3 ms·

I'm genuinely curious about people who have actually switched typing layout for day-to-day use. I've played with Dvorak for awhile, but I already type at over 1

I'm genuinely curious about people who have actually switched typing layout for day-to-day use. I've played with Dvorak for awhile, but I already type at over 100 wpm with QWERTY, and I know whatever keyboard I'm likely to come into contact with that is not my own is likely to be QWERTY. Add to that, the changing of shortcuts, vim commands, etc. (which Norman attempts to address somewhat) and I'm not strongly motivated to try. Has anyone found it valuable to switch and if so, why?

teilo 10y ago
No reason to change shortcuts. I use vim on Dvorak. It's all just muscle memory. Makes no difference where the keys are for the most part.
thatswrong0 10y ago
I switched in college to Colemak when I wanted to learn how to properly touch type. Turns out that unlearning a weird QWERTY typing style developed to talk shit during Age of Empires 2 games as a kid.. is hard. While trying to learn QWERTY proper I also got frustrated by how inconvenient it felt. So I did some research and decided that it was the perfect opportunity to try a different layout. If you already touch type quickly on QWERTY, I only think it would be worth it if you wanted to potentially help with RSI.. although I'd try an ergonomic keyboard first.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  I have a similar tale. Was having pains in my wrists in grad school and decided it was way past time to unlearn my broken QWERTY touch typing technique (in my case my left hand was shifted a key left such that the pinky was homed primarily shift/caps/tab/ctrl and my right hand "wandered" to compensate). Trying to relearn QWERTY itself just lead to falling back into old habits. Forcing myself to learn an entirely different one (in my case, also Colemak) was a huge part of making good habits stick and I've been glad I did so.

3 ms·

I'm genuinely curious about people who have actually switched typing layout for day-to-day use. I've played with Dvorak for awhile, but I already type at over 1

by cgriswald 10y ago

teilo 10y ago
No reason to change shortcuts. I use vim on Dvorak. It's all just muscle memory. Makes no difference where the keys are for the most part.
thatswrong0 10y ago
I switched in college to Colemak when I wanted to learn how to properly touch type. Turns out that unlearning a weird QWERTY typing style developed to talk shit during Age of Empires 2 games as a kid.. is hard. While trying to learn QWERTY proper I also got frustrated by how inconvenient it felt. So I did some research and decided that it was the perfect opportunity to try a different layout. If you already touch type quickly on QWERTY, I only think it would be worth it if you wanted to potentially help with RSI.. although I'd try an ergonomic keyboard first.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  I have a similar tale. Was having pains in my wrists in grad school and decided it was way past time to unlearn my broken QWERTY touch typing technique (in my case my left hand was shifted a key left such that the pinky was homed primarily shift/caps/tab/ctrl and my right hand "wandered" to compensate). Trying to relearn QWERTY itself just lead to falling back into old habits. Forcing myself to learn an entirely different one (in my case, also Colemak) was a huge part of making good habits stick and I've been glad I did so.