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> 46% less effort than QWERTY For whom? For programmers? For Vim users? For Emacs users? For Photoshop users? For writers? For English writers? For Non-

> 46% less effort than QWERTY For whom? For programmers? For Vim users? For Emacs users? For Photoshop users? For writers? For English writers? For Non-English writers? For Mathematica users? For LaTex users? For my mother browsing the net on her iPad? Everyone has a different use case, programmers use special characters more than non-programmers, Vim users use different shortcuts than Photoshop users, C programmers use the semicolon while Ruby programmers don't, American writers use the letter y more than German ones and so on. Claiming 46% less effort than qwerty needs further clarification. Another thing which comes with all alternative mappings: you need to be able to change all your devices (desktop, mobile) to your new mapping, otherwise the constant mental switch from one to another keyboard layout won't bring you any speed and flow improvement. My writing speed goes down to zero when I have to write on a British layout (which is already super close to the US layout compared to other countries).

Walf 10y ago
Not for Vim users, that's for sure.
- morinted 10y ago
  Custom layout users still use vim (as crazy as we are). If you care about efficiency enough to learn an alternative keyboard layout, you probably care about efficiency enough to learn a modal editor. Even though my hjkl isn't in a line, it's still convenient enough. Muscle memory is muscle memory.
loup-vaillant 10y ago
> Another thing which comes with all alternative mappings: you need to be able to change all your devices (desktop, mobile) to your new mapping, Desktop and laptop, sure. Mobile (which I assumed meant a palmtop such as a smartphone), not so much. If you change the layout of your keyboard, you will touch type. This is a very different kind of memory than the typical hunt&peck. Phone virtual keyboards are even more different. In practice, my dekstop and laptop use the Bépo layout (a Dvorak-like for French), and I kept Azerty (French Qwerty derivative) on my phone. The discrepancy never caused me any problem.
- greenspot 10y ago
  > Phone virtual keyboards are even more different. Why? I type on an iPhone keyboard without any assistance as fast as on my keyboard. I'm almost touch typing. Even if you have to look at the phone's keyboard—you are way faster if the keys are at their expected place on the keyboard (which is QWERTY in my case). Edit: If you disagree don't downvote, rather express why you disagree
  - loup-vaillant 10y ago
    Regardless, 2 thumbs are very different from all 10 fingers. Not the same memory. When I touched typed Qwerty, reaching the "O" meant straightening the right ring finger. On a phone, this means placing the right thumb somewhere. Very different. Though I didn't realised how dissociated those could be before I used my Dvorak-like layout.
  - marssaxman 10y ago
    How on earth do you accomplish that? Or, do you mean that you don't actually touch type on a real keyboard either? I believe that my years of touch typing experience are the reason I hate typing on glass so much. I follow the text I'm writing and not the keys I'm pressing, so with no physical feedback about the locations of the keys, my text is an endless stream of aggravating typos requiring laborious correction. I really miss my Blackberry. Every phone since has felt like the designers calculated the experience to be just one notch less annoying than the threshold at which I would actually pound the damn thing to bits with a sledgehammer.
- godshatter 10y ago
  It's also worth the time spent to become accomplished in both (bi-keyboardal, I call it) for touch typing, in my opinion. I use dvorak at home on the desktop and qwerty everywhere else. Monday morning at work I'll start typing gibberish for a few seconds sometimes until I switch gears, then I'm back in the groove.
basch 10y ago
First line of the article >Norman is a fully optimized alternative keyboard layout to QWERTY for touch typing in English. It maintains keyboard shortcuts for the letters QWASZXCV and keeps 22/26 letters in the normal use pattern of their QWERTY finger, if not the original QWERTY location.
V-2 10y ago
> you need to be able to change all your devices (desktop, mobile) to your new mapping, otherwise the constant mental switch from one to another keyboard layout won't bring you any speed and flow improvement. My writing speed goes down to zero when I have to write on a British layout (which is already super close to the US layout compared to other countries). That doesn't align with my personal experience at all. I do switch between English and Polish keyboard layout on a regular basis (and I mean proper Polish layout, the semi-forgotten PN-87; it's QWERTZ-based, but much more distant from vanilla QWERTY than so-called Polish Programmer's, especially when it comes to special characters). I'm really quick with both and I don't find switching inconvenient in the slightest. So it's really individual thing and sweeping generalizations like "constant mental switch won't bring you any improvement" seem dubious to me. The truth is that YMMV.
- greenspot 10y ago
  I did the same (between German and English) and at some point I went to US QWERTY only. If writing German I trigger the German special characters through OSX smooth Command-U shortcuts and since then I improved my total writing speed by ~20% if not more. The constant switch before killed me. Give it a try.
  - V-2 10y ago
    I do, and I can confirm that it's slower. With Polish Programmer's you need to use right Alt + [a], [e] etc. in order to type ą, ę, ł, ó, ś, ń, ż, ź, ć. I do it on machines where I have no time nor interest to add the PN-87, or Polish typist layout (after mechanical typewriters where it was used in Poland before the computer era took over). That's the case of my work machine, for instance, on which I don't type that much in Polish anyway. Yet I still do now and then, so I can gauge the difference. Since I have to resort to these artificial combos, typing speed and convenience is inferior. It's other small things that add up, too - for example Polish layout uses QWERTZ, "z" being much more common in Polish language than in English where it's rare. For this reason putting "z" under the weakest finger of all, the left pinky, makes for really poor UX for someone using QWERTY to type in Polish. It's much better located in the middle of the top row. When writing in Polish, the flow is much better with Polish typist than "Polish programmer's" with its shortcuts. But as I said, your mileage may vary, and it seems so in your case.
Daviey 10y ago
I'm tempted to try and do some analysis of my usage, by running a keylogger and visualising by heat maps of the keys that I actually use. Ie, log and then paste the contents into something like: https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/ https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/

