3 ms·

Given that the leaderboards for typing speed competitions are dominated by qwerty typers, and that I, a qwerty typer, type faster than every single one of my dv

Given that the leaderboards for typing speed competitions are dominated by qwerty typers, and that I, a qwerty typer, type faster than every single one of my dvorak friends, and that the general pattern of the scholarly work on dvorak is that experimental rigor correlates positively with p-values, I'm inclined to say that the reason for qwerty's continued dominance is not just that people are stuck in their ways. It's absolutely a factor, of course, but another one is that the benefits of dvorak have been greatly exaggerated.

hydroxonium 6y ago
me on dvorak: 110 wpm (10-race average) on typeracer.com If your typing speed is high percentile, odds are you'd be faster than all your friends anyway, regardless of dvorak / qwerty. (E.g. I type faster than every single one of my qwerty friends! ...) Given that <0.1% use dvorak, there's >90% chance you won't see a single dvorak user in a random sample of 100 people. Not hard to see why the leaderboards will be "dominated" by qwerty. Like others have said, dvorak is for comfort, not for speed. Dvorak is MUCH more comfortable than qwerty. Also, Dvorak users almost never complain that they type more slowly than their qwerty days, once they've gotten used to it. Many of us dvorak users also are competent at qwerty in a pinch (80 wpm qwerty here). Cf. http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/Dvorak/ http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/Dvorak/
anchpop 6y ago
I use colemak, and type as fast as I did back when I typed with two fingers. But from people who switched from touch-typing qwerty, I'm told colemak and dvorak are much more comfortable. I don't think anyone should switch because they anticipate better typing speed, but if you type with two fingers, switching can force you to reset your muscle memory and make it easier to learn to touch-type (that's why I switched). If anyone is interested in switching, also check out the Workman layout, which is a slight improvement on Colemak's ergonomics at the cost of messing up some keyboard shortcuts

hydroxonium 6y ago

me on dvorak: 110 wpm (10-race average) on typeracer.com If your typing speed is high percentile, odds are you'd be faster than all your friends anyway, regardless of dvorak / qwerty. (E.g. I type faster than every single one of my qwerty friends! ...) Given that <0.1% use dvorak, there's >90% chance you won't see a single dvorak user in a random sample of 100 people. Not hard to see why the leaderboards will be "dominated" by qwerty. Like others have said, dvorak is for comfort, not for speed. Dvorak is MUCH more comfortable than qwerty. Also, Dvorak users almost never complain that they type more slowly than their qwerty days, once they've gotten used to it. Many of us dvorak users also are competent at qwerty in a pinch (80 wpm qwerty here). Cf. http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/Dvorak/ http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/Dvorak/

anchpop 6y ago

I use colemak, and type as fast as I did back when I typed with two fingers. But from people who switched from touch-typing qwerty, I'm told colemak and dvorak are much more comfortable. I don't think anyone should switch because they anticipate better typing speed, but if you type with two fingers, switching can force you to reset your muscle memory and make it easier to learn to touch-type (that's why I switched). If anyone is interested in switching, also check out the Workman layout, which is a slight improvement on Colemak's ergonomics at the cost of messing up some keyboard shortcuts