# Was the QWERTY keyboard purposely designed to slow typists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [April 3, 2009, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841 "2009-04-03T11:51:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/21 "2009-04-06T04:20:47Z")
Requiring multiple strokes for some letters? I fail to see its advantage. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/22 "2009-04-06T05:54:24Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Requiring multiple strokes for some letters? I fail to see its advantage. No. T9 is the prediction method, not the multi-tap. Each key can mean several different letters, and software guesses which words can be made with the keystrokes (plus offers a good way to resolve ambiguity if necessary). It works even better if you’ve mapped the letters with care (instead of alphabetically), or assign two letters per key instead of three. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/23 "2009-04-06T14:49:19Z")
**dotchan** said: > [@](#): > > Ah, memories of using an old-school manual typewriter. That thing was humongously heavy (seriously, you could use it to bludgeon someone to death), it made a loud electrical hum, and each keystroke sounded like a small gunshot. > > [snip] > > Maybe it’s the nostalgia filter in me talking, but I still have fond memories of using it, especially when I hear that little “ding”. I remember those. We had a “portable” one, which meant it came with a case and handle, but still weighed a ton. The hum, the thwack of the keys, the shift actually shifting the key mechanism down inside the typewriter, the ding at the end of the line and manual carriage return. Plus, you could bang a bunch of keys at one time and make them jam up just for fun. (Hey, I was a kid.) **Rico** said: > [@](#): > > Manual typewriters made electrical hums? Technically, it was an electric typewriter. Not electronic, electric. But yes, it was essentially manual. The keys would electrically signal the manual character bars, but the typing was still the U shaped channel with striker bars. It didn’t take as much travel for the key to register and type as a full manual. I guess one might call it a hybrid. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2009, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/24 "2009-04-07T03:35:35Z")
How much did one of those beasts cost? I imagine all the levers and mechanisms (and electric add-ons) would have run it up as high as a decent modern computer. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/25 "2009-04-07T18:48:52Z")
I have no idea. My folks bought it before I was born. That would have been ~1970 give or take a couple years. Heck, for all I know my dad got it in college. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/26 "2009-04-07T18:51:00Z")
Also FYI, I think my folks still have it. They moved a few years ago so it may have gotten disposed of then. I happen to have an electronic typewriter - a daisy wheel version. It has the ability to back correct an entire line using the lift-tape method. It’s also highly impractical and almost worthless now. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2009, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/27 "2009-04-07T19:24:40Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > I happen to have an electronic typewriter - a daisy wheel version. It has the ability to back correct an entire line using the lift-tape method. It’s also highly impractical and almost worthless now. Typewriters like that are frequently used in small offices, like mine. They are the easiest way to make a single address label. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/28 "2009-04-07T20:59:07Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > How much did one of those beasts cost? I imagine all the levers and mechanisms (and electric add-ons) would have run it up as high as a decent modern computer. Allowing for inflation, definitely. On the other hand, you could get decent electric typewriters from Sears. ---
**Author:** ![gssq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f04885/32.png) [@gssq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gssq)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/29 "2010-01-23T09:08:36Z")
Randy Cassingham from This Is True disputes the study quoted in the last bit of Cecil’s column, saying it is methodologically flawed and the data was questionable: [http://www.dvorak-keyboard.com/dvorak2.html](http://www.dvorak-keyboard.com/dvorak2.html) “When other researchers wanted to see the raw data so they could draw their own conclusions, they found that Dr. Strong had destroyed it all! This is an example of the high standards L&M aspire to? Further, Strong was clearly biased: in 1949, he wrote “I am out to exploit [the ‘present keyboard’] to its very utmost in opposition to the change to new keyboards,” and there is evidence of a personal animosity between Drs. Strong and Dvorak.” ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/30 "2010-01-23T16:55:25Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > The best, fastest keyboard would use a sort of T9 technology (like cell phones) to reduce the number of keys (possibly, to 10). > > A more direct criticism I had for the Dvorak was its goal of _separating_ letter combinations to oppose sides of the keyboard (ie, alternating hands). This didn’t seem very efficient to me at all. Better to put common letters immediately next to each other, so that you can hit both near-instantly with one hand. I think this was another “feature” designed for mechanical, manual typewriters. I wouldn’t/couldn’t use T9 typing to save my own life. I curse the inventor and his descent to the 13th generation. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/31 "2010-01-24T00:02:56Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > Better to put common letters immediately next to each other, so that you can hit both near-instantly with one hand. But wouldn’t that make that hand more prone to repetitive stress injury? (Also, I can’t help but snerk a little when you mention typing with one hand. Just sayin’. 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2010, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/32 "2010-01-24T09:01:06Z")
