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Keyboards - Dvorak or Qwerty?
A voice from the mass of Slashdot Anonymous Cowards asks: "A friend of mine has been using a dovark keyboard for about 3 months. He says that his that it has increased his speed almost double. From what I understand the qwerty keyboard was designed to slow people down when they used type writters. Now, since they are on computers, why is the world (US) not using them ? Do you think it is worth using it. I work as a computer tech. if I go to fix some guys computer, is he going to look at me strange becuase I can't type on a qwerty keyboard. I wanted to see everyones opinion on this one. " Um. Are you going to look at me funny because I can't type on a Dvorak keyboard? Do they even make Dvorak keyboards for computers? If so, where can I find such a beast?
mo pralbem jhere!
Being blessed with a nerd father I learned to type simultaneously on Dvorak and Qwerty. I already knew some Qwerty, obviously, but couldn't type any faster than 20 WPM. As soon as I knew all the letters I began to leave the computer set on Dvorak. I could still type a little faster in Qwerty, but Dvorak *felt* much better (and I'm not referring to wrist strain or anything, which obviously wasn't an issue). Dvorak just feels a lot more natural.
:) Trust me, you'll be happier with your eyes on the screen rather than the keybard!
I do type significantly faster in Dvorak now, although I have probably used Qwerty keyboards as much as Dvorak. For me the issue wasn't speed, accuracy, or time to learn - I use Dvorak because it is less awkward. This factor is very hard to quantify, but nonetheless quite significant!
Some people have Qwerty too deeply ingrained to switch comfortably. If you are one of them, don't! The speed isn't really that important (unless you're a really fast thinker also). What's more important is what allows you to interface more naturally with your computer. When I type in Dvorak it feels like my fingers are dancing over the home row. Qwerty feels like playing twister!
Bottom line: give Dvorak a try for a month or two, and see what feels better after that period.
Nobody should care either way (except your poor aching wrists, hehe).
Another issue raised is that it is hard to acquire a Dvorak keyboard. I actually think it's a bad idea to have one. If you are relearning to type (even if you look at the keys now), it isn't hard to learn w/o seeing the keys. I found Mavis Beacon does an excellent job of teaching Dvorak - and it even runs under Wine (!). Another thing you can do is simply tape letters over your keyboard or buy a Dvoark overlay. Once again, I'd recommend against this - but you shouldn't need it long term. Let your fingers memorize the key positions, not your eyes. Think of it as a chance to start over w/ better typing technique
-Seth
If you would like to buy a hardwired keyboard check out Hard-Wired Keyboards.
Recently I got a Kinesis ergonomic keyboard that it hot swappable between qwerty and dvorak. It's also an ergo keyboard and the best peripheral for my computer I've ever bought. I highly recommend their contoured keyboards.
Something that you may want to keep in mind is that a lot of unix command line commands are optimized for qwerty, like ls, as well as emacs and vi.
Yes, there are keyboards with a "native" dvorak layout. There are also (or you can make) transparent stickers to put on the keys so you can see both the dvorak and qwerty meanings of the keys.
You can also often manually remove the keys from the keyboard and rearrange them. However, this is often not sensible, because the keys in modern keyboards have a contour that makes them only really fit their original place.
In any case, all of these are really not necessary, and could even be considered harmful. Dvorak, unlike qwerty, is designed for touch-typing. You aren't even supposed to look at the keyboard when typing. So when you don't see the letters anywhere, you are forced to learn them by heart. Yes, it's hell for a month or so, but then you get used to it pretty quickly.
As for the relative merits of dvorak, I recommend it heartily. Dvorak may not be the "perfect" keyboard layout, but at least it has a sensible idea behind it. The only merit of qwerty nowadays is that everyone knows it. This "merit" finds a convenient analogue from the software world in M$ products.
As for myself, I've been using dvorak for about two years now. It took me a couple of months to learn it acceptably fluently, and currently I get a bit over 70 wps. Then again, I didn't know qwerty touch-typing when I started, so I had less to unlearn. YMMV.
Hope this helps.
After reading a bit on how the dvorak layout reduces the amount of distance your fingers have to travel, I thought it might be a good idea to try and learn it.
