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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?

#61

Post by teilo »

I have switched layouts 3 times in the last 27 years. I began with Dvorak. That wasn't a switch. It was the first layout I learned to touch type on. I think I was 16 at the time. Back then you either needed a keyboard which supported the layout, or a DOS TSR. (I had the former: a Northgate Omnikey). Years later I switched to Colemak, then to QWERTY using Kazantsev fingering, and finally back to Dvorak.

My observations are: Cold turkey is the only way to go. It will take you a couple weeks to a month to regain your old speed. Then you will be faster. Your speed has nothing to do with the advantage of one layout over another. There is no speed advantage to Dvorak or Colemak because the intrinsic efficiency of one layout over another is dwarfed by the mind's ability to establish a skill in autonomic memory. The additional speed comes from the effort of re-training itself, and unlearning bad habits in the process.

Also: Don't try to retain the ability to touch-type on your existing layout. I tried this every time. I could do it, but only at the expense of speed and accuracy. When I gave it up, both improved dramatically.

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

#62

Post by aliceyhg »

Loic wrote: post #13

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 impressiv…

Thank you for your suggestion. I'm usually on my laptop so getting TypeMatrix (cool keyboard!) is currently not an option. Using 2 different layouts everyday is an interesting concept, I think it might ease my transition into dvorak.

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

#63

Post by aliceyhg »

teilo wrote: post #61

I have switched layouts 3 times in the last 27 years. I began with Dvorak. That wasn't a switch. It was the first layout I learned to touch type on. I think I was 16 at the time. Back then you either needed a keyboard which supported the layout, or a DOS TSR. (I had the former: a Northgate Omnikey). Years later I switched to Colemak, then to QWERTY using Kazantsev fingering, and finally back to Dvorak. My observation…

I can't imagine switching keyboard layouts 3 times, your mind must be extremely nimble. Currently, I have a picture of the dvorak keyboard pinned as my desktop wallpaper so if I forget location of a key I can look at desktop quickly.

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

#64

Post by aliceyhg »

wwkeyboard wrote: post #45
willis77 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, wait, aren't you that guy that does the funny nerd keyboard thing? Type me a sentence. Dance monkey, dance!

And every time there is a test form filled with "aoeuaoeuaoeu" someone says "hey hey I know who did that!" Although I'w surprised how quickly I can type 'qwerty' with this keyboard.

aoeuaoeuaoeu :)

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

#65

Post by aliceyhg »

Libbum wrote: post #11
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.

thank you for the Stack overflow post. I'm going to look into the mappings. I'm using vim and dvorak started off awkward but I kind of get used to it. navigating up down on the left hand (jk is cv), navigating left right on the right (hl is jp).

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

#66

Post by aliceyhg »

danieka wrote: post #12

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…

Thank you. Mild wrist pains is what motivated me to start in the first place, will stick with it.

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

#67

Post by aliceyhg »

nhumrich wrote: post #38

I 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…

I'm surprised that changing layout on your phone helped. In my experience so far on dvorak, I'm still used to typing on my qwerty phone. I think typing with thumbs uses a different muscle memory set from fingers on keyboard.

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

#68

Post by aliceyhg »

peeters wrote: post #29

I switched to Colemak for a couple of years. The trick for me was using a typing tutor relentlessly over a weekend, enough that I could do around 40-50 wpm. Then I went cold turkey and never used QWERTY. Colemak is a little bit friendlier than Dvorak because it leaves a bunch of keys intact, which is nice for preserving common shortcuts like CTRL-C, CTRL-V, etc. It also doesn't touch punctuation, which always seemed…

CTRL-C on dvorak is incredibly annoying. I have to use both my left and right hands. I should be using just my right hand and the right control key, but its quite hard getting used to. I didn't do any mapping so I haven't encountered any mnemonic problems :)

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

#69

Post by aliceyhg »

jerf wrote: post #26

I switched to dvorak about ten years ago when I incorrectly hypothesized that it might help resolve my wrist pain. [1] It definitely took about a month to get fluid. Once I realized that the new keyboard layout wasn't really helping my problem, I figured I might as well stick with it, since it definitely does involve less wrist movement and such. (I don't know if it will help with movement stress but it seems unlikel…

Putting keyboard on your lap sounds like an interesting idea. Will try it out today at work.

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

#70

Post by notmarkus »

aliceyhg wrote: post #63
teilo wrote: post #61

I have switched layouts 3 times in the last 27 years. I began with Dvorak. That wasn't a switch. It was the first layout I learned to touch type on. I think I was 16 at the time. Back then you either needed a keyboard which supported the layout, or a DOS TSR. (I had the former: a Northgate Omnikey). Years later I switched to Colemak, then to QWERTY using Kazantsev fingering, and finally back to Dvorak. My observation…

I can't imagine switching keyboard layouts 3 times, your mind must be extremely nimble. Currently, I have a picture of the dvorak keyboard pinned as my desktop wallpaper so if I forget location of a key I can look at desktop quickly.

I got a keyboard covering and placed it over a QWERTY keyboard to learn colemak. Might be a useful tool for you as well.
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