**AHunter3** said: > [@](#): > > It’s bullshit. The purpose of QWERTY was neither to slow typists down nor (as is alleged to be the case with DVORAK) to let them type at their fastest, but rather to minimize the likelihood of the long bars that had the actual chars on the end of them smacking into each other as previous letter is on its way down while next letter is rising up. In an indirect way — i.e., if such an event were not prevented — the keys will jam and you have to stop typing to pull the damn things apart, which obviously slows you down rather spectacularly, so in that sense QWERTY could be said to exist to speed typists up, but not by having the keys in the optimal position for typists so much as putting them in the optimal position for the typewriter itself. I suppose that’s a subjective thing. Was it slowing the typists so the keys wouldn’t jam, or speeding up the typists by eliminating the likelihood of jams? Enquiring minds want to know. **John W. Kennedy** said: > [@](#): > > Actually, the QWERTY keyboard was first invented for one of the “invisible printing” machines, which had a quite different mechanism. It may not have been the same U-shaped channel arrangement, but the principle was similar - characters on rods that struck in one location but rotated from a rest location to that striking location. It was prone to the same kind of jamming - two keys with heads that would overlap could bind up if struck too quickly in sequence. **Alex\_Dubinsky** said: > [@](#): > > The best, fastest keyboard would use a sort of T9 technology (like cell phones) to reduce the number of keys (possibly, to 10). > > [snip] > > No. T9 is the prediction method, not the multi-tap. Each key can mean several different letters, and software guesses which words can be made with the keystrokes (plus offers a good way to resolve ambiguity if necessary). It works even better if you’ve mapped the letters with care (instead of alphabetically), or assign two letters per key instead of three. This sounds much like Chinese keyboarding. > **[How can the Chinese use computers, since their language contains so many...](https://www.straightdope.com/21342285/how-can-the-chinese-use-computers-since-their-language-contains-so-many-characters)** This system only works well with all possible letter combinations entered into the database. Otherwise, it hits the highlights from the database, then turns around and asks you to spell out the combo you meant. At least that’s the way my cell phone works. So if I’m typing a name, I type the characters for the name, cycle through the list, then have to retype the name the long way so it knows what I meant. Erk. The biggest problem for typing efficiency has always been getting the right characters in the right sequence. The hard part is not learning which finger corresponds to which key or where you have to reach. Keyboard layout only takes a little practice to become known. The effort for achieving speed is ensuring you actually get the right sequence of keystrokes that you intend. Getting “the” instead of “teh”, for example. There are plenty of them that I consistently have to back up and edit. That was the biggest impediment when I was learning typing in Jr. high. My speed count was ultimately limited by my number of errors. I could go fast, but had so many corrections my effective word count couldn’t get past about 20 wpm. Not only are word processors a major improvement (allowing corrections much more easily and after the fact), but new technology of self-correcting and auto-spellcheck is dramatically improving things. ## In fact, I think that these improvements are likely making any differences between Sholes and Dvorak moot. If you can dkeyboard anywhere near what you intend to day, the auto-correcteion features will make it look pretty.\* \*Purposely not corrected to show what comes out of my fingers on their own. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![lousyshirt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@lousyshirt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lousyshirt)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/33 "2010-01-25T08:54:08Z")
Kind of off topic but… you can use the top row of letters to spell t-y-p-e-w-r-i-t-e-r. ---
