My early experience agrees with yours: it was much harder to re-learn typing than I expected and a consistent mental load for a month or two until I internalized it. I did manage to get over the learning curve, and while I enjoy the noticeably reduced tendon strain (1/2 or 1/3 the movement, it's pretty amazing) and the fact that it cured me of touch typing, it does come with a few persistent annoyances, poor support on Windows being the worst. If you have AD-mandated password rotations, windows will copy your password from the login screen into "old password" and then silently swap the keyboard under you before you type your new password. It has three options for layout toggling keyboard shortcuts, all of which conflict with commonly used modifier key combinations, and the keyboard layout dialog seems to have a mind of its own, neither behaving like a global setting nor behaving like a per-application setting. On the balance, dvorak didn't save me time/hassle or make me faster, but it has made typing slightly more pleasant and it may have helped with RSI.
Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
#32For 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 impressiv…
Is it easy to use with MacOS or shortcuts are messed up?
The biggest problem with MacOS is that some of the modifiers don't respect the keyboard for some java gui toolkit. I've only seen this problem come up with intellij products. And it's only with the non-alphanumeric keys. So things like command-bracket gives a different keystroke than you would expect. It's an up-stream problem that JetBrains has said they don't have control over.
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/oauth?state=%2Fissue%2FIDEABK...
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
#33It gets better, and if you are a programmer, I recommend go straight to Dvorak for Programmers or similar coder-oriented layout.
I made the switch in 2011 and still one of the best decisions I've made. I set up the hotkey to rapidly switch between QWERTY and Dvorak because I 'defaulted' a LOT that first month (this is essential and don't let it discourage you to switch a lot!). I did a lot of drills for the first two weeks - there was a website specifically for drilling Dvorak, and it took some forcing to stick with the layout on non-critical tasks.
Peak QWERTY before was ~70-80 WPM. After about 2 months I was 50 WPM Dvorak and a slight dent in Qwerty speed. Not sure when the crossover occurred exactly, but a month or so later I was at 80 in Dvorak. I use Qwerty about 2% of the time but remain bi-lingual (bi-manual?) at ~75, with Dvorak just squeaking over 90. Occasionally I'll get [qwertial aphasia](https://xkcd.com/604/) and get stuck in the wrong brain mode for a few words when switching.
At this point, I've found the biggest limiter is muscle memory (letter patterns/n-grams), mistakes, and reading in words when taking these typing tests. But Qwerty feels like "crazy fingers", I feel like my fingers are all over the place, where Dvorak spends most of the time on home and upper row.
Started learning Dvorak for Programmers a few months ago and I really like that a lot - the number rearrangement is a bit weird but I mostly use the numpad for digits anyways, but having ()[]{}&$=!# and splat all without shift is GLORIOUS.
I'm curious about Colemak/Workman, and might take those on as a neuroplasticity challenge, but it's less of a push for me since DfP is so much win.
The only major pain is now Ctrl-Z -C -X -V are no longer one-handed, if I can, I try to rebind them to -' -Q -J -K, but mostly learned to live with what is effectively -' -/ -B -I -. . The brain is crazy adaptive.
edit: HN doesn't support Markdown-style links? Boo.
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
#34I switched to the german neo layout¹ years ago (after a year of dvorak).
Having done the jump twice: it takes some time, and in the beginning you really feel sooo handycapped, but it gets better quickly. I used to play some text centered ultima-online-like morpg which I used to get better at typing.
I don't know if it's faster, but it feels great. I can still type qwerty with 6-8 fingers rather quickly (I made the dive in to 10-finger typing with dvorak). I do change my keycaps, because I can't type blindly without using 10 fingers (like hitting any key with just you index finger while giving a presentation and standing a step away).
