About six years ago I took it upon myself to switch to Dvorak. Not for speed, but for ergonomics (wrist pain that I was hoping to head off before it got worse). After reading up on things I concluded that QWERTY wasn't as terrible as everyone wanted to think it was, but I did think that Dvorak would win on comfort due to reduced finger travel. After my switch I picked up a Kinesis Contoured keyboard and after I found I could still type QWERTY fine after the initial Dvorak learning period, I ended up relocating a few keys (the L so 'ls' was two-handed, and a bunch of punctuation), and now have been typing for most of the 6 years on the new, modified Dvorak format (detailed more here: http://www.interloper.net/keyboard/). I'd say don't switch your keyboard unless you really are having ergonomic issues--it's a pain and takes months to get back up to speed again. For me personally however my Dvorak-modified variant has been great...no more wrist pain...much greater comfort, and for whatever reason I'm still fine on QWERTY when I need to be (maybe at 50-60 wpm instead of the 70-80 I do on my modified Dvorak layout).
- Bill
I switched a few years back because my wrists were slowly bothering me more and more over the years. I started out by just switching to Dvorak via software, then eventually bought a Kinesis Contoured keyboard. This is hands-down the best keyboard I've ever used, and my wrist pain has completely subsided since the switch. I started to get annoyed by a few aspects of Dvorak and eventually started morphing it into my own variant to make typing 'ls' under Linux easier, to move punctuation used in coding around to be easier to get to, etc.
For those interested in the speed aspects, I'm probably typing now at around 75-80 wpm on my Dvorak variant; similar to what I did before on Qwerty (I can still do probably 60-70 wpm on Qwerty, strangely). I'd say Dvorak isn't faster, but is definitely more comfortable--if you are really worried about your wrists and ability to work, have the patience to work through the several weeks/months it'll take you to get close to normal speed again after switching your format, I highly recommend considering switching to Dvorak or a Dvorak variant on a Kinesis Contoured keyboard; I did and haven't looked back since.
- Bill
P.S. - I put up a web page years ago when I did the switch with loads of detail about the whole process since I learned so much from other people's web pages at the time. It's not 100% up to date now, but here it is for those interested:
Slashdot Mirror
About six years ago I took it upon myself to switch to Dvorak. Not for speed, but for ergonomics (wrist pain that I was hoping to head off before it got worse). After reading up on things I concluded that QWERTY wasn't as terrible as everyone wanted to think it was, but I did think that Dvorak would win on comfort due to reduced finger travel. After my switch I picked up a Kinesis Contoured keyboard and after I found I could still type QWERTY fine after the initial Dvorak learning period, I ended up relocating a few keys (the L so 'ls' was two-handed, and a bunch of punctuation), and now have been typing for most of the 6 years on the new, modified Dvorak format (detailed more here: http://www.interloper.net/keyboard/). I'd say don't switch your keyboard unless you really are having ergonomic issues--it's a pain and takes months to get back up to speed again. For me personally however my Dvorak-modified variant has been great...no more wrist pain...much greater comfort, and for whatever reason I'm still fine on QWERTY when I need to be (maybe at 50-60 wpm instead of the 70-80 I do on my modified Dvorak layout). - Bill
I switched a few years back because my wrists were slowly bothering me more and more over the years. I started out by just switching to Dvorak via software, then eventually bought a Kinesis Contoured keyboard. This is hands-down the best keyboard I've ever used, and my wrist pain has completely subsided since the switch. I started to get annoyed by a few aspects of Dvorak and eventually started morphing it into my own variant to make typing 'ls' under Linux easier, to move punctuation used in coding around to be easier to get to, etc. For those interested in the speed aspects, I'm probably typing now at around 75-80 wpm on my Dvorak variant; similar to what I did before on Qwerty (I can still do probably 60-70 wpm on Qwerty, strangely). I'd say Dvorak isn't faster, but is definitely more comfortable--if you are really worried about your wrists and ability to work, have the patience to work through the several weeks/months it'll take you to get close to normal speed again after switching your format, I highly recommend considering switching to Dvorak or a Dvorak variant on a Kinesis Contoured keyboard; I did and haven't looked back since.
- Bill
P.S. - I put up a web page years ago when I did the switch with loads of detail about the whole process since I learned so much from other people's web pages at the time. It's not 100% up to date now, but here it is for those interested:
Adventures in Ergonomic Keyboarding