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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?"
No. That is all.
For the love of all that is holy, stop wasting time trying to 'fix' something that is not broken!
It's not like there already are better keyboard options out there. Dvorak, I weep for your absence in everyday life.
No.
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
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.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I, fir one, don"f cee whad thi fuss es apout.
I'n abendonned QWERTY wonks ago amd I'n doung jist fane.
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.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
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?
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
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(!!)
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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.
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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.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
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.
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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.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Maybe the method by which one contracts an STD is the refreshing change, not the disease itself.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)