**Author:** ![proword](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@proword](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proword)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/34 "2011-04-28T02:59:46Z")
There is definitely strong evidence that the QWERTY keyboard \*was \*designed to slow the typist down. In 1930 an organisation called the Printing Industry Research Association (PIRA) was formed. [http://www.pira-international.com/Home.aspx](http://www.pira-international.com/Home.aspx) This organisation is, according to its website, still extant. In 1977, at a conference of PIRA in the UK, a paper was presented by Lilian Malt, who had been researching ergonomics of keyboard use. [http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers/236-lillian-malt-papers.html](http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers/236-lillian-malt-papers.html) (Page 1) On the first page she states quite clearly: \*"One piece of equipment which is universally recognised as being ill-fitted to human operation is the ubiquitous typewriter keyboard. The standard Scholes-designed keyboard with its qwerty layout, must be one of the very few pieces of equipment which has entirely resisted improvement, which could and should have been made to complement our advancing technological ability. It has been said of the Scholes letter layout that it would probably have been chosen if the objective was to find the least efficient - in terms of learning time and speed achievable - and the most error producing character arrangement. This is not surprising when one considers that a team of people spent one year developing this layout so that it should provide the **greatest inhibition to fast keying**. This was no Machiavellian plot, but necessary because the mechanism of the early typewriters required slow operation."\* Her research involved comparing the QWERTY layout with the Dvorak layout, as well as her own keyboard layout. As a result of her research, she, in conjunction with Stephen Hobday, created the Maltron ergonomic keyboard (1977). > **[Maltron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltron)** > > PCD Maltron Ltd, trading as Maltron, is a manufacturer of ergonomic special-needs keyboards. It was founded by South African-born inventor Lillian Malt and manufacturer Stephen Hobday. Maltron specialises in making keyboards for the prevention and etiological (root cause) treatment of repetitive strain injury. > Maltron manufactures several models of keyboard, in varying levels of adaptation. Malt's original invention and the company's flagship design, the Fully Ergonomic 3D Keyboard, is the mos... Some of Stephen Hobday’s research papers are presented here. [http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers.html](http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers.html) Joe ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/35 "2011-04-28T07:07:01Z")
> [@proword](#): > > There is definitely strong evidence that the QWERTY keyboard \*was \*designed to slow the typist down. > > In 1930 an organisation called the Printing Industry Research Association (PIRA) was formed. > > [http://www.pira-international.com/Home.aspx](http://www.pira-international.com/Home.aspx) > > This organisation is, according to its website, still extant. > > In 1977, at a conference of PIRA in the UK, a paper was presented by Lilian Malt, who had been researching ergonomics of keyboard use. > > [http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers/236-lillian-malt-papers.html](http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers/236-lillian-malt-papers.html) (Page 1) > > On the first page she states quite clearly: > > \*"One piece of equipment which is universally recognised as being ill-fitted to human operation is the ubiquitous typewriter keyboard. The standard Scholes-designed keyboard with its qwerty layout, must be one of the very few pieces of equipment which has entirely resisted improvement, which could and should have been made to complement our advancing technological ability. > > It has been said of the Scholes letter layout that it would probably have been chosen if the objective was to find the least efficient - in terms of learning time and speed achievable - and the most error producing character arrangement. This is not surprising when one considers that a team of people spent one year developing this layout so that it should provide the **greatest inhibition to fast keying**. This was no Machiavellian plot, but necessary because the mechanism of the early typewriters required slow operation."\* > > Her research involved comparing the QWERTY layout with the Dvorak layout, as well as her own keyboard layout. > > As a result of her research, she, in conjunction with Stephen Hobday, created the Maltron ergonomic keyboard (1977). > > [Maltron - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltron) > Some of Stephen Hobday’s research papers are presented here. > > [http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers.html](http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers.html) > Joe She quotes no sources and as the creator of a new layout is a biased reporter. Where is the strong evidence? ---
**Author:** ![proword](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@proword](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proword)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/36 "2011-04-28T07:51:04Z")
> [@naita](#): > > She quotes no sources and as the creator of a new layout is a biased reporter. Where is the strong evidence? Any putative “bias” which she may have had would relate to the creation of the Maltron keyboard, not what the QWERTY layout was designed to do, and so would be irrelevant to this thread. This is a independently refereed paper, which at the time was presented to an organisation which existed for the purpose of researching (inter alia) ergonomics in the printing industry ie keyboards. If there had been any doubt the paper would not have been presented as it was. Thus the lack of a source is hardly a difficulty. The “strong evidence” is that it has not been successfully challenged, academically. Further this paper was presented in 1977, and Ms Malt had been teaching secretarial studies since the mid 1950s, so she (and any reviewers of her paper) would have been able to have access to far more information than we have 35 years later. If you have any queries as to the accuracy of the paper or Malt’s findings, I’d suggest that you contact either PIRA or Stephen Hobday, who collaborated with Malt. He can be contacted via the Maltron website. Joe PS FWIW, my own experience is that when I learned to type in 1967, that was the story then, so any academic challenge would probably need to have pre-dated that. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/37 "2011-04-28T09:41:04Z")
