7 ms·

This won't help anyone who has lost the use of their hands, but I have some advice for touch typists who use a standard keyboard like a laptop or typical deskto

This won't help anyone who has lost the use of their hands, but I have some advice for touch typists who use a standard keyboard like a laptop or typical desktop keyboard: don't bend your wrists. Of course most people know about the ergonomic advice to have your keyboard at the right height so your wrists don't have to bend up or down. But I often see people typing with a horizontal bend in their wrists so that their hands are pointing straight forward as they type, like this crude sketch: | | | | | | | | | | | | +---+ +---+ / / \ \ / / \ \ / / \ \ If you do that, try this instead: don't bend your wrists to make your hands straight. Relax your wrists and let your hands be at the same angle as your arms: / / / \ \ \ / / / \ \ \ +---+ +---+ / / \ \ / / \ \ / / \ \ Your fingers will still be able to find the keys, but it may take some getting used to if you've been using the "bent wrist" position. Once you get the hang of it, this may reduce the stress on your wrists. I've been typing on standard keyboards nearly every day for about 50 years without any significant problems. I tried using the "bent wrist" position as a quick experiment and it was really uncomfortable. So while I can't say for sure that it will help everyone, I'm pretty sure the "straight wrist" position has helped me.

tomc1985 7y ago
Ergonomic keyboards with a split down the middle may help with this greatly.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  As an added benefit you can now put a notebook or drink between the each side of the keyboard.
- Stratoscope 7y ago
  Indeed, that is one of the purposes of those keyboards. For myself, I love the TrackPoint so much that I can't bear the thought of using any other kind of keyboard with only a touchpad or a mouse. So standard ThinkPad keyboards it is for me. I even use a USB ThinkPad keyboard on my desktop at work!
  - tomc1985 7y ago
    I'm a big fan of the MS Natural Ergonomic models. The keys are a little squishy but that's OK
  - curioussavage 7y ago
    I have the “ultimate hacking keyboard” and one of the thumb modules they have planned is a track point.
- kimat 7y ago
  Split keyboards allow you to have both hands and arms perpendicular to the table.
lstamour 7y ago
The biggest change that helped when I developed temporary RSI when playing video games in my mid-teens was learning and switching to Colemak. Natural keyboards (Microsoft-style) helped a bit, but the curved Kinesis Advantage really taught me that you should try to never raise your keyboard angle, and instead keep the keyboard flat at a height where your fingers rest on the home row, wrists straight and naturally held at a comfortable position in line with your lower arms. When done well, it’s like your fingers are hovering over the keys on the keyboard, pushing down, but it can cause strain in your arms as you don’t have any palm rests in this position without buying a Kinesis (and re-learning how to type on a straight column key layout). But by far the biggest difference was learning Colemak, it means my fingers rarely leave the home row and typing is less of a chore on my fingers, but still affects my wrists. For your mouse hand, the Evoluent mouse may look (and feel) funny, but it certainly is less stress on your mousing wrist. You can fake this with a normal mouse (when you remember to) by rotating your hand, wrist and lower arm 90 degrees, placing your hand pinky side down next to the mouse, palm facing the mouse. Then keeping your wrist in that same vertical orientation, slowly move your thumb and first two fingers to cover the mouse. It’s a loose hold, not as easy to use as the normal grip, but it’s much easier on the mousing wrist. Don’t move the wrist in this position, when moving the mouse, try to remember to move your whole arm if possible. I’ll admit, I only use this mousing technique on days when I’m extra sensitive to RSI, normally my mouse movement is halfway between this extreme and a normal mouse grip—generally I modify the mouse grip to not cup it so tightly with a more horizontal wrist and that works okay... Also watch out for wrist/finger/positional strain from non-computer activities you do regularly, including how you grip or put extra strain on your body when commuting or when using exercise equipment. There’s always a balance — you want stress to build tolerance, but you don’t want to take it too far and build injury instead. Listen to your body! :)
- allannienhuis 7y ago
