4 ms·

The quantifiable improvement and cost benefit is also important. Dvorak shows on average a 1-2% benefit to typing speed, which is basically not worth the time a

• Fnoord 9y ago
  After how long usage was this measured? Do you have sources? How about Colemak and its variants?
• baddox 9y ago
  I don’t even think that learning a new layout is the dealbreaker. I think the dealbreaker is that, no matter how you work, you will occasionally need to use a computer with a standard keyboard layout. It may not be very often at all (the last time I used a random computer was an on-site programming interview with the company’s PC, and that was a text editing disaster despite my familiarity with QWERTY, though I still got an offer), but it’s probably often enough that it’s not worth the small potential gains of another keyboard layout. Of course, now that I present that argument, I realize it could be applied to text editors shortcuts and plugins, which I have customized extensively on all my main development machines. That said, I almost never do any significant coding on random machines, so the cost/benefit analysis might work out in my favor (I certainly behave as if it does). I also remap all my Caps Lock physical keys to Control/Command, which is pretty common among programmers but very rare among non-programmers. That’s another case where my gut says that the small rare inconveniences of using random computers are outweighed by my regular productivity increases. However, I don’t have any actual data on this, so it turns out my argument in the first paragraph of this comment is really just a guess. I do intuitively feel like QWERTY to Dvorak is a much more significant alteration than Caps Lock to Ctrl or some customized hotkeys in my text editor of choice.
  • ilaksh 9y ago
    But people don't do a cost benefit analysis or anything rational like that when they select a keyboard or when they select most things. Its a subconscious decision mainly factoring in what other people do (what is most popular) and the rationalizations come after.
  • zZorgz 9y ago
    People can also cope with switching from different setups if trained well enough in both, which should not be too surprising. Eg: shortcuts in vim vs native editor shortcuts, scroll direction, one key swap.. It’s even possible for full blown keyboard layouts. I type using QWERTY and Colemak both on a regular basis, although I’ve not tested how long I can go without a layout to retain it, but forgetting is harder than relearning in that case.
• peatmoss 9y ago
  But also a fair amount less finger motion (I did test this to my own satisfaction some years ago) for a given set of text. And qualitatively, I do think that has translated into less wrist strain. I’m not a particularly fast keyboardist, and I don’t particularly care about the speed differences of dvorak vs. qwerty. But, I do quite appreciate what I believe to be real ergonomic benefits. My wife switched a few years ago and claims also improved wrist comfort. But nobody would ever choose a dvorak keymap if they were solely interested in that 1-2% speed benefit (I don’t know where this number came from, but I no reason to doubt it).
  • zZorgz 9y ago
    I believe there is a lack of proof the ergonomic benefits are significant outside of typing tests which are very unrealistic to day to day tasks (unless you have a pure typist job). A bias also exists when many people that switch layouts never touch typed well or properly in QWERTY to begin with, or lose comfort awareness as they forget how to type well in QWERTY. I speak as someone that touch types equally well in QWERTY and Colemak, and think time would be spent better sticking to or learning QWERTY better.