However, after attempting to write code with a dvorak keyboard, I switched right back over. While the placement of such keys as "{};&>.[]+=-*%!" is not exactly optimal on a qwerty keyboard, they are much easier to hit on qwerty than dvorak.
Unix commands which aren't necessarily english also seem to be easier to type on qwerty for some reason ls, ps, pwd, chgrp, ftp, etc...
Hopefully keyboards will be outdated by some decent voice recognition software or human neural interface before my hands cramp up and die from all the typing I do.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
On my 1984 Apple //c it's even easier. There's a button on the keyboard to switch back and forth (it's hardware-based...when you switch to Dvorak, the key labeled "s" now sends a "o" charcode, "d" sends an "e" charcode and so on with the other keys).
If modern computer were like that, it'd be nice. That way, I could learn Dvorak and completely forget QWERTY, and if I wanted to use a public terminal or a friend's computer, I'd just press the button to switch, and toggle back when I was done. Unfortunately, modern computers aren't as good as my Apple =)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yes! Dvorak layout is a COMMUNIST conspiracy to replace us from the God-given QWERTY layout, which is what the ancient biblical scribes used to record the Word to paper in the first place.
Once they convert us over to Dvorak, then there's nothing to stop them from changing over to Metric, free software, the French language, and Godless communism!
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
From what I understand, QWERTY was supposedly designed to prevent jamming, not necessarily to slow typists down. Or perhaps to maximize speed while minizming jamming. The left to right hand alternation actually helps your speed---or so I have seen it argued in the Dvorak-vs-QWERTY articles that have been linked from /.
The problems on old typewriters occur when you strike two keys that are in close proximity at about the same time; that's when the type heads get all stuck together. So it's not entirely about speed but about how the strokes are physically distributed. It's not hard to see that a design which distributes the load to prevent jamming could also have a beneficial effect on typing efficiency.
Go to FOLDOC, and look up the term ``race condition''.
In The Design/Psychology of Everyday Things Don Norman does a comparison of various keyboard types including qwerty, Dvorak and Chorded keyboards. Most, if not all of the alternatives rate higher than qwerty in terms of typing speed and training.
Norman also points out that no matter how good a new kind of keyboard is, it will never replace the standard qwerty style. It would simply cost too much money. Retraining users, replacing hardware, rewriting software (in some cases), rewriting documentation etc. It all adds up. There are similar reasons why the metric systems hasn't been adopted world wide.
Also, how much more efficient does a keyboard have to be to justify a change in keys? IMHO, the qwerty keyboard is good enough. I look forward to the day when I don't have to tap away on this anymore. Bring on what-you-see-is-what-you-think!- --------------------------------------
----------------
my blog: good times, man, good times
The benefits of Dvorak keyboards are in a position similar to that of Linux's reliability: the best evidence is anecdotal.
/feels/ more natural and more comfortable. It is certainly better than the "Natural Keyboard". Also, I was able to learn dvorak to get up to my normal (90 wpm) speed in about 4 weeks.
Let me add to the pile of anecdotal evidence. A year ago, I came down with carpal tunnel syndrom. Not wanting to become unemployed, I took a number of drastic actions, including learning to type dvorak and getting Dvorak keyboards for all my computer (I'm sorry, but keycaps suck, especially since Windoze NT doesn't activate your keymap until you are logged in).
My Carpal got better.
Two months ago, I took the leap, became radically overpayed and inredibly worthless, and started consulting. My main client does not really allow for me to use an alternate keyboard without a lot of stress.
My carpal is back.
I know, I know, that's not conclusive. But I will tell you that typing Dvorak
Give it a try -- if you don't like, all ou've lost is an xmodmap command! If you do like it, you've saved your wrists.
-- Slashdot sucks.
The QWERTY layout was designed to put letters that are often adjacent in English words under opposite hands (or something remarkably like that; I am not a typewriter historian). This was necessary to prevent the jamming that happens when you type two adjacent characters on a manual typewriter: the little arms try to go on near-congruent paths to the same point, failing miserably, causing you to get typewriter ink on your nice cuffs when you unstick them. This had the effect of allowing much faster typing without jamming, and much faster typing period because so many common words and syllables were now typed with alternating hands.
