Why is Everyone Still Stuck in QWERTY? 255
theWrkncacnter asks: "I was recently giving some instructions over IRC to a long time QWERTY keyboard user who wanted to switch to the Dvorak layout, mostly because a good majority of the people in channel had made the switch and were all talking it up, myself included, about how our speeds had increased and how its much more comfortable. This made me think, why don't more people use the Dvorak layout? Searching around I found an older topic on the subject, but that didn't answer too many questions, as most people in the comment section seemed to think that Dvorak vs. QWERTY was a hardware issue, when it is really a matter simply changing the layout on your particular OS. I took the time to pry off and remap my powerbook keyboard's keys but I have no problem typing in Dvorak on a physically QWERTY mapped keyboard, and I know many others who don't have a problem doing so either. So given all of this, why don't more people switch? Is it that most people just can't be bothered to make the change, even when its more efficient and more comfortable?" Is it mostly due to the fact that most people learn to type first on QWERTY due to its popularity, and hence don't bother to learn anything else?
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A question for those who have switched... (Score:5, Informative)
And no, I'm not saying this because I'm some some raving Dvorak promoter -- as people have pointed out, it isn't that much faster, and there is always the inconvenience for other people who want to use my computer (It's very simple to remap the keys back & forth with an international layout tool, but some people still can't get over the fact that all the keycaps have been swapped around). Dvorak just has that same geek fun factor that Linux does -- I like using something different from "everyone else" -- because I can -- even if it's only marginally better.
Really was a hardware/software issue (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that some programs used command-keys that were based on keyboard position, and some were based on actual letter (so command-o on the dvorak layout might be either command-o, because they were using the letter, or command-s, because that is the key in the same space on the qwerty layout). So I never knew from program to program which keyboard shortcut I'd be using.
It might not be as much of an issue now, with a more modern OS. On the other hand, now I really don't care.
=Brian
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Re:because... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Simple: (Score:2, Informative)
The current most theoretically efficient method discovered is what's known as the "Metropolis II" layout after the algorithm used to design it (I'd offer you a link to it, but you need to be an ACM subscriber to get at the paper, and as far as I know tyhe keyboard layout itself has never been made publically available for use)
However, as mentioned, people's familiarity with the QWERTY layout is why it keeps getting put on there even if it's no longer the optimal layout, which means that when a user sits down at a new device they get faster immediate interaction rates if the keyboard is QWERTY due to familiarity with the letters as opposed to learning a new interaction method. (Although this deals only with PDA keyboards, here's a paper that comes to this conclusion. [yorku.ca])
Yes, I'm getting off topic now, but I need to find a way to spout off all this extraneous knowledge I've picked up over time.
My Hands Dont Hurt Anymore (Score:3, Informative)
Let me preface this with a disclaimer, though I have read pro-Qwerty and pro-Dvorak papers, I am not arguing on research. I am telling my story. If you want to go read the papers, and the modern ones, they are out there.
I've been using a keyboard for so long, I've lost my introduction to them somewhere between learning to walk and reading See Dick Run books. I was probably about 5, maybe 4. But touch typing never stuck, and though a proficient computer user, I was a Claw Typist (the next evolution in the series: Hunt-and-Peck, Two-Finger, Claw). I took typing at two different highschools, and one middle school, and stayed a Claw typist. I was just so much faster than I was with the time investment I'd put into Touch, that I never used Touch.
It finnally occured to me that I might want to try programming when I was already in my second year of college. I'm not sure why it didn't come up sooner, I'd had programming classes all the way back to LOGO in 4th grade, but I'd NEVER done anything outside of what I was assigned with them. It turns out I'm pretty damn good at it, and this irks me, as I was bored for that first 20 years.
Leaving college without a degree after 5 years (two wasted doing Biology before the switch) and just shy of my bachelors, I went to work as a programmer. I put in 60 - 80 hour weeks, and I hacked kernel code at home.
After a year of this, the regular time-to-stop-hacking signal that I'd use to decide to go home (my hands going numb) started to really bug me, and started to HURT. I decided to become a Touch Typist.
As an aside, I use Bash and Vim, and I USE them, meaning that I've really learned my movement, search, and manipualtion keys. Typing hurts, do as little of it as possible.
My first few weeks of trying to be GOOD (not look down at the keys) didn't work out, so I spray-painted my work and home keyboards black. That was a bad week, vim in command mode without being SURE what key you are hitting is not a forgiving instructor. But I've not looked down since. {You can buy keyboards with blank keys for teaching typing; it just seems that most schools don't bother.}
I was a Touch Typist! Yay!
My hands still hurt. Suck.