  I used to get RSI on my mouse hand. Switching to a thumb trackball https://www.logitech.com/en-ca/product/wireless-trackball-m570 https://www.logitech.com/en-ca/product/wireless-trackball-m5... resolved it immediately. My wrist is in a natural position, and the only thing that moves is the thumb. It was surprisingly easy to get used to. I initially didn't think I'd use it for gaming, but that turned out to be not a problem - once you're used to it it's just as effective.
wildrhythms 7y ago
This is how I was taught to position my hands on the keyboard in 6th or 7th grade (I can't remember) and to this day I thankfully don't suffer from any wrist pain or fatigue.
sooheon 7y ago
This is great advice. I really enjoy ergonomic keyboards, and having as little strain on your wrist as possible is key. On "regular" non-split keyboards I ignore the touch-typist tenets and keep my wrists relaxed, so my index fingers are on an arc roughly around `qwefjiop`. Much more relaxed than forcing your fingers to an unnatural "home" row.
vhakulinen 7y ago
I have my wrists straight when I type, but I used to have a problem with left hand's control key; every time I needed to press ctrl+<somekey> my writs bend and it started to cause pain. Then, one day I decided to map my capslock key to act as ctrl (found online that this was a thing) and once I learned to use it, all the pain was basically gone. It maybe took a week or so of learning to get used to it.
- lstamour 7y ago
  +1 on keyboard remapping, though I’ve never gotten used to it permanently myself. In Colemak, Caps Lock was originally changed to backspace, so for users who don’t need to hit Ctrl as often, that’s also an option. I suspect the only way I’ll remember the remapping permanently is to disable the original/bad mapping, such that every time I do the old way, I remind myself it doesn’t work that way and hit the new key instead.
  - vhakulinen 7y ago
    I've heard some to map esc to capslock too, or even ctrl _and_ esc (tap for one, hold for the other). I don't think I would have learned the new mapping if it weren't for the pain.
cactus2093 7y ago
I've found that most office desk & chair combinations I've had don't have enough flexibility for me to get in a completely ideal position for my wrists. In particular even with the chair maxed out, it's still an inch or two shorter of what I would need for my forearms and wrists to be parallel to the ground and at the keyboard height, so my wrists are always bent a little bit up. I've had occasional wrist and hand pain creep up, but luckily have always been able to manage it by typing a little slower and making an effort to sit up a little straighter and hit the keys a little softer, and it has always gone away in a week or two. Desk and chair heights seem to be pretty standardized so even if there is a hodge-podge of chairs around they're all the same height. I'm definitely taller than average, but a quick search says only by about one standard deviation, so I can't be that unusual. In general, it does seem like there's a stigma against office comfort, at least in small to medium startups that I've worked at. Usually everyone is using the same shitty, half-broken desks and chairs that came free with the office lease, and the already independently wealthy founders will brag about how scrappy the company is and how proud they are of not wasting any effort or money on something as banal as office comfort. In that environment if you ask for special equipment you're really made to feel like you're being difficult.
- lstamour 7y ago
  Yeah, I wish I had more options at work. At home I use an adjustable height sit/stand desk from Ikea, and I've a Lifespan walking treadmill (just the base) which really helps with body posture (it's impossible to rest in the wrong position when you have to keep stepping forward a bit at a time...) I've suggested getting a treaddesk (treadmill desk) at work more than once, with co-workers, direct managers and company execs, but presumably as no one else has tried one, everyone looks at me funny when I ask. So I tend to split my work programming time between workplace and home as a compromise... Then there's the Vivo Barefoot shoes I've been recently trying for increased awareness when walking, and better walking ergonomics... at this point it seems like a safe assumption that most things humans habitually do aren't ergonomically optimal. ;-)
- Stratoscope 7y ago