Mr Dvorak's own studies found his layout to be a great improvement over QWERTY. I don't buy it, myself - it seems to me that the QWERTY layout is near optimal for English, people are used to it, it's not a bad deal. I'm sticking with it.
-- Jeff Paulsen
80 words a minute and you aren't touch? I would have to say that is an all out lie, but you never know.. Logistically, your mind would have to be working pretty hard to concentrate on what you were type and looking for the right keys to press at the same time.
And it is all personal preference. I have seen reports that say dvorak is no faster, if not slower, than qwerty. Then again, I have also seen reports that say NT is more stable than Linux.
Those who seem to type way faster using dvorak keyboards are probably like that because they were fast on qwerty already, but then read about this amazing dvorak thing and worked really hard at getting good at that. It has more to do with personal drive than the keyboard layout in this situation.
Not to mention the fact that you have to take into consideration which keys that you press most often (I am talking about vocabulary and such).
If you want to type fast, go to a swap meet and find the clickiest, most responsive keyboard you can find.
And I would like to take this chance to say that Slashdot has seen this discussion about 150 times already. Too bad slashdot is not accumulative knowledge wise. I bet you could find this whole discussion already done with in the archives if you simply typed 'dvorak keyboard' into the little search field. Save Ask Slashdot for real, unanswered questions.
-- DrZaius - Minister of Sciences and Protector of the Faith
"Even genius needs a competent technique."--Robert Fripp
Second, there have been no conclusive studies that Dvorak typists are any faster than QWERTY typists. The article at http://www.reasonmag.com/9606/Fe.QWERT Y.html gives a reasonably good summary of the non-evidence of Dvorak superiority.
Lastly, my personal experience is that a friend who has switched to Dvorak said "It's a nightmare of pain relearning a new layout for no benefit whatsoever. Go ahead and learn Dvorak if you don't know how to type, but don't go through the psychic trauma of rewiring your fingers if you already are using QWERTY. Its not worth it."
Anyway. Use whatever keyboard makes you happy.
Peter
Don't listen to the naysayers till they actually have something constructive to say.
We all know that Dvorak was the one who published the great results about the Dvorak keyboard. Of course the results were biased. But that doesn't mean it's a worse keyboard.
You have only to look at a QWERTY keyboard to see that it was not designed to be easy. Notice that you can type "typewriter" using only keys on the top row. You think that is a coincidence? Also, see how many words you can type on the home row with QWERTY. Not many. How many with Dvorak (it's aoeuidhtns for those who don't know).
I have never heard of anyone who learned Dvorak "properly" who regretted the change, myself included.
Studies? We don't need no steeenking studies.
beyond.com has a keyboard that can switch between Dvorak and QWERTY, and comes with typing software to learn Dvorak.. for only $36
Another one for $49 at PC Connection
a pretty wild looking one.. "Comfort Keyboard System", which is available in dvorak, qwerty, sun and mac (Sun Qwerty? Wild!)
As a dvorak typist, I can attest to the benefits of this layout. Though there is some hastle using other peoples' computers b/c of not knowing qwerty, I must say that it's still worth it. I have never known qwerty; I learned dvorak as my 'first language' at the age of 10. Though it's been a while since then and I can't be sure, I would estimate that it took about 2 months of practicing about a half hour a day to be able to type 40-50 wpm. Now (I don't practice, only type when there's a reason to) I type about 80wpm with very few errors. My main reason for continuing to use the dvorak keyboard is because I'm not interested in RSI or carpal tunnel syndrome, which both my parents had to have surgery for.
To address Cliff's query diretly, YES, DVORAK keyboards are available. DvortyBoards makes a keyboard that is hard-wired for both dvorak and qwerty. The keyboard I use is from their company, though it's an older model. It is a MS Natural-esque keyboard with a rocker switch to switch from dvorak to qwerty. The newer model has an extra key (actually, it's borrowed from one of the legacy keys though I can't remember which one) that switches.
