid we'll be living with qwerty and it's international variants for a long time.

Re:Inertia

[camperdave]

Maybe the method by which one contracts an STD is the refreshing change, not the disease itself.

Re:Inertia

[jawtheshark]

Hey, I used to be a Belgian... I was born in Antwerp. My native language is Flemish. However, isn't saying "The Dutch language, spoken by most Belgians" is quite a bit misleading? Now, there may be more Flemish people than Walloon people, but saying "most Belgians" is really an exaggeration.

Furthermore, to answer your question why "azerty" is the Belgian keyboard, you have to simply look at your own history. When keyboards got in widespread use, Flanders wasn't the economic powerhouse of Belgium. Back then, it was Wallony with it's coal mines. French was the most important language and was used in business as well as by the bourgeoisie. Sure, now Wallony is the poorer part and Flanders the richer part, but that wasn't always so.

Funnily enough, this is exactly on topic because it's pure history and inertia that makes "azerty" the Belgian layout.

Re:Inertia

[Xyverz]

I've been using Dvorak on the PC for over 10 years now. Until I got my Android phone, all my texting has been done in QWERTY. On my new phone, I decided to try out Dvorak for a bit and I found something horrifying: dvorak on the phone is not as easy as using qwerty.

Re:Inertia

[Solandri]

Since dvorak, colemak, and other optimized layouts haven't really caught on, I'm afraid we'll be living with qwerty and it's international variants for a long time.

I wouldn't be so sure.

1. Replace keycap letters with e-ink.
2. Allow users to remap keys to their liking.
3. Use whatever layout you want, qwerty, dvorak, abcdef, or whatever this new one is.

The thing that's been keeping qwerty alive is everyone having to learn it. Even if you use dvorak, you still have to learn qwerty because you'll frequently sit down at a physical qwerty keyboard. With the move to virtual keyboards and the development of technology which would allow easy reconfiguration of a physical keyboard (including the letter markings), a lot of that inertia disappears.

It's like I say about GUIs - rather than trying to force everyone into a menu model or a ribbon model, include both. The people who like menus can use the menus, the people who like the ribbon can use the ribbon, and if a menu-user sits at a ribbon-user's computer (or vice versa), a single configuration option should let you switch between the two. We should be adapting computers to match the way we (as individuals) like to work, not expecting individuals to adapt how they work to match one monolithic way all computers work.

Why do we need an advertisment for Dextr?

[Anonymous Coward]

Android has been a literal playground for new keyboard designs. QWERTY is winning so far, but there's no reason to push one standard over another because we aren't tied to a physical keyboard anymore. I have 8 keyboards installed on my phone. Most QWERTY, but some, like 8pen, are radically different and focus on actual typing speed.

The keyboard in the article is

1) not made for speed
2) fucking ugly
3) takes up a crazy amount of screen real-estate

whad"s thi fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

I, fir one, don"f cee whad thi fuss es apout.

I'n abendonned QWERTY wonks ago amd I'n doung jist fane.

Chorded Keyboards

[LordLucless]

If there's one thing that deserves to make a comeback in this mobile world, it's chorded keyboards. QWERTY sucks on mobile devices because it takes up too much space, especially a physical board. On the other hand, you could probably put enough keys (say, three for each hand) on the back of a mobile device to make them practical physical keyboards without taking up valuable real estate that could be used for the screen.

The question is wrong

[erroneus]

"Have you stopped beating your wife?"

We don't "love" qwerty. It's what we use. Little more than that. The learning curve is horrible, but once you got it, learning anything after that would be more painful than it would be worth.

The Dexter Keyboard

[SteelKidney]

Small bug in the software. If you mis-key something, you're immediately killed in a plastic-coated room lined with pictures of your misspelled words.

Speed gains

[bradley13]

For what it's worth, I once spent a good deal of time testing this hypothesis. I spent a lot of time researching optimized layouts, picked one, and used it for a solid year - parallel to the QWERTY layout that I was still using at work. After a year, I was equally proficient with both (I could touch-type either at will, same error-rate, etc.), and I ran a number of tests.

The results were quite consistent: about a 10% speed increase (from 60wpm to 66 wpm), no significant difference in the error rates. For what it's worth, at that point I decided for QWERTY. That's what most keyboards in the West are based on, and for a 10% gain in speed, you have the irritation of switching back-and-forth all the time. If you don't type a lot on both layouts, your speed-gain on one quickly becomes a massive speed-penalty on the other.

Note: there is a nice little open-source application out there that will let you take your personal keyboard layout with you whereever you go. Unfortunately, it currently only supports Windows.

For smart phones, the situation is obviously different. If you want to be able to type quickly, you pretty much need a predictive keyboard (something like SwiftKey, for example). Beyond that, it's simply a matter of being able to find the "keys" quickly. For anyone who also uses a normal keyboard, that means QWERTY.

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