Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

I have done testing of my own on personalized keyboard lay-out by keylogging myself. My initial interest in keyboard layouts was piqued years ago with the CarpalX project [1], so I started keylogging myself in 2017. I am a researcher, programmer, sysadmin, and work in a multilingual environment (Python, English, Dutch, R, Java, French, Spanish), so I was expecting some interesting results.

I put 3 years worth of keylogs into Patorjk's Keyboard Analyzer app [2] used by OP (after sanitizing passwords and personal identification). Here are my personal results:

  Programmer Colemak      59.06
  Colemak                 59.02
  CarpalxQ                56.02
  Workman                 57.43
  Workman for Programmers 57.16
  Simplified Dvorak       54.71
  Programmer Dvorak       53.96
  personalized            53.53
  QWERTY                  46.61
  AZERTY                  44.83

I did build an Ergodox but never got around to learning it, so here are Ergodox scores:

  Colemak Thumbshift      63.12
  Ergodox/Colemak/Cub     60.93
  Ergodox Colemak v1      60.13
  Ergodox/Workman/Cub     59.27
  Ergodox Colemak v2      57.07

For me, Colemak variations seem to come on top over Workman and CarpalX in this test. Note that Patorjk's Keyboard Analyzer [2] does not have a ergonomic typing effort modeled in as much detail as the CarpalX model which takes into account full stroke path. It is very much possible that CarpalX will come out in front of Colemak using the more CarpalX model. Other interesting layouts can be found at the Keyboard-Design.com ranking [3] which uses [2] on different (programming) language inputs. For me personally, I will start learning Programmer Colemak on my regular keyboard and Colemak Thumbshift on my Ergodox.

OP argues against Colemak based on added typing effort due to horizontal and diagonal stretching. If Workman is better in this regard, PatorJ's Keyboard Analyzer [2] as not as good a tool as CarpalX to reflect this advantage. CarpalX takes into account finger travel distance, hand/finger/row penalties and stroke path. PatorJ's tool does not model stroke path or allows for penalization of horizontal and diagonal movement. I would like to have seen an analysis using CarpalX as that could have strengthened your argument for Workman. Additionally, OP puts a lot of focus on the common monolingual English keystrokes (HE) which is not necessarily relevant for multilingual programmers.

A personalized approach is necessary because most standard lay-outs are based on monolingual text datasets of books as is in the OP. Everyday typing of an IT-professional does not resemble natural language text in the slightest, so actual keylog input is required for any layout analysis IMHO.

Overall, I very much appreciate the effort OP put into Workman, it looks great! It seems Workman is a serious contender for first place alongside Colemak and CarpalX.

1. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx

2. http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer

3. https://www.keyboard-design.com/best-layouts-by-average-rank...

On normal keyboard layout you press so many keys with your pinky. I think it's ridiculous.

I design my 40% keyboard (vortex core) layout[0] according to 3 principles:

1. do not assign pinky to any key need you press and hold (ctrl, shift, alt, etc.)

2. do not assign pinky to any key you press frequently

3. try to assign these keys to you thumb or bottom part of the palm (hypothenar?)

So I assign space to the left palm, ctrl to the right palm, alt, cmd and shift to the left thumb, pn (modifier to enter numbers/symbols) to the right thumb.

Enter is assigned to pn+n, esc is assigend to right pinky because I'm not a vim user.

[0]: https://imgz.org/ih6XktnR/

Many years ago I too had pain in my wrists while doing lots of programming work. For me the game changer was using Vim and mapping ESC to jj in both the editor and the shell (via .inputrc). In fact I mostly use Vim because of the provided ergonomics, the fast editing capabilities are just the cherry on the cake.

In my opinion the main culprit are modifier keys (e.g. by default the shell uses emacs bindings and you do a lot of ^A, ^E, ^R, etc.), but using jj mostly solves the issue as you just have to reach for Ctrl when you require SIGINT or copy/pasting in different environments that do not support vi keys. There are also people that remap it to Caps-Lock, but I just don't like to use my pinky that often.

Of course, everybody is different, but it makes sense to think about a setup that suits you and your health.

How do you usually get along in a professional setting with Dvorak? I use it too been using it for like 20 years now and it's very smooth but I'd be interested to know your impressions.

I've been experimenting with Xmodmap on Linux for this reason. I remapped my capslock key to a symbol modifier, and then put all of my symbols in different places based on ergonomics and easy to remember mnemonics. Here's a small sample:

   plus sign
   tilde
   at symbol
   delete
   exclamation mark
   vim movement

After filling out the keyboard with mnemonics I found the few remaining gaps in the layer with two empty keys next to each other and put my brackets braces and parenthesis there. The final move in training yourself to use your new symbols is to remove them from their original keybinding. I recommend trying it out, I've found the process enjoyable.