The big benefit of this layout for me: I have 2 more "shift" keys for these things:
1. (holding capslock)
¹²³›‹¢¥‚‘’ =&ſ
\/{}*?()-:@ for the left hand: arrow keys, del, backspace, esc, enter (really helps when your vi keybindings are all messed up)
For the right hand: number block (good on small laptops without one, space becomes 0)
The only downside currently: it's optimized for german wtih a bit of english, but I type more english. Vocals are popular everythere though, so it's mostly the same.
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
#35It took me about a week to get vaguely comfortable when I switched, and maybe two weeks to really get good with it. But I was about 14 years old at the time, so that might be the adaptability of youth on display.
If I had to do it again, I'm not sure if I would. It's definitely more comfortable and maybe faster when typing English. Code is less clear, since the symbols are still often in weird places, but it's not bad. Keyboard shortcuts can get pretty strange. For example, the standard copy/paste keys get scattered all about instead of clustering in the lower left, unless you have your computer use Dvorak for regular typing and QWERTY for control keys, which is possible but has its own set of strangeness. Overall, though, I'm glad I made the switch and don't have any desire to stop using it.
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
#36For 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 impressiv…
Why don't you use Dvorak on your laptop?
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
#37I've been on Dvorak for 4 months. First two weeks will be PITA and you'll lose your productivity at this point, so be careful about that. The most important thing is that you should forget about qwerty at all and don't make yourself switching to it. You must type on Dvorak even if you're very slow. There are a lot of online trainers you can use to learn how to properly type in Dvorak layout. After 2 weeks, you still will be slow but at least you can type something without a lot of troubles. After that, just do typing and you'll increase your wpm. I've printed a simple Dvorak keyboard layout because I were learning blind typing (I don't know the proper name of it, but the thing is that you type without looking at your keyboard) again and it was hard to me to remember new key positions. Don't forget about keybindings, they'd be changed too. I'm using dvorak-qwerty layout for that though, so when I press Ctrl, my keyboard uses qwerty layout. However, you can learn new keybindings if you want.
It's worth it and I don't have any problems using qwerty on other PCs. Not at the same speed as on Dvorak though.
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
#38I switched to colemak a year ago. Best thing I've ever done. The first month was REALLY hard. But I got over the slump and now I'm very grateful I did it. Typing is so much more natural feeling now. All the stretching in qwerty is not good for you.
I was starting to get signs of RSI before I made the switch. But now almost no pain at all. I switched to an ergodox at the same time, so I can't tell you if the keyboard or the layout made the difference, but I think they both are a factor.
The one thing that really helped me make the switch was changing the layout on my phone's keyboard as well.
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
#39My brother switched to Dvorak. He types the same speed as he did on Qwerty but now he can't use other people's keyboards and people can't use his computer. He admits it was a mistake switching.
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience switching away from QWERTY keyboard?
#40I will offer an alternative, one you probably never heard about, the vertical keyboard. The first usable one I am aware of is the Kinesis Freestyle with the Ascent accessory, it was meant to be vertical. It's worth taking a look: https://www.kinesis-ergo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/frre... you will understand better the hack in the next paragraph.
The Matias Ergo Pro is a split mechanical keyboard with the palmrests secured by standard tripod screws. So people went wild: some used a pair of small tripods to hold it near vertical https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=53184.msg1999684#msg199... some used clamp on mounts https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=78723.0. Spurred by the first post linked, as I described in https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=79810.0 you can add your own feet to the side and cobble together a contraption to hold the two sides against each other (I use a 1/4" Male to 3/8" Male Threaded Screw Converter Adapter, a Manfrotto 259B Extension pole 6"-10", a"Triopo Short Column Ø24mm for MT-128 and GT-128 tripods" and a 1/4"-3/8" spigot like the Impact SRP-109). This makes you work with a high quality QWERTY keyboard in a position which doesn't kill your wrists. You might want to use a pair of tripods at first and slowly adjust to vertical (and then perhaps return the tripods...) -- it took me about a week to get up to 90 degrees with the Ascent which is adjustable.