See also: “Chord keyboard”. This is what court reporters use, for example. (Not in a cylinder form-factor, but pressing keys in combination to generate different characters.) FWIW, Engelbart’s original mouse design paired the mouse with a chord keyboard for the other hand.
There’s been plenty of research over the years on various alternative keyboards, but none of the designs are superior enough over the standard QWERTY design to warrant wholesale switching.
I think the benefits of maximizing efficiency would be marginal at best. My proof? Sketchy yet logical.
The average english word is 5.1 letters long (BlogaMundo - A Blog For the World To Read!) and the median typist probably goes at between 30 and 40 words per minute (Words per minute - Wikipedia). That’s a going rate at roughly 175 keys a minute… 0.34 seconds.
For us to go at 100 words a minute, we’d be going at a keystroke every 0.1 second, which is pushing the limits of reaction time for humans. I think us reacting to each letter especially when factoring in thought involved as well as the non-repetitive nature of typing (totally different from pushing a giant red button) going at a key per 0.34seconds on average is pretty much as fast as it gets.
Thumb technology, however is a completely different story.
But it’s not just about words per minute-- it’s also about accuracy. Supposedly the Dvorak keyboard leads not only to higher speeds, but higher accuracy as well.
It’s also supposedly is a lot easier to get into the higher WPM ranges than with a Qwerty. I’m sometimes amazed at how many people I know that are simply not proficient at typing with a Qwerty keyboard-- even people I know who basically type for a living! I think it’s possible that a better keyboard layout might help people who just don’t seem to “get” typing with a Qwerty keyboard.
Touch screens are fine for some applications, but they are grossly overrated for day to day desktop use. Indeed, if they were useful, they would have replaced keyboards by now, as the technology certainly exists, and has for years. If the demand were there, cost would have fallen.
And don’t underestimate the love of tactile feedback.
Regarding qwerty vs dvorak, I don’t think the gains from an optimised keyboard layout are enough to overcome the inertia. qwerty may not be the best, but its also not bad.
Well, I can see at least two future scenarios that could lead to a new layout being adopted. The first is that a new society is founded, and they decide on some other standard from the beginning; a post apocalypse society, or the first of the Offworld Colonies decides to get all progressive about keyboards. The other is that we understand enough about the neurology of learning to develop a pill or some other technique that allows for rapid, easy learning. If it takes just a day or two to fully learn a new skill like a new style of typing, I expect it’ll be a lot easier to get people to switch.
Then again, brain-to-computer interfaces could just render keyboards obsolete before either scenario becomes possible.
I’m not seeing this as a Great Debates topic. Moved to IMHO.
The big discussion here seems to be between QWERTY and Dvorak keyboard layouts. IOW, two well-worn ruts on the same road. The biggest problem with the common keyboard is the positions required of your arms and hands. Dvorak doesn’t do much to help this.
For about 12 years now I’ve used a Microsoft split keyboard. This helps reduce ulnar deviation and pronation, but not as much as it really ought to. No CTS for me yet, but I’ve had intermittent problems with inflammation of the extensor tendons on the tops of my hands/wrists, and so I’ve sought other solutions.
Several years ago I tried a Datahand keyboard. Not only could I not get used to typing with it, but the need to have both hands in place made it difficult to use the mouse intermittently (e.g. when doing CAD work). I ended up sending it back.
More recently I tried a Kinesis Ergo keyboard. Its default configuration is QWERTY, but of course this can be tweaked in the software. They claim the major difference is in the spatial positioning of the keys: two key wells, one for each hand, spaced far apart (much farther than the common split keyboard), and with the key surfaces arranged so as to minimize the distance any given finger has to move in order to strike it. Unfortunately it didn’t do enough to alleviate pronation (my big issue), and the keys were extremely sensitive, which - combined with the slight changes in key location/orientation - led to an inordinate number of typos. Ultimately I sent this back, too.
So for now I’m back to a Microsoft 4000 Ergo Keyboard. Works OK, and I try to take breaks and do a lot of hand/finger stretching.
I’ve used Dvorak for the last 11 years, and there is nothing on earth that would take me back to using QWERTY. After about 6 weeks, I was up to my old speed. For me, it isn’t so much a question of speed, though, it’s a question of comfort. I’m already right on the border of getting tendinitis or carpal tunnel or repetitive stress injuries from musical instruments, and I need everything else in my life to be as ergonomically efficient as possible.
As far as cost is concerned, there is none - Mac OS and Windows both come with the Dvorak layout pre-loaded. When you’re touch-typing, you don’t look at your fingers anyway, so there’s no need for another keyboard.
The flaw with the S.J. Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis article “The Fable of the Keys” is that they are economists who set out to debunk the Dvorak keyboard because it is used, along with the Metric system, as an example of market inertia. (eg. the free market does not always choose the best option, and once a poorer option is institutionalize, it becomes entrenched because of market inertia. You may support or refute this notion as you wish.) The S.J. Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis article used no new research into ergonomics, inflated claims that there QWERTY won out over other competing keyboard arrangements, and is itself debunked here, scroll down to the heading “The Fable of the Fable”.
I will grant you this - QWERTY is a lot easier to type in QWERTY than it is in Dvorak.
We’ll get to it right after we change to the metric system.
