13 ms·

How bad is QWERTY, really? A review of the literature, such as it is

117 points by erwald 5y ago

cryptonector 5y ago
> Uncomfortable pinky movements Any keyboard layout that leads to more ulnar deviation is simply a no-go for me. So Dovrak and Colemak are out, evidently (never tried them, but TFA says they use the pinky more, so if I believe that then I must not use them). Ideally the pinky should not be used at all for typing. I've had to teach myself to not use one-handed modifier keystrokes that involve ulnar deviation. The key to this, for me, has been the sticky keys accessibility feature -- it works fantastically well for me. If you've never heard of sticky keys before then I highly recommend you look it up and try it. It's not that that I type every modifier combination keystroke using sticky keys, but that using sticky keys helped me unlearn bad habits. Another key to this, for me, is to use vim and not emacs. Modal editing means not relying on modifier keys -- conversely, non-modal editing means being extremely dependent on modifier keys. IMO reaching for modifier keys is probably half the RSI picture, with resting wrists while typing being the other half.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  I think if you rule out Dvorak and Colemak due to pinky use, you should also rule out Qwerty. The best option would be to buy a keyboard with multiple thumb keys, so you can press e.g. enter and backspace with your thumb. (Not using one-handed combinations is the general advice on any typing course -- A and M should use the shift keys on the right and left hand, respectively, as should ^A and ^M.)
  - cryptonector 5y ago
    I have learned to minimize pinky use on QWERTY, but you're right about thumb keys: I could really use control, shift, and alt modifiers right below the space bar. And you're right about typing courses, but.. I never took one, and I think that's true of most people. Perhaps more education would suffice to avoid most typist RSI.
terracottage 5y ago
The problem of RSI isn't QWERTY, the problem is putting all your fingers on the home row. Type with your hands at an angle, and your wrists inline with your arms and palms. Problem solved.
- probotect0r 5y ago
  I use a fairly ergonomic low profile split keyboard, and have no issues with my wrists, but I have some mild RSI in my index finger, near the knuckle joint. I have been trying to figure out how to fix this for a while, and haven't really found a solution, other than to switch to an alternative layout which is not as hard on the index finger. Anyone have a similar issue?
- politician 5y ago
  That's what I've discovered in my own life as well. My 'home row' on a non-split QWERTY keyboard is 'AWEF' 'JKL<Shift>'.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > Problem solved Not at all! RSI is complex because it can involve a hundred muscles and tendons. People can have inflammation and pain even in wrists, shoulders and elbows due to keyboard use. Reducing finger travel by using Dvorak can be very beneficial. Obviously it will do little for things like ulnar pronation.
- nomel 5y ago
  This position is how I've always typed, but I still had RSI problems. I switched to Dvorak with great, personal, success. If you watch a video of someone typing on Dvorak vs Qwerty [1], it's clear that the experience is very very different with any of these reduced motion layouts. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udc9CH8ICVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udc9CH8ICVQ
  - vemv 5y ago
    That video shows poor technique, it's the arms/hands that should hover over the keyboard, in one motion. Stretching the fingers for reaching a given key is bad, Dvorak masks this by minimizing travel, which is simply a workaround / optimization for the wrong thing that long-term will result in the same problems (simply delayed a few years). I could use an intentionally bad keyboard layout and it wouldn't matter. Arms are designed to be moved.
arciini 5y ago
> In Pan & Schleifer (1996), subjects experienced more arm discomfort/pain/fatigue the more keys they pressed while doing a data entry task.[23] Finally, Feng et al. is a recent (2021) cross-sectional study that found that “prolonged computer use time and working without breaks were associated with presence of wrist/hand symptoms”.[24] But of course correlation is not causation, and there are many potential confounders here, e.g. maybe people who spend lots of time at the computer exercise little, and it is the lack of exercise, not computer use, that causes problems. I generally agree with this. I've found that I have less wrist pain now that (1) I've gotten a better mouse and (2) I work out my wrists and forearm occasionally. I think the keyboard is a much smaller cause, especially since a lot of repetitive stress comes more from gaming and use of mice for me.