For those of you using linux, this keyboard is an excellent choice. There is no need to mess with keysym files, set up bash (csh, tsch, sh, etc.) and X separately, just hit the toggle key.
For windows users, no need to screw around with the control panels or bitch at MS when you use a dos app (dos requires a separate driver, and MS didn't think to trap keyboard events and convert to the appropriate keyboard layout before passing the key to the dos app, so all of dos is in qwerty).
I'd cite statistics / etc. to show that dvorak is the superior layout but statistics can be so easily argued, so I'll just say that only a few thousand words can be typed on the qwerty keyboard without moving fingers to the top or bottom rows. With dvorak, over 30,000 words can be typed without moving the hands.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
I echo the above sentiment that the best thing to do is to try it, and find out if you like it. It will take some time. I have been typing on a Dvorak board for five years or so, and I love it. I'm still as s-l-o-w as I was on a Qwerty. I never learned to type on a Querty, and really, the Dvorak keyboard feels so natural to me, as far as layout, that I didn't have to 'learn' how to touch type. It just came naturally. I haven't clocked myself, but I'd guess I tripled my productivity. It's hard to quantify the pain and suffering aspect, as I don't have any RSI, but read some material on the layout; it makes sense that you won't get it as bad/as soon because of the way the home row is arranged.
I am a very strong advocate of the Dvorak layout, but as I alluded to before, it's not for everyone. If you're an IT type and have to mess with 50 different keyboards a day, it's probably not worth the time. I rarely have to type on other keyboards than my own, so I benefitted greatly at work and at home from switching.
And finally, you need to know where to get one. The one I have I got here:
http://www.dvorty.com
I love it. It's hard-wired, and has a Dvorak - Qwerty toggle key so you can switch on the fly any time you want. It's completely hardware driven and works on ANY computer you can plug it into. It's great for multi-user households. I bought mine for 70 bucks two years ago, and now I see that they're only 50 bucks. Well worth the investment.
If you're still not sure, pop the keys off your keyboard, rearrange them and find an xmodmap file to remap your keys. Try it out for about a month. I was admittedly pretty lame at typing before I started with Dvorak, but it took me about two weeks of medium use to get up to the same speed, and another week or two to blow my old speed away.
-mattyj@cts.com
I've never used a Dvorak, but was curious enough to dig around Google to find a place. Here's my favorite:
DvortyBoards -- interesting site. They sell a switchable board (i.e. swap between Qwerty & Dvorak on the fly). US$50 plus shipping & handling. Apparently the translation is done in the keyboard itself, so it would be compatible with any OS.
--Mid
The Myth of QWERTY discussed in April
"there once was a big guy named lou
There was an article very very recently on just this subject. Basically, the tests that proved that the Dvorak system was superior were performed by Mindcraft, or if not them, Dvorak himself. Also, it's been discovered that the alternate-hand version of typing is actually very speedy. While one finger is whacking one key, the other is moving into position. Conclusion: just stick with QWERTY. It works, everyone uses it, and it's a headache to learn a new system for a mere 4 WPM gain. The reason your friend showed such improvement is probably because he learned to type correctly on that system, instead of a bastardized typing scheme that many people learn on their own. For instance, I hit the y key with my left hand as opposed to my right, and I don't use my right pinky except to use the shift key. If I learned DVORAK, I would learn it correctly, and gain some speed.
I learnt dvorak once and was surprised to reach a speed of 60wpm in less than three weeks (my qwerty speed is much faster but that's because I've practiced it more). It is definately much more efficient for typing English sentences, but not much good for programming (see below).
The reason you can type English sentences much faster is because dvorak was designed to take advantage of the way English words are spelt:
1. All vowels are on the left side of the keyboard and nearly all consonants are on the right side of the keyboard. This means that (compared with qwerty) if a particular character is typed with the left hand, the next character in the word is more likely to be typed by the right hand. By alternating hands more frequently, this gives the idle hand more time to move to where its next character will be.
2. All the common letters are on the home row so you don't have to move your hands as much. For example, look at the layout of the keyboard: http://www.ccsi.com/~mbrooks/dvorak/layout.html and work out how to type the word "the". Then compare with qwerty. I picked a small word because that makes the exercise easier. Pick a larger word if you wish and count how many times you need to stretch beyond the home row.