  I hear you. I'm fortunate enough to have sit-stand desks at home and at work, and I notice if the height is even a fraction of an inch off. I also have them in standing position nearly all the time. I get sleepy if I sit too long. There must be a way for you to solve this. For example, could you convert your desk to a standing desk by putting a sturdy box on top of it? I did this for a while using a wine box that happened to add just the right amount of height. I was only using my ThinkPad at the time, no external monitors, so I didn't need to raise the whole desk. You could even accommodate a desktop keyboard and mouse using a bigger box. If this works, your team will be impressed by your scrappy inventiveness! :-)
jakub_g 7y ago
As others mentioned, ergonomic keyboard helps with this. I'm using Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic wireless keyboard (haven't tried Kinesis) which is IMO a good compromise between price, quality and size. One thing to be aware of though is that for security, the USB dongle is paired with the keyboard at the factory via a unique encryption key, so if the dongle breaks, you can basically throw the keyboard to the bin (contrary to other vendors which offer universal dongles that can be paired with existing keyboards). Another RSI tip concerning mouse usage: try to learn using the mouse with your secondary hand. Initially it's very hard, but after few weeks you can do all but the most precise things with the secondary hand. Changing hands can significantly reduce the pain. I have two mice (that may look weird but I find it useful): an ergonomic one for the right hand, and a symmetric trackball for the left hand.
- Stratoscope 7y ago
  Great tips, thanks! I recommend your "secondary mouse hand" trick in particular for right-handers who use desktop keyboards with the typical cursor keys on the right. I did this before I switched to ThinkPads, and it was great being able to seamlessly work the mouse with my left hand and the cursor keys with my right. Putting the mouse on the left also made a much shorter reach to get to it. For Windows users with desktop keyboards that have numeric pads, I also suggest turning on the Mouse Keys feature. One thing I always found most stressful with a mouse was dragging with the button down and trying to make precise movements. I felt like I was cramping my hand every time I did that. Mouse Keys makes precise mouse movements easy: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14204/windows-7-use-mouse-keys-to-move-mouse-pointer https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14204/windows-7-use... Or on a laptop keyboard - particularly on a ThinkPad - use my JKLmouse program (an AutoHotkey script) that does much the same thing without a number pad. Whenever you hold any mouse (TrackPoint) button or the Caps Lock key down, various keyboard keys turn into mouse movement keys. It works on any keyboard but is especially nice on a ThinkPad where you can press a TrackPoint button, use the TrackPoint to get the cursor about where you want it, and then - with your hand still on the home row! - move pixel by pixel with the keyboard. https://www.jklmouse.com/ https://www.jklmouse.com/ I don't know of macOS or Linux equivalents for these, but would be interested in hearing about them if anyone is familiar.
germ 7y ago
Better solution is to ditch the single-block-style keyboard and get a proper ergonomic one that's split into two parts. That allows you to keep your wrists at a natural angle but you also need to change the layout to use columnar staggering so the fingers are only moving vertically. There's many things wrong with traditional keyboards and many solutions that I could write for years about. This one's mine and is focused at programmers/Vim/Linux users [1]. The main takaway is move the fingers less and leverage a programmable layout to overload fingers. Look at how the thumbs are used and the relation to common programming symbols. [2] and I mean it's programmable so if you don't like it, flash it. [1] https://www.gboards.ca/ https://www.gboards.ca/ [2] https://qmk.fm/keyboards/gergo/keymap.png https://qmk.fm/keyboards/gergo/keymap.png
- pvinis 7y ago
  AKA ortholinear.
  - SuperPaintMan 7y ago
    Yeah Split Ortho with columnar stagger. Those are important features. Another one is the overall height of a board, the lower and lighter the switch the better. One of the current issues I'm having is simple MX switch height + a given profile. Tack on a case and suddenly your wrists are all bent! On my personal boards I go caseless with Low-Profile Kailh Chocs and very low caps for them. It's not pretty but with 12g switches I haven't had rsi flaring issues in months. This is something I went a bit extreme with Georgi and chording, very comfy but very radical. [1] [2] Wrist rests can help alleviate this issue, but a badly designed rest will do more harm then good. [1] https://www.gboards.ca/product/georgi https://www.gboards.ca/product/georgi [2] http://docs.gboards.ca/Unboxing-Georgi http://docs.gboards.ca/Unboxing-Georgi