- Optimal_Persona 5y ago
  I am a 100% laptop keyboard/trackpad user for both work & play for 10 years now and I haven't had any RSI since I stopped using a mouse (and paid close attention to overall posture, including having wrists straight but relaxed in both X and Y axis). To your first citation, purely anecdotal but - over the years when I click on articles by programmers with serious RSI - the ones who identify their text editor are more often die-hard Emacs users (like Stallman). I don't think continual chording is a biologically respectful use of our analog digits. :-)
assbuttbuttass 5y ago
I used to type using the Dvorak layout when I was in high school. I gradually lost the ability to type in QWERTY at all. When I took the GRE I learned it would have to be in QWERTY, so I just switched back. I used QWERTY ever since.
- kaba0 5y ago
  I also tried to convert to an alternative layout, but then realized that on phones, qwerty is pretty objectively a good thing (due to large travels that help greatly there with accuracy). So I dissed the idea.
  - lytefm 5y ago
    At least for me, phone muscle memory and keyboard muscle memory are two completely different things. I've fully switched to the Neo2 Layout about 10 years ago and can't touch type on QWERTZ at all. But on my phone, using QWERT, I know where the letters are without thinking.
politician 5y ago
> Colomak favor the right hand ... asymmetry. Has anyone explored the effects of duplicating keys across hands?
scoofy 5y ago
I switched to Dvorak in my 20's. I don't think i got faster, but my right-hand wrist which would irritate me and was one reason for the switch, definitely was more comfortable after, and hasn't given me any problems since. That said, switching was a huge pain in the ass.... like horrible for the first two months, and i promised myself i'd keep typing in both. However, i eventually lost the ability to type in qwerty, after about two years, but i honestly don't care, i genuinely love Dvorak. The biggest concern most people probably don't think about is keeping shortcuts like CTRL+X/C/V/S/F, which apple thankfully has a layout for "Dvorak-CMD-Qwerty." The shortcuts are very obviously put where they are so you can toggle them quickly. Many programs don't account for this layout, which is why I wrote an Intellij IDE key mapping for it: https://github.com/scoofy/Intellij-IDEA-Dvorak-QwertyCMD-keymap https://github.com/scoofy/Intellij-IDEA-Dvorak-QwertyCMD-key... The layouts that i think don't get enough love, are the one-handed dvorak layouts designed for amputees. The idea that, in the end, the author suggests yet another standard seems a bit absurd to me.
- theonemind 5y ago
  I switched to Dvorak from QWERTY without any special control/cmd mapping. As it turns out, it works out fine. I even vim'ed with it. It's just finger memory. The hjkl all in a row might help you remember/initially learn, but once you know which keys on Dvorak move you the right direction, it doesn't take any more time or concern you any more than hjkl on QWERTY do. You know which direction you want to move, and your fingers hit the keys to make it happen without respect to them not having any meaning by keyboard position.
  - opan 5y ago
    Very well put. I continued using vim and other shortcuts normally through a Dvorak switch and a Workman switch. It's really not that big of a deal.
- xhevahir 5y ago
  I switched after developing hand injuries at work (in a job that didn't involve computer use). Since then, whenever I've had to use QWERTY for whatever purpose I've started getting pain in my tendons after a few hours which goes away almost as soon as I'm able to switch back to Dvorak. Like you, though, I found that picking up Dvorak was a total pain in the ass. A while ago I saw a YouTube video in which a guy was telling his viewers that learning it was easy and that the effort was a small price to pay. When I commented that I had had a period of months when I couldn't type anything spontaneously, he suggested that maybe this was due to my age. I was all of thirty at the time I learned it.