3. Even when you do need to stretch beyond the home row, there are easy regions to stretch to and hard regions to stretch to. Dvorak puts all the rare characters in the hard to reach places.
Qwerty, on the other hand seems to have been designed to make it easy to type the word "qwerty". If you're a one fingered typist.
But back to dvorak and UNIX hackers. I said before that dvorak makes it easy to type English sentences. Anyone who programs knows that programming doesn't involve many English sentences, or even English words. The UNIX command line is full of cryptic commands with all the vowels taken out. For example "ls" on the qwerty keyboard is easy to type because you alternate hands: "l" in the right hand, and "s" in the left. Because dvorak assumes that most words have consonants separated by vowels, you end up having to type all of "ls" with one hand, and unfortunately with the same finger in this case. Since this is one of the most popular commands in UNIX, this can be irritating.
For the moment, I have switched back to qwerty because too many things in UNIX are difficult to do with a dvorak keyboard (especially vi!). I plan to switch back to dvorak again in the future once I have an operating system as powerful as UNIX/Linux but which doesn't rely on typing in cryptic commands. For example, www.jos.org, a Java based operating system (shameless plug!).
:-)
--
Ryan Heise
Accually in RH 6.0 its /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/dvorak/dvorak.kmap.gz /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/us.kmap.gz
:) :)
and
of course still alias asdf ' ' and alias aoeu ' ' as above.
(in most shells if your using bash its alias asdf=' ' for those newbies out there
Here's how to set up your Unix machine to try out the Dvorak layout. You need X windows to do this.
:)
First, print out a picture of the Dvorak layout. A GIF and a PDF version are on Marcus Brooks' page.
Now, follow these instructions IN ORDER (or you'll have trouble changing back to Qwerty). Download the following xmodmap scripts:
Qwerty and Dvorak
Then, make an alias to change back and forth easily:
% alias asdf 'xmodmap ~/dvorak.xmodmap'
% alias aoeu 'xmodmap ~/qwerty.xmodmap'
I chose the alias so the same four keys are typed in either Qwerty or Dvorak mode. So just type "asdf" to toggle between them. Then you can decide for yourself and avoid all the flame-ridden commotion.
There is a very interesting paper called The Fable of the Keys that gives some of the history of this debate, and talks about the (lack of) solid evidence that Dvorak is objectively better. Some people may well find they type faster with a Dvorak layout, but I think that part of the improvement is that they had to make an effort (along with an emotional investment) in learning to type with a new layout. How many of those people made that kind of effort when they started on QWERTY? I suspect that there are a lot of folks out there that learned to type only becase computers can't hear very well.
--
busy, busy, busy
http://www.dvortyboards.com/dvorak.html
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Typing in Dvorak, I more often enter letter pairs backwards, because I have more fingers moving at a time.
Typing in Dvorak significantly reduced the pain in my wrists. Maybe Dvorak is better. Maybe learning to type all over again helps you avoid the bad habbits you got into the first time you learned to type.
A Dvorak keyboard is almost as good as a locking screensaver for keeping other people away from your computer.
To type in Dvorak I look at the screen. To type QWERTY, I look at the keyboard. I cannot type in QWERTY on a keyboard labelled in Dvorak. I could type in Dvorak on a completely blank keyboard.
Geez. Fifteen years and we still haven't taken over the world.
Anybody know about running Dvorak with none-American keyboard layouts? I realize that it can't really work as planned, since Dvorak is designed after the English languages use of letters, and since letters not used in English have to be moved to the side (öäå, three common letters in Swedish, are all on the right side of l and p on Swedish qwerty), but I write _mostly_ in English anyways.
All the xmodmap scripts I have seen seem to be likely to screw up non english keyboards, however. Does Dvorak dictate the position of the non alphabetic characters?
-
In closing, I just have to recommend to everyone the most fantastic keyboard I have ever scene: The Acer Future Keyboard I don't work for Acer or anything, I just think this keyboard is the best thing since sliced bread. I know it looks funny, but having a touch-pad right in the middle of the keyboard with the cursor keys is really great for everyday use (although, I admit it is terrible for playing Quake).
