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Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

#11

Post by Libbum »

ludicast wrote: post #7

It gets better in terms of ease, especially if you practice and drill a bit. And it's really cool when you realise one day that you can type in both keyboards at about the same speed (because you will encounter qwerty more often than you think). The human brain is wacky. But the fact is we live in a qwerty world. Even though I used dvorak for a while, I switched back. Partly because I'm a vim guy. The hjkl religion h…

hjkl is indeed an important aspect of the choice to switch. I found the answer to this SO question (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/165231/vim-dvorak-keybind...) to be extremely helpful in that regard. Keep your fingers where they should be and remap less important actions to replacement keys.

Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

#12

Post by danieka »

I also went cold turkey a couple of years ago. The reason for me was that I experienced pain in my fingers after typing. After a day at work I was guaranteed to be in pain. At the time my productivity plummeted and it took me maybe two months to get to a level where I wasn't constantly frustrated.

That said, I've never regretted the switch. Even though I still feel pain sometimes when using a laptop keyboard the pain is mostly gone. Other benefits include that I've properly learned how to type and I am able to type without looking at the keyboard, something I could never do using QWERTY. I don't know if I write faster, but since the pain is gone I'm satisfied.

I suggest you stick with it. It will get easier and you won't regret it.

This site is great for practicing: https://learn.dvorak.nl

Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

#13

Post by Loic »

For the context, I have been using the Dvorak layout since February 2009, so nearly 8 years. My keyboard is the TypeMatrix 2030[0].

The first 4 to 6 months where really hard, having the feeling to go back 10 years or more in the past with respect to typing speed. But after that, I improved a lot my typing speed and I am now to a point where I type as fast as I can formulate the sentences in my head. What is impressive is the feeling that the keys are where they are supposed to be, I never have to try to remember where are the keys, they are just there, my fingers are nearly not moving because most of the keys I use to type the text right now are on the home row. This is also definitely an effect of the TypeMatrix, I cannot recommend enough this keyboard.

The only drawback is switching back to the Qwerty layout when travelling with my laptop or using the keyboard of someone else (once a month for 2h maybe). So sometimes, I wonder if I should not simply go back to qwerty with a TypeMatrix, maybe I would get the same relaxing grid layout without the need to adapt between Qwerty and Dvorak. Maybe I should simply use my laptop as laptop a bit more, like in the bed in the evening to go through my family/friends emails. This is a point in the day where I do not need to be fast and this could help me ease the switch between the two layouts. The people who are using two different layouts everyday have no problems switching from one to another, a bit like one switch from a language to another as foreigner.

Do not hesitate to ask me more and do it, it is worth it.

[0]: http://www.typematrix.com

Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

#14

Post by docdeek »

Moved to France 10 years ago and had to decide between buying a QWERTY keyboard or laptop online and getting it delivered, or just buying a local AZERTY keyboard. Went local, had a couple of weeks of re-learning how to type, and then things were fine.

From time to time I encounter a QWERTY keyboard (some in the French office here prefer it as they trained on QWERTY while in university or working internationally) but I’m basically lost right now on QWERTY. The little things that drove me crazy at first (Shift+ to get a number, Shift+ to get a period, AltGr+ to get a hash etc.) are now ‘normal’.

I imagine Dvorak will take you a few weeks to learn, a month longer to start touch-typing effectively, and then it’ll be your new normal, too.

Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

#15

Post by MiddleEndian »

I switched to Dvorak back in high school. It took me a month to be comfortable, and after a few months my typing speed got to around 90 wpm, while I never surpassed 45 in QWERTY.

I honestly don't use other people's computers much, but I can still type around 30 wpm in QWERTY. It's very easy to switch your keyboard layout to Dvorak in any commonly used OS.

Speed aside (little in my life is actually capped by my typing speed) the comfort and the entertainment factor when others try to type on my computers has absolutely been worth it.

Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

#16

Post by Libbum »

alekratz wrote: post #10

Disclaimer: not an answer, but a follow-up question. I'm seeing lots of Colemak and Dvorak responses; has anyone switched to Workman layout and had a positive experience?

Yes, most certainly. I prefer it over dvorak too - much more comfortable and balanced (see my other answer in this thread). Add an ortholinear keyboard like a typematrix into the mix and it's the best typing experience I've managed so far.

Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

#18

Post by erelde »

docdeek wrote: post #14

Moved to France 10 years ago and had to decide between buying a QWERTY keyboard or laptop online and getting it delivered, or just buying a local AZERTY keyboard. Went local, had a couple of weeks of re-learning how to type, and then things were fine. From time to time I encounter a QWERTY keyboard (some in the French office here prefer it as they trained on QWERTY while in university or working internationally) but…

I'm French, and AZERTY sometime drives me crazy.

Braces and parenthesis aren't logically placed, characters used in coding languages aren't easily accessible in general.

And I've generally concluded that I should install games in English and switch my keyboard layout to QWERTY when/if I play. Plus, mods usually are in English, and I hate when there's a word in French and the next is in English.

Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

#19

Post by deevious »

koonsolo wrote: post #17

I once switched to DVORAK, but then I noticed I couldn't easily do ctrl-z, ctrl-x, ctrl-c and ctrl-v, ctrl-s, ctrl-a with my left hand, so I switched back. (Maybe some combinations are possible, too lazy to find out ;))

This is also killing me, I've switched to DVORAK a few months ago and I'm up to speed, but missing these shortcuts can be pretty painful at times, especially with cut, copy and paste.

I have adjusted to doing Ctrl-Insert, Shift-Insert, Shift-Delete, I just have to constantly refrain from doing Shift-Delete when handling files, but it's still not as comfy as the QWERTY shortcut positioning.

Overall I'd say it's still worth it, the positioning of the punctuation marks is better and my fingers travel a lot less.

Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?

#20

Post by nazgob »

Colemak here, switched something like 6y ago. I was training with few programs to learn to touch type properly (my qwerty was touch type level but bad, wrong fingers pressing wrong buttons etc). The one I used to most on Mac is called Type Fu, but there are many others. I trained for ~10m for some time while using qwerty normally. I made total switch when I could type 40wpm on Colemak. After 2 weeks it was 60wpm. Very happy with it.
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