- Stratoscope 7y ago
  That's a really interesting keyboard! I think I've seen one or two like it at the office - I will have to take a closer look. It wouldn't work for me, because as I mentioned in another comment I am a TrackPoint fanatic. I've used ThinkPads for 20 years and even have a USB ThinkPad keyboard on my desktop at work. But thank you for mentioning this option - everyone has different needs and I'm sure this will be very helpful for someone.
Arathorn 7y ago
Anecdata alert: For what it's worth, I am relatively sure that the key factor in developing (and then avoiding) RSI for me at least is sitting posture. This may in turn be impacting the wrist posture when typing, but I've systematically realised that when starting to feel RSI that it's coincident with having started slouching or hunching at my desk (or using a different physical layout). Fixing that (and taking it easy for a bit) managed to stave off disaster. The other revelation has been that general stress levels massively impact one's posture; if I'm stressing about something the entire upper half of my body tenses up, causing me to hunch over the keyboard (and, almost without noticing it, type about 5x harder than normal). And this probably ends up being the root cause for me. Just mentioning it in case anyone else had failed to spot a stress -> tensing up -> bad posture -> RSI -> stress feedback loop...
- Stratoscope 7y ago
  Yes, posture and stress tension are huge! I don't work sitting down any more, and I think that has helped me a lot. But one thing I've made a point to avoid is standing still in one spot like John Carmack giving a talk. Instead, I'm always moving when I stand at my desk. At home I have a FluidStance Level: https://fluidstance.com https://fluidstance.com They are expensive, but mine has already paid for itself in terms of feeling better and more alert and hopefully longer life. :-) I don't have one at the office yet, but in the meantime when I stand at my desk I'm always moving around - swaying from side to side, climbing an invisible ladder (raising each foot back and forth), etc.
em-bee 7y ago
i learned touch typing in school, but i never really picked up on it. it just felt uncomfortable. i could not get enough strength into my fingers to push down the typewriter keys we used and the wrist felt uncomfortable. i did get ergonomic keyboards when available, they definitely make a difference, but they were not always available. (i never even considered that, but i wouldn't have been able to carry them to school where i had to work on a random terminal instead of my own workspace using unix workstations which weren't even compatible) so eventually i just started typing with the index fingers and thumbs only. i don't actually see the point in touch-typing for programmers. programming requires more thinking than typing. it also uses more special keys that touch-typing is not really adjusted to, so i don't feel like i am loosing any productivity by not being able to type as fast as a trained touch-typist. and in light of the stories here, i consider my early uncomfort as a warning sign that stopped me from making things worse. as others said: if you feel uncomfortable, fix the uncomfort, no matter how small
- pitaj 7y ago
  I was supposed to learn touch-typing in school, but all I learned was how to game the system. To this day I still type with pretty much only index and middle fingers, even the space bar. I don't feel particularly restricted by my _maybe_ slower typing with more frequent mistakes due to looking at the keyboard. Like you said, my job is engineering, not typing.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    right, i forgot about the looking at the keyboard part. that is a distraction, but in fact, i have been doing this for so long that i can type with just index fingers without looking at the keyboard. seriously, i am am trying this right now, and i am astonished how few mistakes i am making. it does feel awkward because i am not used to typing this way but apparently my muscle memory is good enough...
mmcnl 7y ago
I can type quite fast (easily 100 words / minute), but never had any official training. My hands are always positioned like your second drawing. Could it perhaps be that the standard way people are taught to type (i.e. fingers resting by default on the middle row with index fingers on the F and J key) makes people more inclined to bend their wrists which can lead to complaints?

