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The Workman Keyboard Layout Philosophy (2010)

workmanlayout.org

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Re: The Workman Keyboard Layout Philosophy (2010)

#11

Post by hobofan »

QasimK wrote: post #5

A keyboard layout for programmers, which allowed the use of special characters on the home row, perhaps by using a mixed corpus of source code rather than just novels, would be interesting to see. Recently, I ordered the Ultimate Hacker’s Keyboard because I think typing is quite important for a programmer, especially if you consider health as the author of this article does. I’m a little bit weary of not using QWERTY…

> I’m a little bit weary of not using QWERTY because of the high cost of switching, so if I did switch, I’d want to select a layout that was basically perfect for me long-term (which sounds very tough to do).

Similar to programming languages, after learning a second keyboard layout the switching cost will be much lower for each additional one.

I switched from QWERTZ (German) to QWERTY (US/international), because it is already much better for programming, and am currently trying out Colemak, and it was much easier to adopt (=get to a reasonable workable speed).

Re: The Workman Keyboard Layout Philosophy (2010)

#13

Post by lorenzhs »

QasimK wrote: post #5

A keyboard layout for programmers, which allowed the use of special characters on the home row, perhaps by using a mixed corpus of source code rather than just novels, would be interesting to see. Recently, I ordered the Ultimate Hacker’s Keyboard because I think typing is quite important for a programmer, especially if you consider health as the author of this article does. I’m a little bit weary of not using QWERTY…

See my other comment in this thread -- this exists for German with a secondary focus on English and programming (neo2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo), and it's what I've been using for at least five years, and I love it. I'm not aware of something similar that is geared towards English and programming, though.

It takes a few weeks to learn a layout that is radically different from what you used before, and sadly the most efficient way to switch is to just dive in and use it all the time, even if it's painfully slow and annoying. I switched when I was in university, but it might be difficult to do when there's someone paying you for things that require typing.

Re: The Workman Keyboard Layout Philosophy (2010)

#14

Post by roenxi »

It is interesting, given that the corpuses are available, that keyboard design isn't framed as some sort of linear or nonlinear optimising problem.

Choose a set of tasks -> plug into an optimiser -> get a keyboard mapping tuned to the task you are doing. There'd be people who find that useful. The maths isn't at all hard, the data is there.

EDIT Maybe it would be a fun project to take something like top 100 C libraries from github and build up an optimised keyboard layout for C coding. It is an interesting idea.

Re: The Workman Keyboard Layout Philosophy (2010)

#15

Post by Loic »

If you are looking at alternative keyboards, I have been using the TypeMatrix 2030[0] with a transparent cover for about 10 years.

I am using the Dvorak layout, but I think that the main reason it is so comfortable to use is the ortho-linear layout of the keys and that it is totally flat.

I would recommend anybody with RSI to test first ortho-linear physical layout of the keys with your standard Qwerty or Azerty or whatever you use right now before moving to something else.

[0]: http://www.typematrix.com/

Re: The Workman Keyboard Layout Philosophy (2010)

#16

Post by reacweb »

He uses the wrong test. Testing on "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" is meaningless for developpers: tests should be performed using real usages like "source code of linux kernel" or "mailing list of linux kernel" to have a better balance between code and text.

Re: The Workman Keyboard Layout Philosophy (2010)

#18

Post by fooblat »

lbj wrote: post #10
fooblat wrote: post #9

As a full time developer who used to suffer terrible RSI pain, I solved the problem without changing keyboard layouts. After consulting with my doctor and an ergonomics expert, I realized my problems were cause by the setup of my workstation and the bad posture habits I had developed. 1. I would rest my palms as I typed. This turned out to be a major source of pain. Retraining myself to "float" my hands over the keyb…

You hover? Doesnt that just move the strain to your upper arms?

The key to this for me is having the keyboard as close to my lap as possible. The effort to hover seems to go up with the height of the keyboard relative to my thighs.

Re: The Workman Keyboard Layout Philosophy (2010)

#19

Post by nicolas_t »

AprilArcus wrote: post #7

The Colemak Mod-DH family of layouts incorporates the major insight of Workman (that QWERTY v and n are lower-effort positions than QWERTY g and h) without abandoning the better elements of Colemak (common left hand shortcut keys QWAZXC remain unmoved, good hand alternation, emphasis on inward rolls). http://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/

Thanks for this. I've used colemak for many years but the position of the dh is definitely not ideal. I'll try it out and see how it fares.

Re: The Workman Keyboard Layout Philosophy (2010)

#20

Post by eggie »

The author doesn't even learn dvorak before deciding that it doesn't work for them. They mention don't like how it behaves on the consonant-heavy, qwerty-optimized commands used in unix. (I have to say this is a fair evaluation, but in practice the layout somehow doesn't encourage RSI despite the apparent awkwardness of typing unix commands on it.)

In result they don't seem to understand that the dvorak layout is optimized for alternation between hands (they do mention this) and inward rolling motion (they don't seem to understand this). You can really feel this when typing, and it makes typing downright enjoyable.

I wouldn't be surprised if much of the added distance relative to colemak and workman is probably reaching for the "i" with the left pointer finger. These are the easiest movements to make repeatedly, and in my experience the home row horizontal movement that they try to optimize out of workman isn't really important.

People should be free and encouraged to make their own layouts to beat RSI. But, scientific measurement of what is better seems basically impossible...

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