Hope this helped!
Got HTML? Want LaTeX? Try html2latex
Having used both dvorak and qwerty + microsoft ergo style keyboards and still suffered really badly with RSI, I can't suggest anything other than the Kinesis Contoured ergo keyboard; takes a while getting used to but once you are, it's fast and more comfortable than anything else. It took me 4 days of typing to get back up to 110wpm.
I'm not paranoid - everyone really is out to get me.
Or just cover them up or ignore them.
Then you have to remap all the
keys in your operating system - this would involve a different process depending on what operating system
you use.
So who's up for writing a hack for the linux keyboard driver to remap the keys for DVORAK under stty control? (Assuming it isn't in there already.)
You can do it in X but that doesn't help when you don't have X up.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
http://www.ccsi.com/~mbrooks/dvorak/
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I've seen this comment a few times now in this discussion - how do I remap my keyboard?
:)
Win NT:
Open Control Panel
Open Keyboard Settings
Click on the Input Locales
Select your location
Click Properties
Choose US-Dvorak from the List
Win9x should be similar
Simple, innit?
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
There is more to life than making it go faster - Gandhi
To err is human,
To really screw up, you need a computer!
Unfortunately, one has to repat this again and agian. The article called "The Fable of the Keys" to Dvorak is what recent Microsoft's "Linux Myths Explained" to Linux. Pure FUD.
...I strongly feel that the present keyboard has not been fully exploited, and I am out to exploit it to its very utmost in opposition to the change to new keyboards."
For the Nth time, peruse this link: http://www.ccsi.com/~mbrooks/dvorak/dissent.html
To quote a poster to a different story, "All of the current anti-Dvorak hype stems from a _single_ paper, The Fable of The Keys."
And guess what, an overwhelming majority of posters to this story mention "The Fable of The Keys" as the only source of proof.
Alas, many don't bother to follow the above link either, so I'll just summarize a few key points:
- The Fable of The Keys is based on very sketchy and weak evidence. The most referred-to study in that article is the 1956 GSA study conducted by Dr. Earl Strong, who was an anti-Dvorak advocate. It's best illustrated by what Strong said a few years before the study:
"I have developed a great deal of material on how to get this increased production on the part of typists on the standard [QWERTY] keyboard.
Again, to provide analogies with Microsoft vs. Linux battle, that "convincing" 1956 GSA study is same as that recent Metrowerks "Windows NT vs Linux" comparison test--paid by Microsoft, biased, etc.
- The paper talks about "lack of solid evidence that Dvorak is objectively better." Damn, this angers me so much: so many people have reported great or just-as-good results with Dvorak, so many people reported hard, undisputable numbers that Dvorak reduces hand movements and thus has a great potential to increase typing speed and especially decrease typing injuries, that anyone talking about "lack of solid evidence for Dvorak" automatically has their IQ dropped to 20 in my mind.
- The reason you don't see Dvorak bundled with new computers (or otherwise be popular) is because it traditionally has been difficult/expensive to switch typewriters to Dvorak. The mechanisms were often hardwired for a layout and rearranging it was quite a costly process. For a similar reason, because it was not too easy to convert from Windows to Linux (e.g. when there was no UMSDOS or friendly installation programs), Linux did not gain such a wide acceptance as it deserved to.
- Just like the British system of measurements, QWERTY is outdated but too common to be easily replaced. QWERTY was designed to slow down (PERIOD), plus it was also designed so that salesmen could type "TYPEWRITER" using the top row only, saving them the semi-embarrasing task of hunting and pecking.
It is really upsetting to see such FUD and crap as "The Fable of the Keys" (again, comparable to Microsoft's "Linux Myths Explained") appear on the net and gain wide acceptance.
.
I've collected several links to dvorak keyboard sellers and dvorak ressources.
Due to the US-english dvorak layout is only different in the positions of the keys on the board, you may create your own dvorak keyboard by just switching your key caps around. And for X11 you can use xkeycaps and xmodmap to tell your computer that you've done that... :-) You'll find an dvorak-xmodmap at Peter Amstutz' Dvorak page.
