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?
Two reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
You are more likely to find a QWERTY attached to any particular PC or terminal than anything else. Switching back and forth is a pain.
Thirdly, unlike you, it seems, not everyone is a touch typist.
Simple: (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Users don't like having to learn new input methods (partly the reason why soft (ie software) keyboards on PDAs are in the QWERTY layout, despite the fact that the skills related to tapping the keyboard with a stylus are completely different to those found in touch typing.)
Obvious answers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there's the fact that most apps come with keyboard layouts configured for QWERTY keyboards.
Dull answers to your question, but were you expecting anything else? People aren't going to inconvenience themselves unless the benefits FAR outweigh the problems. I'm sure it's the same reason why many people don't use Linux.
price and availability (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, how many readers are concerned with WPM ? The quality of my code tends to take a sharp nosedive when I type quickly. Lots of thinking, slow typing, a good editor with syntax highlighting that notices when I don't have enough close braces, etc. Why don't more people use smart editors ?
From the IDGFF Department (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because nobody cares. It creates more problems than it solves. Do you really want to retrain your fingers just so you can type a little faster? Is your keyboard really your bottleneck? (Linux masochists excluded from that question.) Do you really want to move your keyboard shortcuts around? Do you really want to use a non-standard keyboard? What do you tell friends that come over and use your computer?
There may be benefits to it, but we're not excatly talking about a live issue here. I mean if we're going to discuss this, why don't we discuss why people should use Procomm instead of Telemate for visiting BBS's.
because... (Score:5, Insightful)
The data entry industry did their own studies, which do not support the claimed efficiency boost of the Dvorak keyboard. Since they make more money if their data entry personnel type faster, they had every reason to conduct a fair and honest study of the two formats. They stuck with QWERTY.
B) QWERTY is actually pretty damned good. The common urban legend about QWERTY being designed to slow typists down is just that, an urban legend. It is true that QWERTY was designed to reduce jamming on mechanical typewriters, but it did not do this by intentionally slowing typists down, as the legend claims.
Instead, it does this by ensuring that commonly-pressed pairs of keys are not next to one another (and in the days of mechanical hammers, this would also mean that the hammers were not next to one another). Conveniently, this means that successive keystrokes are likely to be pressed by alternate hands, which actually makes typing faster instead of slower.
C) Your own anecdotal stories are, I'm sorry to say, worthless.
This is for two reasons: first, you probably didn't do a formal study of your typing speed before and after the test, and you also didn't have a control group of people who remained with the QWERTY layout but put an equal amount of effort into attempting to improve their speed.
Second, even if it is true that you really do type faster with Dvorak, that's not conclusive. Some people can do math faster with an abacus than they can with a calculator, but that doesn't conclusively prove that the abacus is a better tool. It just proves that there are some people for whom the abacus is a better tool. Unless you do a large-scale test and find both the positive cases (you) as well as the negatives (people who tried the Dvorak layout and don't like it), you really have no clue which is better.
Again, these sorts of studies have been done. Every one I am familiar with concluded that the benefits of the Dvorak layout were minimal at best.
An Average Geek (Score:4, Insightful)
Game, set, match... QWERTY.
I used Dvorak for a while... (Score:2, Insightful)
I will admit that I miss having the semicolon where the Z is on a QWERTY keyboard.
Re:Obvious answers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:because... (Score:3, Insightful)
My primary reference on this subject is The Fable of the Keys [utdallas.edu], which seems to be a pretty comprehensive look at the entire debate. I have read other papers regarding the subject, and generally found the same facts.
f you agree that moving your hands a smaller distance is more efficient, than it follows that the Dvorak layout is more efficient.
The only statistic worth debating is typing speed. Not hand movement or anything else. You can debate numbers all you want, but unless you've done a study showing that Dvorak is faster, you're just engaging in mental masturbation.
This happens in damned near everything -- film vs. digital, MP3 vs. CD, CD vs. vinyl -- people make assertions about what is better without actually bothering to do a fair comparison. I'm tired of it. Point me to studies which show that Dvorak is better than QWERTY, or be quiet.
Re:price and availability (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:because... (Score:5, Insightful)
As I pointed out [slashdot.org] when the topic came up last year, Leibowitz and Margolis are economists, and while their discussion of market externalities was correct, they don't quite represent the cognitive research on the Dvorak vs. Sholes (QWERTY) issue very accurately, or fairly.
A) Actual research does not support the efficiency gains of the Dvorak layout. The most-commonly-cited study in favor of the Dvorak layout was published by
The data entry industry did their own studies, which do not support the claimed efficiency boost of the Dvorak keyboard. Since they make more money if their data entry personnel type faster, they had every reason to conduct a fair and honest study of the two formats. They stuck with QWERTY.
Actually, the half-dozen or so well constructed lab tests comparing Dvorak to Sholes consistently show a 5-10% advantage for Dvorak (even Leibowitz and Margolis admit that Dvorak is somewhat faster). For a good overview of the research conducted on text entry, check out Jim Lewis's chapter "Keys and Keyboards" in the Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction [amazon.com].
The "data entry industry" study you're referring to is probably the Navy study mentioned in The Fable (and Lewis's chapter). Leibowitz and Margolis don't really describe the study correctly. This is in part due to the strange way it was conducted -- I'm away from my copy of it so I can't give a good description.
(On an unrelated note, it is pretty irritating to read Leibowitz and Margolis's character assassination of Dvorak. I once asked a well known economist about Stan Leibowitz and was told that his research seems to be too motivated by his political beliefs. I have no idea if that's true, and I would never use that as an argument to refute him in a peer reviewed article. Likewise, I think that the aspersions cast on Dvorak's reputation are a bit disingenuous and out of line for a scientific article.)
B) QWERTY is actually pretty damned good. The common urban legend about QWERTY being designed to slow typists down is just that, an urban legend. It is true that QWERTY was designed to reduce jamming on mechanical typewriters, but it did not do this by intentionally slowing typists down, as the legend claims.
Instead, it does this by ensuring that commonly-pressed pairs of keys are not next to one another (and in the days of mechanical hammers, this would also mean that the hammers were not next to one another). Conveniently, this means that successive keystrokes are likely to be pressed by alternate hands, which actually makes typing faster instead of slower.
Sort of right. Analyses of cross-hand keying do indicate that QWERTY is pretty good, but Dvorak is still better.
C) Your own anecdotal stories are, I'm sorry to say, worthless.
Actually, this is sort of true, sort of false, but these days probably irrelevant.
True: Only well designed scientific studies (or simulations) of human performance using various layouts can tell us which layouts are most efficient in which contexts.
False: Your anecdotal evidence is actually worth a lot -- to you. If you typed at 40 WPM using one layout and now type at 60 WPM using another layout, good for you. It doesn't mean anything for anyone else, but something about the switch (the new layout, the practice you had to engage in, your desire to prove that your layout is superior) helped you.
Irrelevant: Unless you are a transcriptionist (in which case, you probably should be using a specialized tra
Re:because... (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhhh, error rates, finger fatigue, increased or decreased risk of RSI, retraining costs, application changes, documentation changes... these are ALL statistics worth debating.