I would expect that the numbers (and the simple test they come from) in the second link I posted should be more than enough to kill that argument. (Yes, Dvorak has clear, objective reasons to be faster / more efficient / ergonomic. Yes, QWERTY has clear, objective reasons to be slower / less eficient / ergonomic.)
QWERTY’s New World Symphony is nowhere near as good.
I wish to Og that someone would just do a study, once and for all, that measured the relative efficiency of each keyboard layout. Speed, comfort, learning time from scratch, learning time to switch - let’s just sort it out!
“The Myth of the Keys” has no new studies to offer up, and it consists of two economists trying to refute economic arguments about Dvorak’s simultaneous superiority and minuscule market share. According to their arguments, we should all like Celine Dion more than The Tragically Hip, because she sells more records…
For the record, I’ve been a Dvorak user for about ten years, and I wouldn’t go back to the wrist pain of QWERTY (that’s an awkward word to type in Dvorak!) at gunpoint.
Me again. Wanted to report something, in case any Mac user later reads all of this: one of my fears about the switch to Dvorak (the one about keyboard shortcuts being unusable) was nicely blown away by Apple. OS X includes two Dvorak layouts, one of them having the behaviour of going back to QWERTY when the Command / Apple key is depressed. So for example you can use your muscularly-memorized Cmd+Q in this modified Dvorak, even though it would read Cmd+’ in a pure Dvorak layout.
(I had not even thought about the possibility of such tricks; surely other OS’es can do something similar)
I LOL’d.
(Interesting that, many lives ago, I had to use piano exercises by Dvorak too… 
)
(I’ll have to try the tests in the second link I posted, with source files for some programming languages. Will be interesting to see the relative fitness of the layouts then)
Hardly “advanced,” true, but I recall reading that typewriter inventor Sholes’ original keyboard was alphabetical before he started moving type around in the type basket.
BTW: the illustration for this article shows the “upper” case is alphabetical in a California job case. The “lower” case seems to be rearranged primarily so the high-frequency letters are in the middle.
I think that’s a pretty common experience for people who already type upwards of 100 WPM in QWERTY, more or less. You might eventually top your old speed, but even so it would take a long time. I recommend Dvorak for new typists, or ones who aren’t doing so well with QWERTY.
I’m glad to hear you confirm my lurking suspicion that I am, in fact, nobody.
Seriously, where do you think content comes from? If anything, I’d be surprised if there isn’t more typing being done, even per capita, than in the old typing pool days. Granted, a large portion of it is being done poorly…
Actually the current standard is “International Morse” code, which differs from the original Morse. In fact, it might be fairer to call the original Morse “Vail” code, but that’s another story.
As to relevance, I’ve heard arguments that Morse code would be ideal for sending SMS messages on cell phones. Only one key required (or two touch-pad “paddles”). And yet we still twist our thumbs trying to use those 9-key or miniscule QWERTY keypads.
The Dvorak layout was based on hard science, including careful analysis not just of QWERTY but of several alternatives that had been fielded up to that time.
I don’t know where the misconception that you call a lie originated. Dvorak might have held it, although I suspect he understood the mechanics of typewriters better than that. The current scrap over it seems to have started when it was applied to an argument about economics some time after the Dvorak layout was designed.
In any case, it’s certain that QWERTY was designed to accommodate long-gone mechanical constraints (keys jamming), with no consideration for typing comfort (beyond reducing the frequent need to stop and undo jams). As I’ve said before. Sholes himself later patented an utterly redesigned keyboard layout, so he can’t have been too happy with his first try.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_248.html
"OK, doc, you got me dead to rights. The origin of the QWERTY keyboard, so named because that’s what the top row of letter keys spells out, is one of those oft-told tales about how we get stuck with an oddball standard because of a short-sighted decision by some mope(s) in the dawning days of a new technology.
According to legend, the seemingly random layout of today’s keyboards has its origins in the limitations of the first typewriters. The early machines were crude and prone to jamming if you typed too fast. The QWERTY keyboard was designed to place the most commonly used letters on the opposite sides of the keyboard, making jamming mechanically less likely. Legend has it that the QWERTY keyboard was also made intentionally clumsy (only one vowel in the home row, for instance) in order to slow down typists and further reduce the possibility of jamming.
Within a relatively short time, of course, typewriter engineering had improved sufficiently that jamming was no longer a major concern. But by then, the story goes, people were used to the QWERTY keyboard and we’ve been stuck with it ever since, even in the face of allegedly superior alternatives such as the Dvorak keyboard. Advocates say research proves the Dvorak is easy to learn and makes typing faster and more accurate. But it’s never made much headway because of the crushing power of standards, even stupid ones.
Baloney, say the authors of the article you enclose, S.J. Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis. They point out that (1) the research demonstrating the superiority of the Dvorak keyboard is sparse and methodologically suspect; (2) a sizable body of work suggests that in fact the Dvorak offers little practical advantage over the QWERTY; (3) at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands; and (4) the QWERTY keyboard did not become a standard overnight but beat out several competing keyboards over a period of years. Thus it may be fairly said to represent the considered choice of the marketplace. It saddens me to know I helped to perpetuate the myth of Dvorak superiority, but I will sleep better at night knowing I have rectified matters at last.
