The Dvorak keyboard layout

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It's interesting to note that the intentions behind the current standard keyboard layout (at least here in America) was designed specifically for the typewriters of ye olden days, when typing too fast would cause ugly jam-ups in the machines which were hard to fix, and so the keys were laid out so that the most common lettering pairs are as far apart from each other as possible, making typing a lot slower, and reducing the frequency of jam-ups.

Of course, we know longer use typewriters of ye olden days, and there's now no risk of a jam-up from typing, but by now we have become used to this economically-unfriendly layout. However, someone had the smarts to come up with a whole new keyboard layout that was not meant to slow down the typist, as there is now no need to be slowed down. There are two layout patterns I'm aware of, Dvorak and Malstrom layouts. Having nothing particular to do this afternoon, I decided to pick up Dvorak, and by now I have all the positions memorized, though I am still a fairly slow typist in that style (in standard layout I'm quite fast). One of the immediately obvious benefits of Dvorak and Malstrom is that the most commonly used letters are now as close to each other as possible, and practicing through today, I found that the majority of my sentences were being constructed on the middle line (the middle row contains in order, A O, E, U, I, D, H, T, N, S). Having all these letters assorted in this particular way reduced the overall total movement of the hands, reducing the risk of RSI. Part of the intentions behind Malstrom too is to even out the stress placed on both hands, as standard layout puts the majority of stress on the left hand statistically speaking.

Has anyone else done this or considered it? It's frustrating to learn since it does no good to try and glance down at your keyboard (that is, if your keyboard is a standard one), but I'm interested to see how this pays off.

I have considered it but I don't think I'd do very well at learning a new layout. I'd be too frustrated while I was still in the s-l-o-w learning stage.

My brother changed to Dvorak though and his typing speed greatly increased, although I don't know by how many words per minute.

Despite the alternative keyboard layouts being "better" I don't think they will ever dominate the old qwerty arrangement. Simply too many computers already have that arrangement and it would be difficult for a lot of people to get used to a an alternative. I touch type quite fast and would need to re-learn again and would probably find it hard to get out of the old habits of which keys are where.

Some things just get stuck even if there are better alternatives. Life is full of such examples where modernisation and regularisation would improve things but they will never change. Examples are:

1. Some countries still drive on the right hand side of the road, most drive on the left. If all drove on the left it would be easier for car manufacturers who would not need to make left and right hand drive versions. It would cause less problems for drivers when going to different countries.

2. Direction of electrical current. We still put the arrow on circuit diagrams going from positive to negative when the electrons actually travel the opposite direction. Tough luck for declaring the electron negative instead of positive (hence turning the positive / negative particle family on it's head).

3. Some countries still use old imperial measurements instead of metric, though at least the old units are gradually fading in most countries. America being a big exception which likes to confuse the metric and imperial units and splat expensive space hardware into Mars at high speed

Some things never change. Some things do. And I still can't dance.

You're doing fine up to here.


This bit isn't quite right. It was impossible to type very fast at all without getting the jam ups (supposedly not much faster than peck-and-search speeds), and qwerty fixed this, allowing typists to go faster with less risk of jamming.

Putting common pairs on opposite hands actually improves typing speed, since you end up alternating hands more often and one hand can be typing while the other is positioning itself - indeed, the DSK is also based on this idea.

This is a bad example because it doesn't matter whether people drive on the right or left hand side. Both are equally safe.
Also most countries have right hand side traffic. See this picture from Wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... lation.png
Red: right hand side
Blue: left hand side

I agree with the rest of your post though.

Does he ever have problems working on a QWERTY keyboard after he learned Dvorak?



I've been hearing since second grade (about 13 years ago) that America was going to switch over to the metric system. I found out that my teachers had been told the same thing in school. There's a lot of good ideas out there, the next step is getting the rest of the world to catch up with you. Really though, it's that lack of simplicity that makes life interesting.



That's how we roll



I stand corrected! Interesting nonetheless. While I'm at it, I made another mistake, it's Maltron, not Malstrom.

I am now used to the QWERTY arrangement, but at in my stage of my life I have become curious at other nations arrangements of keys... I know the basic one of US-EN and GB-EN.
The left shift is larger on US keyboards and the symbols " and @ are swapped, the \ and | are above the [ENTER] key. I prefer the larger [ENTER] key as looking at it, I tap it from the centre.

I do hate with Windows XP, the NUM-LOCK key is switched off, I understand why, but it's annoying all the same.

I grew up wondering why the letters were randomly placed on the keyboard. Now I can touch type, pretty damn quick. But not the way that is correct, utilising the marks on the middle row.

I made the change a few years back but I ultimately changed back to qwerty. I am in IT and frequently remote into other users sessions. My dvorak layout would over rule theirs. It was a huge hassle when they had to enter in passwords...

Yoiu can get a board called the DVORTY that is USB and uses a button to change modes. The keys are double labeled. Also since it is a hardware change you can leave the OS thinking it has a 103 key QWERTY attached .

They also sell stickers you can use to relabel your keyboard if you want.

Good luck!

Dvorak typing is efficient because it reorganizes letters so that you go from one side to the other continuously. Instead of having pairs of commonly used letters together, they are placed on opposite sides so that you use both hands more evenly, this allows for faster typing.

I tried Dvorak, but after a gazillion years using Qwerty, I found it difficult, and in the end there was no real benefit for me.

If more people used Dvorak, I would definitely try again, but don't find it necessary at this point.

Never heard of Maltron, must look into it out of curiousity.

> I've been hearing since second grade (about 13 years ago) that America was going to switch over to the metric system. I found out that my teachers had been told the same thing in school.

Interesting. Here in Canada we started switching over around 1970, but a lot of people still can't cope and temperatures, prices per unit and distances or speeds are often given in both systems.

My husband learnt Dvorak and uses it at home, loves it. When he has to use a computer elsewhere like at the library, he is relatively slow.

Actually, I don't think either is that impressive. I don't think keyboard is necessarily the best interface for words and sentences. It is not for many disabled people.

I am interested in investigating different UI. Probability features heavily in research in the words and sentaces front.

I also think we have got a bit stuck on Windowed/WIMP systems. It is can be pretty useless for disabled people.

I am interested in developing forgiving interfaces. With traditional Windowed interfaces often a wrong move can put you in position difficult to get out of, and there can be more than one step involved.

I am interested in UI projects like Archy, but I don’t think it goes far enough.

All i know is that I heard about that in Ubuntu Setup.

it has been an option for mac for years, it is not a problem for windows either.

I had an old PC Jr as a kid that had a wireless DVORAK KB. I don't know if it was third party or standard option to have DVORAK. It ran DOS 3 or some such. It has been about 12 years since I saw it.

I wonder if my folks still have it...

Spent some hours on it today and yesterday; it's a slow process, and I feel as if I'm typing in another language I'm persistent though.

a while back I read an article on the Dvorak keyboard. During WWII, they did a test on it, to 'prove' it was better than qwerty. Turns out the test was 'less than fair', because they used Dvorak's employees to do the testing. It was later found (as I remember) they they average about the same.

Every language changes key positions. One example is the Ultra coding machine the Germans made in WWII. If you ever get a picture of it, you'll see it's not the same.