Walf 10y ago

Not for Vim users, that's for sure.

morinted 10y ago
Custom layout users still use vim (as crazy as we are). If you care about efficiency enough to learn an alternative keyboard layout, you probably care about efficiency enough to learn a modal editor. Even though my hjkl isn't in a line, it's still convenient enough. Muscle memory is muscle memory.

loup-vaillant 10y ago

> Another thing which comes with all alternative mappings: you need to be able to change all your devices (desktop, mobile) to your new mapping, Desktop and laptop, sure. Mobile (which I assumed meant a palmtop such as a smartphone), not so much. If you change the layout of your keyboard, you will touch type. This is a very different kind of memory than the typical hunt&peck. Phone virtual keyboards are even more different. In practice, my dekstop and laptop use the Bépo layout (a Dvorak-like for French), and I kept Azerty (French Qwerty derivative) on my phone. The discrepancy never caused me any problem.

greenspot 10y ago
> Phone virtual keyboards are even more different. Why? I type on an iPhone keyboard without any assistance as fast as on my keyboard. I'm almost touch typing. Even if you have to look at the phone's keyboard—you are way faster if the keys are at their expected place on the keyboard (which is QWERTY in my case). Edit: If you disagree don't downvote, rather express why you disagree
- loup-vaillant 10y ago
  Regardless, 2 thumbs are very different from all 10 fingers. Not the same memory. When I touched typed Qwerty, reaching the "O" meant straightening the right ring finger. On a phone, this means placing the right thumb somewhere. Very different. Though I didn't realised how dissociated those could be before I used my Dvorak-like layout.
- marssaxman 10y ago
  How on earth do you accomplish that? Or, do you mean that you don't actually touch type on a real keyboard either? I believe that my years of touch typing experience are the reason I hate typing on glass so much. I follow the text I'm writing and not the keys I'm pressing, so with no physical feedback about the locations of the keys, my text is an endless stream of aggravating typos requiring laborious correction. I really miss my Blackberry. Every phone since has felt like the designers calculated the experience to be just one notch less annoying than the threshold at which I would actually pound the damn thing to bits with a sledgehammer.
godshatter 10y ago
It's also worth the time spent to become accomplished in both (bi-keyboardal, I call it) for touch typing, in my opinion. I use dvorak at home on the desktop and qwerty everywhere else. Monday morning at work I'll start typing gibberish for a few seconds sometimes until I switch gears, then I'm back in the groove.

basch 10y ago

First line of the article >Norman is a fully optimized alternative keyboard layout to QWERTY for touch typing in English. It maintains keyboard shortcuts for the letters QWASZXCV and keeps 22/26 letters in the normal use pattern of their QWERTY finger, if not the original QWERTY location.

V-2 10y ago

> you need to be able to change all your devices (desktop, mobile) to your new mapping, otherwise the constant mental switch from one to another keyboard layout won't bring you any speed and flow improvement. My writing speed goes down to zero when I have to write on a British layout (which is already super close to the US layout compared to other countries). That doesn't align with my personal experience at all. I do switch between English and Polish keyboard layout on a regular basis (and I mean proper Polish layout, the semi-forgotten PN-87; it's QWERTZ-based, but much more distant from vanilla QWERTY than so-called Polish Programmer's, especially when it comes to special characters). I'm really quick with both and I don't find switching inconvenient in the slightest. So it's really individual thing and sweeping generalizations like "constant mental switch won't bring you any improvement" seem dubious to me. The truth is that YMMV.

greenspot 10y ago
I did the same (between German and English) and at some point I went to US QWERTY only. If writing German I trigger the German special characters through OSX smooth Command-U shortcuts and since then I improved my total writing speed by ~20% if not more. The constant switch before killed me. Give it a try.
- V-2 10y ago
  I do, and I can confirm that it's slower. With Polish Programmer's you need to use right Alt + [a], [e] etc. in order to type ą, ę, ł, ó, ś, ń, ż, ź, ć. I do it on machines where I have no time nor interest to add the PN-87, or Polish typist layout (after mechanical typewriters where it was used in Poland before the computer era took over). That's the case of my work machine, for instance, on which I don't type that much in Polish anyway. Yet I still do now and then, so I can gauge the difference. Since I have to resort to these artificial combos, typing speed and convenience is inferior. It's other small things that add up, too - for example Polish layout uses QWERTZ, "z" being much more common in Polish language than in English where it's rare. For this reason putting "z" under the weakest finger of all, the left pinky, makes for really poor UX for someone using QWERTY to type in Polish. It's much better located in the middle of the top row. When writing in Polish, the flow is much better with Polish typist than "Polish programmer's" with its shortcuts. But as I said, your mileage may vary, and it seems so in your case.

Daviey 10y ago

I'm tempted to try and do some analysis of my usage, by running a keylogger and visualising by heat maps of the keys that I actually use. Ie, log and then paste the contents into something like: https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/ https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/