His gist is Dvorak is faster than Qwerty only because touch typing is faster than hunt and peck. He cannot touch type in Qwerty so he has no grounds to make any claim as to their relative merits at all, and the only reason he seems to have written this article is to brag he can touch type Dvorak on a Qwerty keyboard.
I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
151–160 of 183 posts
Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
#152I'm disappointed that this article is no different from all the other articles on keyboard layouts that I've ever encountered and ignores non-English uses. Obviously, a post written in English has no good reason describing a Norwegian-specific alternative to QWERTY, but it still manages to ignore half of the population of English-speaking people by not taking into account using multiple languages on the same keyboard…
The situation is worse for non-latin-alphabet based languages, especially if the alphabet is not ~20-30 letters. Some selected examples: https://www.branah.com/korean https://www.branah.com/japanese https://www.branah.com/greek https://www.branah.com/hindi https://www.branah.com/tagalog https://www.branah.com/tamazight https://www.branah.com/sundanese https://www.branah.com/tibetan I am not a speaker of many of the l…
How can you claim it's worse, if you don't speak any of these languages?
My understanding is that Japanese is usually typed with an IME, and not a kana keyboard. I press exactly the same keys on my keyboard to get "taiko" or "太鼓" -- and I find Dvorak easier. (Japanese is even better about alternating vowels and consonants than English!) Kotoeri supports Dvorak just fine, and I assume other IMEs do, too.
Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone here seems to be saying that switching immediately eliminated their pain, so what's the risk? One can just switch when they start feeling pain.
An alternative to using a different key layout is to use a contoured matrix-style ergonomic keyboard (where all keys are arranged in symmetric columns and curved to fit the hand). I did this a couple of years ago and can similarly report an immediate cessation of pains associated with typing, although I kept a QWERTY layout. The costs and adjustment period involved are still not completely trivial, though.
I had a similar experience, although I went with the Freestyle 2 instead.
Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
#154The author was literally not the target audience. Unless you are already touch-typing, there won't be much of a benefit: * all keys are equally easy to reach when you hover your finger 10cm above the keyboard while searching for a key * you are moving fingers, hands and arms much more and with much more variety than when touch-typing, the risk of repetitive strain injuries is therefore lower * you are typing much, mu…
> as a lisp programmer I don't care about curly or square brackets, when I have to hack on other languages, I adapt my layout to make required special characters more easily accessible I find it fascinating that people change their keyboard layouts frequently. For me, there seems to be plenty of mental complexity to contend with that adding n > 1 keyboard interfaces would overload my ability to work efficiently. I’m…
> I find it fascinating that people change their keyboard layouts frequently.
Me too. I have trouble just switching between Mac layout and others.
Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
#155The author was literally not the target audience. Unless you are already touch-typing, there won't be much of a benefit: * all keys are equally easy to reach when you hover your finger 10cm above the keyboard while searching for a key * you are moving fingers, hands and arms much more and with much more variety than when touch-typing, the risk of repetitive strain injuries is therefore lower * you are typing much, mu…
I've been using Dvorak since 2003 or earlier when I read this post by Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame: https://ma.tt/2003/08/on-the-dvorak-keyboard-layout/ It's a night and day difference. Watching everyone from my doctor to my colleagues twisting around their fingers to use QWERTY is painful and I'm seriously typing this without even glancing at the keyboard
> I'm seriously typing this without even glancing at the keyboard
I mean... that is what touch typing is and you can do it on a qwerty keyboard as well.
Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been on a computer pretty much 12-16 hours a day for 30 years now. Dvorak only makes sense to me if you only have to use a single keyboard/workstation for all of your computing time consistently. On my own I have four different machines/OS and I frequently have to type at other peoples'. I spent 10 years in Dvorak, Colemak and a variety of modified Colemak layouts before settling back on qwerty. I never noticed…
> if you only have to use a single keyboard/workstation for all of your computing time consistently. The keyboard itself is irrelevant. I'd recommend getting a keyboard without labels to free yourself from the idea that you need to look at them. All of the time? I don't get this. There's no problem switching between Dvorak and Qwerty if you do it regularly. It's like switching between bicycling and snowboarding.. you…
I'm a touch typist. I do not look at the keys. The issue is managing the keyboard switch on every single computer and OS that I use.
We're talking: Linux workstation at work, company-issued MBP for remote work, my personal OpenBSD laptop, my Windows gaming desktop. The gaming desktop has its own host of issues and might as well be qwerty. And then I'm having to do things on other peoples' workstations constantly (and others mine) and I've only encountered two people in my whole career who use Dvorak.
My point is that typing speed is roughly equivalent and it doesn't reap any benefits with all of the time spend managing workstations and context switching between layouts.
Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
#157Both the article and most of the comments here don't seem to touch the elephant in the room: There's no reliable scientific evidence for Dvorak or any other keyboard being any better. Here's an article covering the flimsy evidence: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/1999/04/01/t... Is there a place for better keyboard layouts? Maybe. Show me properly controlled studies and I'll take it seriously.
Yes and no.
Turkish F keyboard is essentially a highly used Dvorak used equivalent and coincidentally Turkey often wins some of the most typing competions. This is not scientific evidence so to speak but our best bet to understand this is to analyze Turkish F keyboard.
Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you only have to use a single keyboard/workstation for all of your computing time consistently. The keyboard itself is irrelevant. I'd recommend getting a keyboard without labels to free yourself from the idea that you need to look at them. All of the time? I don't get this. There's no problem switching between Dvorak and Qwerty if you do it regularly. It's like switching between bicycling and snowboarding.. you…
I've been using blank keyboards[0] at home and work for several years now. Whenever someone just stares at it for a moment, I ask "What? You can't type?" I totally don't get the trend of backlit gaming keyboards. Desktop keyboards aren't supposed to be looked at, period. [0] Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate
You can touch type the F-keys too?
Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
An alternative to using a different key layout is to use a contoured matrix-style ergonomic keyboard (where all keys are arranged in symmetric columns and curved to fit the hand). I did this a couple of years ago and can similarly report an immediate cessation of pains associated with typing, although I kept a QWERTY layout. The costs and adjustment period involved are still not completely trivial, though.
I had a similar experience, although I went with the Freestyle 2 instead.
I was on the fence there for a while between the two designs, and now that you mention it I think the shoulder-width separation is at least as important for comfort as any other factor. I ended up going for the Advantage2 instead mainly because of the mechanical keys, since the two bottom-end Lenovo keyboards I was using previously got to where I had to forcibly "pop" some of the keys down to type and I wanted to minimize my chances of a similar experience. Though, I doubt the problem happens quite like that on any but the cheapest of keyboards.
I really do wish they made a separable Advantage version. The ErgoDox seems as evidence that there is at least some market for such a thing.
Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which keyboard do you use? I use a cheap Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 which works great. I may be ready to step up though.
The one I got was the Kinesis Advantage 2, which I almost hesitate to recommend due to the sticker shock. I'd recommend trying to see if the idea of a more symmetrical typing posture appeals to you enough to be worth it (maybe just some non-typing exercises at your desk). I was at the point of having already adjusted my chair, desk height, and wrist angle (making sure not to rest the wrists while actually typing), an…
I've thought of that one before, but keyboardio also looks nice in the price range.
The advantage of the kinesis in my opinion is it being a little more trustworthy off the shelf for my security paranoid industry. Getting a Kickstarter keyboard with an Arduino builtin might scare some folks although I'm not enough of a hardware guru to know if there is anything to actually worry about or not.