tomc1985 7y ago

Ergonomic keyboards with a split down the middle may help with this greatly.

rhinoceraptor 7y ago
As an added benefit you can now put a notebook or drink between the each side of the keyboard.
Stratoscope 7y ago
Indeed, that is one of the purposes of those keyboards. For myself, I love the TrackPoint so much that I can't bear the thought of using any other kind of keyboard with only a touchpad or a mouse. So standard ThinkPad keyboards it is for me. I even use a USB ThinkPad keyboard on my desktop at work!
- tomc1985 7y ago
  I'm a big fan of the MS Natural Ergonomic models. The keys are a little squishy but that's OK
- curioussavage 7y ago
  I have the “ultimate hacking keyboard” and one of the thumb modules they have planned is a track point.
kimat 7y ago
Split keyboards allow you to have both hands and arms perpendicular to the table.

lstamour 7y ago

The biggest change that helped when I developed temporary RSI when playing video games in my mid-teens was learning and switching to Colemak. Natural keyboards (Microsoft-style) helped a bit, but the curved Kinesis Advantage really taught me that you should try to never raise your keyboard angle, and instead keep the keyboard flat at a height where your fingers rest on the home row, wrists straight and naturally held at a comfortable position in line with your lower arms. When done well, it’s like your fingers are hovering over the keys on the keyboard, pushing down, but it can cause strain in your arms as you don’t have any palm rests in this position without buying a Kinesis (and re-learning how to type on a straight column key layout). But by far the biggest difference was learning Colemak, it means my fingers rarely leave the home row and typing is less of a chore on my fingers, but still affects my wrists. For your mouse hand, the Evoluent mouse may look (and feel) funny, but it certainly is less stress on your mousing wrist. You can fake this with a normal mouse (when you remember to) by rotating your hand, wrist and lower arm 90 degrees, placing your hand pinky side down next to the mouse, palm facing the mouse. Then keeping your wrist in that same vertical orientation, slowly move your thumb and first two fingers to cover the mouse. It’s a loose hold, not as easy to use as the normal grip, but it’s much easier on the mousing wrist. Don’t move the wrist in this position, when moving the mouse, try to remember to move your whole arm if possible. I’ll admit, I only use this mousing technique on days when I’m extra sensitive to RSI, normally my mouse movement is halfway between this extreme and a normal mouse grip—generally I modify the mouse grip to not cup it so tightly with a more horizontal wrist and that works okay... Also watch out for wrist/finger/positional strain from non-computer activities you do regularly, including how you grip or put extra strain on your body when commuting or when using exercise equipment. There’s always a balance — you want stress to build tolerance, but you don’t want to take it too far and build injury instead. Listen to your body! :)

allannienhuis 7y ago
I used to get RSI on my mouse hand. Switching to a thumb trackball https://www.logitech.com/en-ca/product/wireless-trackball-m570 https://www.logitech.com/en-ca/product/wireless-trackball-m5... resolved it immediately. My wrist is in a natural position, and the only thing that moves is the thumb. It was surprisingly easy to get used to. I initially didn't think I'd use it for gaming, but that turned out to be not a problem - once you're used to it it's just as effective.

wildrhythms 7y ago

This is how I was taught to position my hands on the keyboard in 6th or 7th grade (I can't remember) and to this day I thankfully don't suffer from any wrist pain or fatigue.

sooheon 7y ago

This is great advice. I really enjoy ergonomic keyboards, and having as little strain on your wrist as possible is key. On "regular" non-split keyboards I ignore the touch-typist tenets and keep my wrists relaxed, so my index fingers are on an arc roughly around `qwefjiop`. Much more relaxed than forcing your fingers to an unnatural "home" row.

vhakulinen 7y ago

I have my wrists straight when I type, but I used to have a problem with left hand's control key; every time I needed to press ctrl+<somekey> my writs bend and it started to cause pain. Then, one day I decided to map my capslock key to act as ctrl (found online that this was a thing) and once I learned to use it, all the pain was basically gone. It maybe took a week or so of learning to get used to it.

lstamour 7y ago
+1 on keyboard remapping, though I’ve never gotten used to it permanently myself. In Colemak, Caps Lock was originally changed to backspace, so for users who don’t need to hit Ctrl as often, that’s also an option. I suspect the only way I’ll remember the remapping permanently is to disable the original/bad mapping, such that every time I do the old way, I remind myself it doesn’t work that way and hit the new key instead.
- vhakulinen 7y ago
  I've heard some to map esc to capslock too, or even ctrl _and_ esc (tap for one, hold for the other). I don't think I would have learned the new mapping if it weren't for the pain.

cactus2093 7y ago

I've found that most office desk & chair combinations I've had don't have enough flexibility for me to get in a completely ideal position for my wrists. In particular even with the chair maxed out, it's still an inch or two shorter of what I would need for my forearms and wrists to be parallel to the ground and at the keyboard height, so my wrists are always bent a little bit up. I've had occasional wrist and hand pain creep up, but luckily have always been able to manage it by typing a little slower and making an effort to sit up a little straighter and hit the keys a little softer, and it has always gone away in a week or two. Desk and chair heights seem to be pretty standardized so even if there is a hodge-podge of chairs around they're all the same height. I'm definitely taller than average, but a quick search says only by about one standard deviation, so I can't be that unusual. In general, it does seem like there's a stigma against office comfort, at least in small to medium startups that I've worked at. Usually everyone is using the same shitty, half-broken desks and chairs that came free with the office lease, and the already independently wealthy founders will brag about how scrappy the company is and how proud they are of not wasting any effort or money on something as banal as office comfort. In that environment if you ask for special equipment you're really made to feel like you're being difficult.