> [@proword](#): > > Any putative “bias” which she may have had would relate to the creation of the Maltron keyboard, not what the QWERTY layout was designed to do, and so would be irrelevant to this thread. > > This is a independently refereed paper, which at the time was presented to an organisation which existed for the purpose of researching (inter alia) ergonomics in the printing industry ie keyboards. If there had been any doubt the paper would not have been presented as it was. Thus the lack of a source is hardly a difficulty. The “strong evidence” is that it has not been successfully challenged, academically. > > Further this paper was presented in 1977, and Ms Malt had been teaching secretarial studies since the mid 1950s, so she (and any reviewers of her paper) would have been able to have access to far more information than we have 35 years later. > > If you have any queries as to the accuracy of the paper or Malt’s findings, I’d suggest that you contact either PIRA or Stephen Hobday, who collaborated with Malt. He can be contacted via the Maltron website. > > Joe > > PS FWIW, my own experience is that when I learned to type in 1967, that was the story then, so any academic challenge would probably need to have pre-dated that. I find it likely Malt in this is just referring a commonly accepted story. Whomever refereed the paper probably considered it common knowledge as well. You yourself remember it being the common story in 1967. That doesn’t mean it’s correct. Without source references backing up the statement, Malt’s paper merely documents the story as being commonly accepted in 1977. It’s not strong evidence of it being true. I’ve no misgivings about Malt’s findings. The paper isn’t about the history of keyboard development, it’s about objective criteria for and measurements of keyboard ergonomics. But people generally believing qwerty was made to slow down typists, and it being poorer than dvorak and maltron by Malt’s metrics doesn’t make the story true. ---
**Author:** ![proword](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@proword](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proword)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/38 "2011-04-28T11:05:30Z")
> [@naita](#): > > I find it likely Malt in this is just referring a commonly accepted story. Whomever refereed the paper probably considered it common knowledge as well. You yourself remember it being the common story in 1967. > > That doesn’t mean it’s correct. Without source references backing up the statement, Malt’s paper merely documents the story as being commonly accepted in 1977. It’s not strong evidence of it being true. > > I’ve no misgivings about Malt’s findings. The paper isn’t about the history of keyboard development, it’s about objective criteria for and measurements of keyboard ergonomics. But people generally believing qwerty was made to slow down typists, and it being poorer than dvorak and maltron by Malt’s metrics doesn’t make the story true. I dug a little deeper into the PIRA website and found this: _Established in 1930, the initials PIRA originally stood for the Printing Industry Research Association. The aim of the organisation was to be “a technical research bureau for the pooling of technical information and to conduct scientific investigation of technical problems” for the printing industry._ “Likely” doesn’t make for good science. The story of the QWERTY is usually explained by something to the effect that this was just a story put about by the creators of Dvorak to try and flog their idea by creating a false belief. Malt was more temporally proximate to any such story, plus as her paper shows, she actually used Dvorak keyboards in her research, so it is “likely” she was aware of whether or not there was any truth in it. Further, since she was trying to demonstrate the dangers of both QWERTY AND Dvorak, then what would she gain by failing to point out that the story was falsely created by the “Dvorak” supporters? (To put it colloquially, she’d already knifed QWERTY publicly, so why not do the same to Dvorak?;)) If, as you suggest, the story was common then all the more likelihood that somebody would have attempted to publicly “give the lie”. (Manufacturers of office machinery such as typewriters (IBM springs to mind) strike me as having a very sound financial reason for doing so. Imagine how much they’d have to spend to rejig to make Dvorak machines if the general public decided they didn’t want anything dangerous or inefficient by design in their office.) It was likely they knew it to be true, and didn’t want to give that truth any more publicity than it already had. I freely admit I’m NOT a fan of Wikipedia (except as very specific search engine), but I do subscribe to their guidelines, in particular this one on “source”. \*The word “source” in Wikipedia has three meanings: the piece of work itself (a document, article, paper, or book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, The New York Times). All three can affect reliability. Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. **Source material must have been published (made available to the public in some form)**; unpublished materials are not considered reliable. **Sources should directly support the material presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made**. The appropriateness of any source depends on the context. In general, **the best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts** , legal issues, evidence, and arguments; as a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source. Where available, **academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources,** such as in history, medicine, and science. But they are not the only reliable sources in such areas. Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications. Other reliable sources include university-level textbooks, books published by respected publishing houses, magazines, journals, and mainstream newspapers. Electronic media may also be used, subject to the same criteria.\* If you have a higher standard than that, then I’d be glad to hear it. I stand by the paper as a reliable source, and say again, if you have any queries then you should direct them to PIRA, the organisation which sponsored it. That is, after all, their very raison d’etre. Joe ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/39 "2011-04-28T15:21:10Z")
> [@proword](#): > > The story of the QWERTY is usually explained by something to the effect that this was just a story put about by the creators of Dvorak to try and flog their idea by creating a false belief. > > Malt was more temporally proximate to any such story, plus as her paper shows, she actually used Dvorak keyboards in her research, so it is “likely” she was aware of whether or not there was any truth in it. Further, since she was trying to demonstrate the dangers of both QWERTY AND Dvorak, then what would she gain by failing to point out that the story was falsely created by the “Dvorak” supporters? (To put it colloquially, she’d already knifed QWERTY publicly, so why not do the same to Dvorak?;)) Malt worked on ergonomics and considered her results firm evidence that QWERTY was horribly slow due to the placement of the letters, dvorak less so, and both bad due to their geometry. Whether the placement on the keys in QWERTY were made to move the mechanics of often typed letters further apart to prevent jamming, or to slow the typist down to prevent such jamming **didn’t really matter to her or anyone else on the planet**. She had no need to knife dvorak through telling stories, she intended to prove the superiority of a maltron layout through repeatable fact. She was over fourty years removed from the patenting of the dvorak layout and 100 years removed from the development of qwerty, and you want me to believe she was privy to some documentation that have been lost to all other researchers into the matter? > [@](#): > > If, as you suggest, the story was common then all the more likelihood that somebody would have attempted to publicly “give the lie”. (Manufacturers of office machinery such as typewriters (IBM springs to mind) strike me as having a very sound financial reason for doing so. Imagine how much they’d have to spend to rejig to make Dvorak machines if the general public decided they didn’t want anything dangerous or inefficient by design in their office.) It was likely they knew it to be true, and didn’t want to give that truth any more publicity than it already had. Dvorak had been around for 40 years without making much of an impact, if there was any actual evidence around that qwerty had been designed to deliberately slow typists down, wouldn’t they have used it? IBM weren’t afraid because they knew there was nothing to be afraid of. > [@](#): > > I stand by the paper as a reliable source, and say again, if you have any queries then you should direct them to PIRA, the organisation which sponsored it. That is, after all, their very raison d’etre. Here are two hypotheses: a) QWERTY was designed haphazardly for the first typewriters. These had a problem with jamming, and the designers moved letters so that common letter combinations were placed further apart to reduce jamming. b) QWERTY was designed haphazardly for the first typewriters. These had a problem with jamming, and the designers moved letters so that common letter combinations were placed further apart to reduce jamming. Do you truly believe there to have ever been much hard evidence around for either proposition? Do you truly believe Malt based her statement on such evidence that has since been lost? ---
**Author:** ![Lestrade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Lestrade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lestrade)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841/40 "2011-04-28T16:53:36Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Here are two hypotheses: > > a) QWERTY was designed haphazardly for the first typewriters. These had a problem with jamming, and the designers moved letters so that common letter combinations were placed further apart to reduce jamming. > > b) QWERTY was designed haphazardly for the first typewriters. These had a problem with jamming, and the designers moved letters so that common letter combinations were placed further apart to reduce jamming. Looks like QWERTY got you, those are the same. What did you intend? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists/491841.md?page=3)