dkbrk 5y ago
This is a really good review. Anecdotally, some years back I started developing pretty bad RSI from typing. I was also a pretty mediocre typist. So I switched to Dvorak and got serious about touch-typing. I found it much more comfortable and since then I've never had any problems with typing-induced RSI. With QWERTY, I was doing all sorts of things to try to stop the RSI. I tried to control the position of my wrists, the angle of my hands, how I hit the keys. I experimented with wrist rests. Since I switched to Dvorak I found I didn't need to pay attention to any of that. I can type virtually continuously for hours at a time at >100wpm, and while my speed will drop from my hands and the muscles in my forearms getting tired, even at that point I don't get RSI. I had another set of RSI not that long ago, but I determined that was due to using my pinky on the ctrl key in emacs. That's a pretty well known problem, but I had used emacs for quite a few years without it being an issue. At that time, though, I had started using org-mode in a big way and was using a lot of C- bindings, and hitting it that often turned out to be a problem after all. Swapping ctrl and caps lock (and using my ring finger for it) fixed it entirely. Even if the studies say that the difference in speed is marginal, I'm convinced based on my subjective experience that Dvorak is much more comfortable. That's difficult to quantify, though, and conducting a high-quality study to conclusively demonstrate it is extraordinarily difficult.
chillacy 5y ago
> One week or so ago I switched from Colemak to typing on QWYRFM due to the reduced load it places on the pinkies. I typed Dvorak for 10 years before I started getting RSI again in my right ulna. It turns out that the 'S' key being hit by the pinky in Dvorak caused me a lot of pain. I ended up switching to BEAKL, a pretty obscure layout which is specifically made to alleviate stress on the pinky. It moves the relatively common S key to the right hand pointer finger, for instance. It turns out that the theory underpinning the dvorak layout assumes that homerow hits are strictly better than upper and lower row, but the pinky and ring finger are such weak fingers that it's often better to move the index or middle fingers up or down a row than hit a key on the home row with the pinky.
- Zircom 5y ago
  Interesting. I've never trained or practiced my typing, but I've always naturally typed using only my thumb, pointer and middle finger, no pinky or ring fingers at all, but still manage to hit 80-100WPM without them on QWERTY. Good instincts I guess.
  - jacobmischka 5y ago
    This sounds wild and frankly I don't believe you.
    - Zircom 5y ago
      So small caveats, I lied a little. This is the first time I've ever really sat down and analyzed my typing. I do use my ring fingers slightly, on my left hand I use my ring finger for "z" "a" and "q" exclusively, and on my right hand I use the ring finger for backspace exclusively. I also only use my left thumb to hit the space bar and use my right index finger for space when my left thumb isn't available, and don't use my right thumb at all. I managed to hit 93WPM(really 102WPM if you look, it wouldn't continue until I finished the last word which I didn't notice for quite a few seconds lowering the final time) my first try while holding my phone in my mouth which was a little distracting to be honest, and after about 10 minutes of warming up and not holding the phone managed to get it to 132WPM. First try at 93WPM - https://gfycat.com/groundedpettyeider https://gfycat.com/groundedpettyeider Had to cut it to 60 seconds to fit into gfycat, so it starts a little into me already typing but gets the idea across Last try getting to 132WPM - https://i.imgur.com/r2ecd1Z.png https://i.imgur.com/r2ecd1Z.png
heavenlyblue 5y ago
I had been programming since I was 11 years old (now 30 years old professional programmer). I’ve spent innumearable hours at computer keyboard. I can type QWERTY and Russian layout blindly both and I constantly use both. Never had any issues with my wrists or finger pain. What am I doing wrong? Just to be clear I am not trying to say that people who use DVORAK are wrong. It’s just that you tend to forget there’s a huge population of people who due to their regional issues can’t even use DVORAK and most of them don’t have that problem with the wrists. Maybe the only reason you had those issues is because the only time you actually learnt how to properly type on the keyboard is because you properly spent time learning how to blind type comfortably in DVORAK?
- alar44 5y ago
  "Been smoking 20 years, still no lung cancer!" You're only 30. Give it 10 years. Not being snarky, the damage is being done, you're just not at that point yet. 38, been programming since the same age and I'm starting to feel it. Change your habits now and start focusing on ergonomics.
  - spullara 5y ago
    I'm 49, typing for 39 years, nothing yet. Anecdotes don't really help though.
    - fortran77 5y ago
      I'm 59. Been programming most days/week since 1980 or so. And I play the piano 2+ hours/day. No RSI.
