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How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

erichgrunewald.com

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Re: How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

#101

Post by samatman »

chillacy wrote: post #12

> One week or so ago I switched from Colemak to typing on QWYRFM due to the reduced load it places on the pinkies. I typed Dvorak for 10 years before I started getting RSI again in my right ulna. It turns out that the 'S' key being hit by the pinky in Dvorak caused me a lot of pain. I ended up switching to BEAKL, a pretty obscure layout which is specifically made to alleviate stress on the pinky. It moves the relativ…

I fixed my one case of budding RSI with Two Weird Tricks.

The important one was to make my home row on laptop and other 'standard' keyboard layouts into (approximately) QSDV-POKJ. That is to say, my palms are angled relative to the keyboard angle. Without this, the wrists are squished the whole time one is typing: that's bad and no layout can fix it, it's pure posture.

The other one was to move backspace to the cap's lock position. Turns out I delete a lot and i was doing it with a rather extreme wrist rotation and my pinky finger.

I use an ErgoDox when I can these days, but can easily spend an hour or two typing on a laptop keyboard, my spine needs a break well before my wrists would.

Re: How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

#103

Post by psanan »

My own experiments with this point to similar conclusions. QWERTY is not laid out that badly, really, and for me (with no RSI problems, yet) the benefits of using the default, especially being able to type on other people's computers, far outweighed any benefit from the alternate layout (Workman). However, the excursion was completely worth it for me - I switched in the first place because I never learned to touch type properly, and figured it would be easier and more fun to learn from scratch on a new layout. That was true, and soon I found I'd entirely forgotten QWERTY, so I re-learned that from scratch, touch-typing, and am about as fast and accurate as I was on the alternate layout. Blog post after all that: https://patricksanan.org/personal/adventures-in-keyboarding-...

Re: How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

#104

Post by 6510 »

Zircom wrote: post #15
chillacy wrote: post #12

> One week or so ago I switched from Colemak to typing on QWYRFM due to the reduced load it places on the pinkies. I typed Dvorak for 10 years before I started getting RSI again in my right ulna. It turns out that the 'S' key being hit by the pinky in Dvorak caused me a lot of pain. I ended up switching to BEAKL, a pretty obscure layout which is specifically made to alleviate stress on the pinky. It moves the relativ…

Interesting. I've never trained or practiced my typing, but I've always naturally typed using only my thumb, pointer and middle finger, no pinky or ring fingers at all, but still manage to hit 80-100WPM without them on QWERTY. Good instincts I guess.

I would love to see a video.

Re: How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

#105

Post by formerly_proven »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #97
jacobmischka wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds wild and frankly I don't believe you.

There was some research that showed people who typed with fewer fingers could be just as fast. However, I am surprised that anyone could achieve 100wpm with no training.

What do you mean by "training"?

I've never done a ten finger / touch typing course or something like that (so, no training) and don't have problems typing 130 WPM 98-100% accuracy in one of these typing tests without specifically practicing typing tests. I don't have ten working fingers.

Re: How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

#106

Post by [deleted] »

RealStickman_ wrote: post #92
rgoulter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One place where typing speed does impact other people is synchronous messaging, like Slack. If you're asking someone for help, you're requesting their attention. It's better if you can type with sufficient speed to give plenty of information/context as to what you're talking about.

If you ask somebody for help and haven't included all relevant facts in the first message you've already done something wrong. https://nohello.net/

[deleted]

Re: How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

#107

Post by lawn »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #91
lawn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used BEAKL as well for a few months but in combination with a 5-column split keyboard (so you don't press enter, shift etc with your pinky) there was too little for my pinky to do (which caused other fingers to do more than needed). Of others have similar issues I would recommend you to look at a split keyboard first (but switching layout is great too).

What is a good Mac-layout split keyboard with USB?

No need for anything Mac specific. Just get a programmable keyboard and you can swap Ctrl and Cmd and you're good.

Tons of alternatives here: https://jhelvy.shinyapps.io/splitkbcompare/

Re: How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

#108

Post by irthomasthomas »

formerly_proven wrote: post #105
irthomasthomas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was some research that showed people who typed with fewer fingers could be just as fast. However, I am surprised that anyone could achieve 100wpm with no training.

What do you mean by "training"? I've never done a ten finger / touch typing course or something like that (so, no training) and don't have problems typing 130 WPM 98-100% accuracy in one of these typing tests without specifically practicing typing tests. I don't have ten working fingers.

Training yourself by intentionally practicing touch typing.

Re: How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

#109

Post by xhevahir »

hackshack wrote: post #100
xhevahir wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched after developing hand injuries at work (in a job that didn't involve computer use). Since then, whenever I've had to use QWERTY for whatever purpose I've started getting pain in my tendons after a few hours which goes away almost as soon as I'm able to switch back to Dvorak. Like you, though, I found that picking up Dvorak was a total pain in the ass. A while ago I saw a YouTube video in which a guy was te…

Data point. Old fart who switched to Dvorak eons ago, at age 16. It felt natural after 1 week, and felt more efficient than the ‘qwert sometime between weeks 2 and 3. I suspect young age greatly affects take-up speed. Good on ya for taking care of yourself, and switching when you did. Incidentally, at age 26, I used the “left-handed” Dvorak layout for 2 weeks while my right wrist and hand healed from a dirtbike crash…

I tried Dvorak on Android eight or ten years ago and realized that my Dvorak skill would not transfer to a touchscreen, since it consisted entirely of muscle memory and I had no experience of looking at a keyboard that was labeled that way. That and the lack of glide typing (which I've come to rely on) made it useless to me.

Re: How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

#110

Post by Asooka »

nightfly wrote: post #62
slobotron wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly recommend you look into keyboards that have "Enter" and "Backspace" reachable by thumb/index fingers. I've been dailying a TECK for nearly a decade, and it's helped immensely with RSI. Their new Clevo keyboard is a bit different, so can't vouch for it, but my SO likes it so far as first foray into ergo keyboards: https://trulyergonomic.com/

I used some generation of Truly Ergonomic for a few years and it started getting repeating/missing characters... at $250 it was too big of an expense for me to rebuy. While it worked though, I was very happy with it

You should try the ergodox. I similarly bought the TECK because I wanted an ergonomic keyboard with a standard-ish layout and loved it, but it died in a couple of years. After that I bought an Ergodox EZ and have been very happy with it.
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