–CECIL ADAMS"
Date of the linked article: 30-Oct-1981 (Which in fact is the article which prompted me to start this thread)
Date of another article I linked to at the message that started this thread (refuting first article): 1999
Date of another thread in this same forum, mentioned in this same thread, supporting the 1999 article: 2008
So, would you care to read the thread you’re posting to before posting a third time? 
Date of “I could care less about the above dates” as this is the Straight Dope Message board.= 03/23/2008.
When we discuss stuff about a past Cecil column, we link to said column. Perhaps you could read the forum rules?
"When you start a thread, please include a link to the column you are talking about. There are about a thousand old columns, and the link helps keep readers together, saves lots of search time, and avoids someone making a brilliant comment that Cecil already made."
You’re right, I didn’t read that, and I didn’t post the link.
However, I explicitly said that I was talking about Cecil’s column with almost the same name than this thread.
Anyway, thank you for pointing to the rules thread. Though would have been funnier if there had been another rule about reading the thread before posting ;P.
I did read the thread, guest. :rolleyes:
Again, for interested people: an applet to quickly test Dvorak vs. QWERTY on any source material.
Gee DrDeth, a little hard on a guest poster? Mijail has composed some well written and polite posts.
But what do I know, I’m only a member .
And I use the Dvorak keyset for the record.
Polite? Twice claiming I hadn’t read the thread? Insulting me just becuase I linked to the Cecil Coumn, as required? * I do not think that word means what you think it means.*
I see one oblique reference from him about you not reading the thread where he correctly points out that you responded by quoting old information.
The only insult I see is you calling him a guest, which I have to admit is what really rubbed me the wrong way.
Poist 28 Mijail “So, would you care to read the thread you’re posting to before posting a third time?”
Post 30 Mijail “Though would have been funnier if there had been another rule about reading the thread before posting”
I was not quoting old info, I was linking to the Cecil Column, which is required by the rules of this forum. It should have been obvious I had read the thread, as I had noticed no one else had done so. As Required. It doesn’t matter how old it is, it’s still the Original Cecil Column.
So what you are stating is that the section you quoted from the article was not in response to the post by mwbrooks that you quoted and you were merely doing a public service by linking to the original Cecil Column. Great. Fine. Everybody’s happy.
Back to the QWERTY vs Dvorak topic, I’ll write about my own experience. I switched over to Dvorak in high school quite a few years back just to give it a try.
At the time I was touch-typing QWERTY at about 50-60 wpm. After about a week of using Dvorak exclusively (actively practicing about 2 hours a day), I was back up to about 40 wpm but with a ton of typos. After about 3 more weeks of normal use, I was back up to my 50-60 wpm with a minimum of typos.
I still us the Dvorak layout whenever possible and probably comfortable type at about 70 wpm on average. I’m sure its considerably faster in short bursts. However, as others have stated, I find it much more comfortable than QWERTY because my hands do not get nearly as tired.
I can still type in QWERTY relatively fast in what I would call a sort of ten-fingered hunt and peck method. I place my hands on the homerow and can type pretty quickly through a combination of half-remembered letter locations and looking.
While learning Dvorak though, I would warn against switching back and forth to QWERTY during the learning process. That would draw out the process much, much longer and just lead to frustration.
I registered here purely for the purpose of posting that same URL by Marcus Brooks, “The Fable of the Fable,” but you beat me to it.
It’s a pity that the original article by Cecil closes by accepting that he believes the opinion of two economists with an axe to grind. Moreover, it’s a real shame that the QWERTY/Dvorak issue is one that is influenced more by belief than the facts.
Qwerty is more than burned into my brain… my entire ability to write is based on qwerty. The other day I was playing Cranium, a party game (ie like charades) where you have to spell words. I found it easier to pretend-type the word in air than to remember the spelling directly!
The finger patterns (the claw you slam down on the keyboard to make a word) are like chinese characters. They are a sort of language in themselves for me, separate from phonetic english.
To add something else (and new?) to the discussion… I find one of Dvorak’s design objectives, splitting letter combinations across different sides and making it impossible to type a word with just one hand, a bit counter-productive.
I can see how it makes sense when you’re at the ‘touch-typing’ level of technique, but with the claw techinique (which i guess dominates at 100+ wpm), it’s an advantage if you can just put down one hand and have a word, or a part of it, come out in one stroke. Interlacing left-right-left-right isn’t the right approach. The issue is fatally worse if you’re typing entirely with one hand (whether because you’re disabled, using a mouse, or masturbating).
To illustrate what I mean with the whole ‘claw’ thing to those who aren’t following: try typing the letters “df.” Do this by positioning, in the air, the middle finger a bit lower than the index, and then pressing both down into the keyboard. In a millisecond, “df” appear onscreen. Compare this to “fj”, where the interleaving of two hands takes a fraction longer. Now generalize this concept to patterns consisting of multiple fingers and two hands.
The ideal keyboard would try to make such finger patterns more common (and I think doing this goes beyond putting common letters on the home row), and reducing synchronization between the two hands.
Of course, in today’s age, a predictive keyboard that’s like T-9 for cellphones but with two letters per key, not three, would be a much bigger leap in typing speed than either Dvorak or any other design.