Since I already had a good chair, I began the fetish-like search for a more comefortable keyboard, one REALLY designed for hackers. Escape and Control need to be in the Right Place, to reduce stress on that pinki. If you don't use Bash, Vim, Vi, or Emacs, you probably don't know where the Right Place is. I went through an IBM PS/2 mini (a great, nigh idestructable keyboard) and finally bought a Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite off of a workmate with a greater keyboard fetish than me, that had moved on to a full Sun keyboard with a ps2 connector. {The HH is a great keyboard, I've been very happy with it. It's bubble switched, but it clicks enough to give you the tacktile feedback you need for real speed.}
After the keyboard search, my hands still hurt after a long day of typing. Not as bad, but I was at the penacle of what Qwerty could give me: Full Touch-Typing, A Good Chair, A Good Keyboard, and Knowledge of my Shortcuts (which in Vim and Bash are powerful indeed).
I decided that I would try Dvorak. I had put it off in the past, looking for a hardware solution, but when I decided to try it, I found how ubiquitous software remap was in different OSes. I switched the software map to Dvorak, and presto.
I could not type. (The keyboard was black, you see). After a week I was at 20% of Qwerty Touch. After a month I was at 80%. After 3 I was faster. And my hands don't hurt.
Let me repeat that: MY HANDS DONT HURT.
Vim and Bash may have been laid out for QWERTY, but they are just as usable in Dvorak. So what if JKHL aren't in a line, your mind learns and applies a pattern, and it just works.
It does take time to switch, the research sug
Re:Life's so unfair... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Obvious answers? (Score:3, Informative)
I could type in QWERTY at adequate speeds, and I didn't feel I needed to be any faster.
The main drive for me to switch, was that I wanted to learn how to touch type. I'd tried to learn to touch type a few times, but it was always so easy to cheat and go back to typing with the incorrect fingures, as I was too used to typing in my own way.
I switched to DVORAK at work, and used QWERTY at home. For a number of years I could adequately use both. But it was not until I switched over at home as well that I really started becoming FAST at DVORAK.
At the moment, I use DVORAK everywhere, and have trouble with switching to QWERTY, although once I realise what's going on I can type by looking at the keys, reasonably well. I get the odd letter wrong, and if I try to think about it, I get REALLY confused.
One of the main drawbacks to using DVORAK is when programs (especially games) assume you have a QWERTY keyboard. Setting the regonal settings to DVORAK under windows is ok, but when games do their own keyboard mapping, they don't seem to expect you use anything other than QWERTY. One of the worst examples of this has got to be Counter Strike. The Half-life bit of it, when you are setting up all your keys, seems to be fine with your regonal settings set to DVORAK. As soon as you launch the game, it assumes you are in QWERTY. There is no way to set up your keys in QWERTY at all. It took me AGES to try and get the keys set up, cause I had to type in DVORAK where the QWERTY keys would be.
Also, as with any keyboard layout, getting it set up for the default in windows logon was a bitch, and I ended up hacking the registry until it magically worked.
The best solution may be to get something like at dvortyboard.com where you can switch between QWERTY and DVORAK in hardware as much as you like.
All in all though, I think the switch to DVORAK was well worth it. Speed isn't the main concern, although I am typing faster and more evenly with DVORAK. And I love typing now for some reason, as all of my fingers are used all the time.
I read alot of debates over how DVORAK being better is just a myth, and QWERTY is better yada yada yada. For me, I find DVORAK comfortable. The common letters are easy to reach without moving your left hand too much (I'm right handed, so moving my right hand is more comfortable and coordinated than moving my left hand) and I don't need to move my less coordinated (ring and pinky) fingers up and down much. QWERTY has jkl; in the home row of your main hand. Yet you surely don't use these keys much at all... Seems strange to me....
Verne.
Re:because... (Score:1, Informative)
Oh, bullshit. Ever sat and watched a rocket-hot typist compose at the keyboard? Typing under those circumstances is very bursty.
I have no idea how fast I type in words-per-minute, but I know that it's quite fast. When I'm on a roll, I can really get going. I write for a living. I average between 1,000 and 2,500 words of final copy per day. Total. Do you think my limiting factor is my typing speed?
Nobody, but NOBODY, who actually composes at the keyboard (as opposed to typing from a manuscript or something) is hampered in their productivity by how fast they can type. It simply doesn't work that way.
Re:because... (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know what kind of dream world you live in, but I have never in my life met a coder who could compose code faster than they could type it.
As someone who codes for a living, I'm not afraid to admit that I have often spent hours tracking down a bug which ends up being fixed with a one-line change. Typing speed isn't all that important unless you spend most of your day typing, and I've never met a coder who does.
Of course, I'm writing this comment on a Palm Tungsten C, which is pretty ironic (hint: tough to type fast on these itty-bitty keyboards).
Re:My Hands Dont Hurt Anymore (Score:3, Informative)
I'm only 27, so the fact that my wrists were hurting at the end of the day, every day, really worried me. Especially since I don't even have my degree yet (I graduate in December). I'm sure I'll be typing a lot more when I get a real job. With RSI at 27, what would my wrists have been like when I turned 50 if I had stuck with Qwerty? I didn't even want to think about it, so I sought a solution.
Just something to think about for you Qwerty typers, if any of this sounds familiar.
Re:dvorak is highly overrated (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Simple: (Score:2, Informative)
You mean this [ibm.com]?