But if keyboard doesn't allow to switch the key caps around you can also relabel them...
Dvorak Keyboard Sellers:
The Dvorak Layout in comparison to the qwerty layout can be found at Introducing the Dvorak Keyboard .
There are also efforts on creating non-english dvorak layouts.
-- There is no place like $HOME.
As the proud owner of both Dvorak and Qwerty keyboards, I have read a bit on the subject. First, some history. The idea behind the Dvorak keyboard is that it assigns important keystrokes evenly between hands, and orients those keys most often used to the 'home' row. Qwerty keyboards were designed so that the stream of keystrokes was alternated between hands, so that the mechanical hammers on 19th century typewriters wouldn't clash together quite so often.
Heres where the efficiency issue gets fuzzy; The Dvorak keyboard was designed to be efficient, but the Qwerty was efficient by mistake. It seems that the alternation of hands allows the brain and hands to get a jumpstart on the next key. The travel may be greater, but the hand is already there when the key needs to be pressed. Studies have shown that the two schemes show near identical results with 'new' typists.
Also at issue is the time spent retooling the brain to accept the new keyboard; Back in the 1950's, the US government (they were hoping to save a buck on typists) conducted a study where some Qwerty typists were trained on Dvorak keyboards, and others were re-trained on Qwerty. While both groups showed improvement, the Qwerty re-trains improved more than their newly converted Dvorak brothers/sisters (have to be PC here). What it comes down to is the fact that you are activly trying to increase your speed, and not schluffing along. I'm sure your friend was trying quite hard to learn the Dvorak layout and show to himself that it was faster! That constitutes training, in a way.
One last myth before I submit. Many people seem to think that Qwerty survived for all the wrong reasons. Qwerty keyboards were NOT the only ones available at the onset of typewriters, nor were they produced by the biggest company. Qwerty killed quite a few other keyboards (Hit IBM's patent search; there is an ingenious one laid out like an organ, with a key for each case of letter) and mostly won on merit.
As for myself, a dual typist? My speed on the Qwerty is faster than on the Dvorak, but only slightly. I use the Qwerty layout much more, and suppose that is the reason for the edge. I was suprised to notice that every time I walked away faster from the Dvorak my speed on the Qwerty was also marginally better. I'd be interested to find out if your mate has also noted this.
.sig: Now legally binding!
The idea that the qwerty keyboard was made to be slower is urban legend. Neither is faster, unless of course you ask Dvorak. My speed nearly doubled when I went to the natural type key board.
No hour on a horse is ever wasted. Winston Churchill
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/ and http://www.dvortyboards.com/ have Dvorak keyboards. There are probably more. I have one of the dvortyboards ones, and it's ok. Don't much care for the feel of the keys, though, so I'm saving for one of the kinesis ones. Biggest benefit to me with Dvorak has been typing speed (couldn't type on qwerty at all, so that's not saying much) and comfort. Oh, and there's a bit of geek-factor to it, too. ;)
-beme
1971
Both Dvorak and Querty are outdated.
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How about a keyboard that gives the proper level of attention to those character we geeks are typing every few seconds?
Like at (@) and dot (.) and slash (/)? And for programmers, let's not forget #, %, &, = and !.
Hell...for most geeks the stupid punctuation symbols should be on the home row!
Speaking of home row...if we do get an Internet keyboard (around the time the US adopts the metric system) then I vote we put the slash key and the dot key be right next to each other so we all can shamelessly kiss up to our favorite news site
che-tongue-ek
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Personally, I'm not sure why we didn't get rid of QWERTY a long time ago. QWERTY was designed to slow us down so that when we typed, the type heads wouldn't get all stuck together. Dvorak was designed to speed us up. When's the last time you were typing on a typewriter PERIOD, much less one old enough to actually have the too-fast-typing problem?
I used Dvorak for about nine months because my roomate used my computer without permission. I also change my windows shell to Litestep. Dvorak not only increased my typing speed in general, but I swear it doubled my speed on QWERTY. I reccomend it. It's kind of fun and people think you're more hardcore.