But seriously, why bother? If it aint broke don’t fix it!
Touch typing is awesome. You think the words and they flow onto the screen, a pleasant clattering is your only indication that your fingers were even involved.
Short of some kind of direct neural link to the computer, I’m not seeing much room for improvement.
IMever-soHO, I’m not sure what a ‘better’ keyboard would be. For me, most keyboard input is split between moderate lengths of typing a few paragraphs while composing them (such as this post), and at least an equal amount of much smaller bits (typing two words into the Search and Replace boxes, hitting Control-X after highlighting a phrase with the mouse, etc.).
This really limits the gains from a ‘better’ keyboard. Even if the Dvorak (or other layout) really was somehow faster in sustained typing, I don’t do that much full-speed sustained typing anyway (I rarely think that fast when I’m composing something). And I don’t see how a Dvorak could improve on how I type “Control-X”
And, while I have no expertise, I suspect ‘chord’ keyboards are not the future. I suspect top speed would be much lower, given the need to coordinate all the fingers for each letter (kind of like how it turns out that serial ports are faster than parallel ones), while one-or-two letter phrases would be much slower, too, given the need to get all fingers in position rather than just a couple. With the much, much, higher learning curve, I don’t see them happening. Although mobile devices are a wildcard, here. If everyone ends up writing more on their smartphones than on a desktop/laptop/netbook, maybe one-handed keyboards will catch on.
What I’m wondering (maybe this was covered in previous comments, dunno) is why one is stuck with QWERTY where one obviously is not touch typing? Cases like:
[ul]
[li]Some cell phone keypads[/li][li]Touchscreens (including on iPhones - you can switch your iPhone to Dvorak, but you still aren’t using all 10 fingers on the damn thing, so what’s the point?)[/li][li]We got a Wii last night. In setting up the darn thing, I was bemused by the fact that the keyboard I had to use while selecting the character via a combination of using the Wiimote and body gyrations was QWERTY layout[/li][/ul]
I think that’s the best evidence that QWERTY is used mainly because QWERTY is ingrained.
This, this, and a thousand times this.
I use keyboard shortcuts for just about everything I can and they are totally ingrained in my habits. I played with Dvorak for a while, and this was the thing that got me to stop trying. It’s not hard to pick up for regular typing, but I do a lot more on my keyboard than straight typing.
I agree with this. Though I certainly disagree with Chopper and those who don’t think that there is room for improvement. There absolutely is and I hope people will keep looking for it. If it’s good enough, I’m happy to switch.
I’m not sure I get your point about hotkeys, shortcuts and quick command lines, though. There’s nothing stopping me from using ctrl+V in Dvorak, it’s just that the letter is in a different place. (down right ring finger, for those interested.) Do you just mean that you are so used to doing down left index for the ‘V’ that you would keep using the wrong shortcut? It doesn’t happen with me…
Yes, exactly. When I type words, I think of each of the letters that make up the word, then my hands react by typing the correct key on the keyboard. But when I want to paste, I don’t think ‘Ctrl-V’ – I think of the concept ‘paste’ and my hands type command without thinking.
Now to be honest, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are bad examples in my particular case. For these shortcuts, I do think of the letter ‘C’ or ‘V’ and can do them fine on a Dvorak keyboard. However, I am a software developer and there are a ton of command-lines that I type all day long, every day. These are so ingrained that I don’t even realize I am typing them. If I want to list a directory: I type ‘d<enter>’. If I want to clear the screen: ‘cls<enter>’. If I want to move up a directory: ‘c<enter>’. All of these commands happen so mindlessly that I don’t even remember ‘translate for Dvorak’ before I see the error message.
It’s that doing Ctrl-Z,X,C,V,Y,S, and P have become so automatic that I don’t even think about it. In my work, I use these commands constantly. Yesterday, I probably used Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V hundreds of times apiece.
If I want to “undo,” I don’t think “Ctrl-Z.” I just think “oh, crap” and the action gets undone. I guess I’ve done it so many times that my hands just know what positions to go in when I want to do one of those actions. (I can adapt quickly to different keyboards.)
So when using Dvorak, when I thought “oh, crap,” my pinky hit the ctrl key and some other finger (don’t even know which!) hit the lowest letter key on the left, and the action did not get undone.
It’s not just that the Z is in a different place. It’s that I’d have to use a different hand to complete the action. Ctrl-Z is a left-hand thing. Ctrl-P is a two hand thing. (I know I could use only my right, but for some reason I only use the left-hand Ctrl key.) In Dvorak, Ctrl-Z would be a right-hand thing, and that’s a lot harder to adapt to than if Z were in the F position or something.
I hope that makes sense.
Well, the point is that
a) it’s one more re-learning barrier to switching; and
b) it’s a situation where there is zero gain to switching.
The more situations like that there are, the less potential gain from switching to Dvorak, so Dvorak comes closer and closer to ‘Not better’.
Your post made me realize that, in all of my typing, I only use the left control key as well. It seems like we have the exact same ‘typing brain’.
What’s a better keyboard layout?
Dvoark is not better than Qwerty; the tests “proving” it were biased (people trained on Dvorak vs. people untrained on Qwerty). Qwerty gets the job done and the cost of suddenly redesigning it are far more than any perceived improvement.