lstamour 7y ago
Yeah, I wish I had more options at work. At home I use an adjustable height sit/stand desk from Ikea, and I've a Lifespan walking treadmill (just the base) which really helps with body posture (it's impossible to rest in the wrong position when you have to keep stepping forward a bit at a time...) I've suggested getting a treaddesk (treadmill desk) at work more than once, with co-workers, direct managers and company execs, but presumably as no one else has tried one, everyone looks at me funny when I ask. So I tend to split my work programming time between workplace and home as a compromise... Then there's the Vivo Barefoot shoes I've been recently trying for increased awareness when walking, and better walking ergonomics... at this point it seems like a safe assumption that most things humans habitually do aren't ergonomically optimal. ;-)
Stratoscope 7y ago
I hear you. I'm fortunate enough to have sit-stand desks at home and at work, and I notice if the height is even a fraction of an inch off. I also have them in standing position nearly all the time. I get sleepy if I sit too long. There must be a way for you to solve this. For example, could you convert your desk to a standing desk by putting a sturdy box on top of it? I did this for a while using a wine box that happened to add just the right amount of height. I was only using my ThinkPad at the time, no external monitors, so I didn't need to raise the whole desk. You could even accommodate a desktop keyboard and mouse using a bigger box. If this works, your team will be impressed by your scrappy inventiveness! :-)

jakub_g 7y ago

As others mentioned, ergonomic keyboard helps with this. I'm using Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic wireless keyboard (haven't tried Kinesis) which is IMO a good compromise between price, quality and size. One thing to be aware of though is that for security, the USB dongle is paired with the keyboard at the factory via a unique encryption key, so if the dongle breaks, you can basically throw the keyboard to the bin (contrary to other vendors which offer universal dongles that can be paired with existing keyboards). Another RSI tip concerning mouse usage: try to learn using the mouse with your secondary hand. Initially it's very hard, but after few weeks you can do all but the most precise things with the secondary hand. Changing hands can significantly reduce the pain. I have two mice (that may look weird but I find it useful): an ergonomic one for the right hand, and a symmetric trackball for the left hand.

Stratoscope 7y ago
Great tips, thanks! I recommend your "secondary mouse hand" trick in particular for right-handers who use desktop keyboards with the typical cursor keys on the right. I did this before I switched to ThinkPads, and it was great being able to seamlessly work the mouse with my left hand and the cursor keys with my right. Putting the mouse on the left also made a much shorter reach to get to it. For Windows users with desktop keyboards that have numeric pads, I also suggest turning on the Mouse Keys feature. One thing I always found most stressful with a mouse was dragging with the button down and trying to make precise movements. I felt like I was cramping my hand every time I did that. Mouse Keys makes precise mouse movements easy: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14204/windows-7-use-mouse-keys-to-move-mouse-pointer https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14204/windows-7-use... Or on a laptop keyboard - particularly on a ThinkPad - use my JKLmouse program (an AutoHotkey script) that does much the same thing without a number pad. Whenever you hold any mouse (TrackPoint) button or the Caps Lock key down, various keyboard keys turn into mouse movement keys. It works on any keyboard but is especially nice on a ThinkPad where you can press a TrackPoint button, use the TrackPoint to get the cursor about where you want it, and then - with your hand still on the home row! - move pixel by pixel with the keyboard. https://www.jklmouse.com/ https://www.jklmouse.com/ I don't know of macOS or Linux equivalents for these, but would be interested in hearing about them if anyone is familiar.

germ 7y ago

Better solution is to ditch the single-block-style keyboard and get a proper ergonomic one that's split into two parts. That allows you to keep your wrists at a natural angle but you also need to change the layout to use columnar staggering so the fingers are only moving vertically. There's many things wrong with traditional keyboards and many solutions that I could write for years about. This one's mine and is focused at programmers/Vim/Linux users [1]. The main takaway is move the fingers less and leverage a programmable layout to overload fingers. Look at how the thumbs are used and the relation to common programming symbols. [2] and I mean it's programmable so if you don't like it, flash it. [1] https://www.gboards.ca/ https://www.gboards.ca/ [2] https://qmk.fm/keyboards/gergo/keymap.png https://qmk.fm/keyboards/gergo/keymap.png

