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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?
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.
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Hopefully keyboards will be outdated by some decent voice recognition software or human neural interface before my hands cramp up and die from all the typing I do.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.
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!- --------------------------------------
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my blog: good times, man, good times
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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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.
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