I’ve been using computers since the '70s, and I’m still a crappy typist! You’d think I would’ve had it down by now, but it’s still close to hunt-and-peck. I know where all the keys are within a one button radius, so if I’m looking at the keyboard I can move along at a decent pace, but if I try to type without looking, I miss at least one letter a word. It’s faster to look at the keyboard than it is to ‘Backspace’ over all my freshly mis-typed words. Maybe it’s me, but I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t try to pin the fault on something else.
So, I guess I’m asking if there are any people out there who switched to Dvorak late in the game and found themselves to be better/faster typists?
I mean, I’ve been interested in checking one out just for curiosity’s sake, but if there are tangible benifits involved, I might move it up the ol’ priority food chain from ‘just a thought’ to ‘something to do.’
Near the end of that thread, ENugent funished a link to Dvorty Boards, keyboards capable of either Dvorak or QWERTY layouts. They were out of stock of the model I wanted for a long time, but just a couple of days ago I checked and they finally had it again! I went ahead and ordered one. Anyway, you can imagine that if I spent money on it, I’m still pretty gung-ho about Dvorak. I think it’s definitely better, if not necessarily faster.
I switched to a Dvorak layout about 7 years ago. Sped up my typing, and reduced wrist problems (which I had mostly because my typing with a qwerty keyboard was done almost exclusively with my right hand).
Dvorak can give proper touch typers a (slight) bit of a speed boost, but if you’re hunt-n-pecking to begin with, there’s not going to be that much improvment. You’d be better off getting a typing instruction program ( I like “Typing of the Dead” myself, but that’s because I loathe the undead) or taking typing lessons than switching to a totally different keyboard layout.
I disagree with bucknully. If it takes a different keyboard to get you to type properly, go with the different keyboard. That’s what I did, and I’m happier for it.
I was hunt and peck, at about 30 wpm, on QWERTY for years. I finally decided it was time to learn to touch-type, and I might was well learn Dvorak, as long as I was doing it. I now type around 60-70 wpm with high accuracy, and my hands don’t get as tired when I spend all day on the computer.
If you’re going to learn it, I think it’s a good idea to learn it first using a good typing program like Mavis Beacon, then get the special keyboard if you want it. That way, you wean yourself off looking at the keyboard immediately (the same reason that high school typing classes use keyboards that don’t have the letters printed on the keys at all).