pvinis 7y ago
AKA ortholinear.
- SuperPaintMan 7y ago
  Yeah Split Ortho with columnar stagger. Those are important features. Another one is the overall height of a board, the lower and lighter the switch the better. One of the current issues I'm having is simple MX switch height + a given profile. Tack on a case and suddenly your wrists are all bent! On my personal boards I go caseless with Low-Profile Kailh Chocs and very low caps for them. It's not pretty but with 12g switches I haven't had rsi flaring issues in months. This is something I went a bit extreme with Georgi and chording, very comfy but very radical. [1] [2] Wrist rests can help alleviate this issue, but a badly designed rest will do more harm then good. [1] https://www.gboards.ca/product/georgi https://www.gboards.ca/product/georgi [2] http://docs.gboards.ca/Unboxing-Georgi http://docs.gboards.ca/Unboxing-Georgi
Stratoscope 7y ago
That's a really interesting keyboard! I think I've seen one or two like it at the office - I will have to take a closer look. It wouldn't work for me, because as I mentioned in another comment I am a TrackPoint fanatic. I've used ThinkPads for 20 years and even have a USB ThinkPad keyboard on my desktop at work. But thank you for mentioning this option - everyone has different needs and I'm sure this will be very helpful for someone.

Arathorn 7y ago

Anecdata alert: For what it's worth, I am relatively sure that the key factor in developing (and then avoiding) RSI for me at least is sitting posture. This may in turn be impacting the wrist posture when typing, but I've systematically realised that when starting to feel RSI that it's coincident with having started slouching or hunching at my desk (or using a different physical layout). Fixing that (and taking it easy for a bit) managed to stave off disaster. The other revelation has been that general stress levels massively impact one's posture; if I'm stressing about something the entire upper half of my body tenses up, causing me to hunch over the keyboard (and, almost without noticing it, type about 5x harder than normal). And this probably ends up being the root cause for me. Just mentioning it in case anyone else had failed to spot a stress -> tensing up -> bad posture -> RSI -> stress feedback loop...

Stratoscope 7y ago
Yes, posture and stress tension are huge! I don't work sitting down any more, and I think that has helped me a lot. But one thing I've made a point to avoid is standing still in one spot like John Carmack giving a talk. Instead, I'm always moving when I stand at my desk. At home I have a FluidStance Level: https://fluidstance.com https://fluidstance.com They are expensive, but mine has already paid for itself in terms of feeling better and more alert and hopefully longer life. :-) I don't have one at the office yet, but in the meantime when I stand at my desk I'm always moving around - swaying from side to side, climbing an invisible ladder (raising each foot back and forth), etc.

em-bee 7y ago

i learned touch typing in school, but i never really picked up on it. it just felt uncomfortable. i could not get enough strength into my fingers to push down the typewriter keys we used and the wrist felt uncomfortable. i did get ergonomic keyboards when available, they definitely make a difference, but they were not always available. (i never even considered that, but i wouldn't have been able to carry them to school where i had to work on a random terminal instead of my own workspace using unix workstations which weren't even compatible) so eventually i just started typing with the index fingers and thumbs only. i don't actually see the point in touch-typing for programmers. programming requires more thinking than typing. it also uses more special keys that touch-typing is not really adjusted to, so i don't feel like i am loosing any productivity by not being able to type as fast as a trained touch-typist. and in light of the stories here, i consider my early uncomfort as a warning sign that stopped me from making things worse. as others said: if you feel uncomfortable, fix the uncomfort, no matter how small

pitaj 7y ago
I was supposed to learn touch-typing in school, but all I learned was how to game the system. To this day I still type with pretty much only index and middle fingers, even the space bar. I don't feel particularly restricted by my _maybe_ slower typing with more frequent mistakes due to looking at the keyboard. Like you said, my job is engineering, not typing.
- em-bee 7y ago
  right, i forgot about the looking at the keyboard part. that is a distraction, but in fact, i have been doing this for so long that i can type with just index fingers without looking at the keyboard. seriously, i am am trying this right now, and i am astonished how few mistakes i am making. it does feel awkward because i am not used to typing this way but apparently my muscle memory is good enough...

mmcnl 7y ago

I can type quite fast (easily 100 words / minute), but never had any official training. My hands are always positioned like your second drawing. Could it perhaps be that the standard way people are taught to type (i.e. fingers resting by default on the middle row with index fingers on the F and J key) makes people more inclined to bend their wrists which can lead to complaints?