      - DoreenMichele 5y ago
        Maybe there's more to RSI than, you know, typing per se.
        heavenlyblue 5y ago
hnlmorg 5y ago
> In other words, the idea is that QWERTY was designed so that humans would type as slowly as possible in order to prevent mechanical jamming. Nope. That's an oft cited story but it's not true. The point of QWERTY was actually to increase typing speed. The debunking of this is pretty well documented these days (there even a note on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties) so it's disappointing an article as researched as the one submitted here has made such an easy to check mistake. But I think the bigger trap it falls into, and the same trap many on HN fall into when posting their anecdotes too, is that RSI isn't universally equivalent. It depends on hand sizes, the keyboards you use, any other hand exercises one might do, underlying health conditions, and even just how you hold your hands at the keyboard. So what might help alleviate RSI for one person could easily make it much worse for another person.
- erwald 5y ago
  the very next sentence reads: "This idea is apparently false."
  - wyattpeak 5y ago
    It does, but the article is pretty cagey in its retraction (including following up with the comment "Though on the other hand, jamming is really bad for typing speed!"). The author seems to me to at least partly still believe its true, merely acknowledging that it's a difficult position to maintain.
    - erwald 5y ago
      i am the author and i didn't mean to be wishy-washy about it. i read several of the papers involved and think it's more likely than not that qwerty was designed for fast typing, or at least not designed to type slowly. but i wouldn't say it's a done deal -- the paper i cited gives the most convincing argument, imo, but it didn't move me up to 100% confidence or anything. i didn't want to give the appearance of being too certain, because i'm not.
desireco42 5y ago
In my modest experience, most people who have issues with RSI and especially carpal problems, they almost universally use Emacs! It is such obvious thing. I know you can remap keys or whatnot, but if you look at people experimenting with layouts and trying to resolve RSI problems, it is always Emacs. I used emacs briefly, not long enough to say, but it seems pretty obvious where the problem is. I understand why people don't want to change their favorite editor.
- ericbarrett 5y ago
  If I were an Emacs user I'd swap CapsLock and Control, since that's the layout used when Emacs was first written.
  - yonaguska 5y ago
    I no longer use emacs, but that's the first thing I change on any new workstation. I hate that windows doesn't support an out of the box config for this.
  - tom_ 5y ago
    What sort of keyboard was that? The space cadet keyboard is often cited as inspiration for the Emacs combos. The Wikipedia article suggests its layout had mostly-symmetrical meta keys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard
marcodiego 5y ago
The old story that QWERTY was intentionally created to be slow to type is a myth: https://www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-was-the-qwerty-keyboard-designed-to-slow-down-typists-1 https://www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-was-the-qwerty-k...
userbinator 5y ago
Personal anecdote, but I know a few people who got RSI/CTS and had a chance to watch them type --- and what they all had in common was how "stiff" their typing posture was, and the strength at which they hit the keys. They weren't fast either, probably in the 50-70wpm range. One of them, before he got RSI, even commented on how bad my posture was and how it'd "make it easier to injure myself". I find that relaxing, as counterintuitive as it may sound at first, actually helps with typing speed and comfort. To me it makes sense that if you tense up all your muscles and punch the keys really hard, you're much more likely to injure yourself, slow down, and tire more quickly. I think the vast majority of keyboards also have too high of an actuation force, which also adds to the strain of typing. If you look at videos of fast typists (150wpm+), they don't look like they're exerting much effort at all; many of them aren't using the "standard" key-to-finger mapping, and a lot of them "smear" their hands all over the keyboard. Here's one example (not me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4NUqoXI8Xw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4NUqoXI8Xw
- opan 5y ago
  I'm just gonna say that as someone typing 120+wpm for years now, I hate to see high actuation force vilified like this. It's my preference and I quite enjoy the higher force needed. Fewer accidental presses, and you can even lightly drum on your keys without them activating, which is fun and relaxing. I went from cherry mx blues to cherry mx greens to kailh box navies and I love them to pieces. I find that the people who swear by very light linear switches rarely type as fast as me, take that as you will. I think they fell down a strange rabbit hole.
  - userbinator 5y ago
    The observation comes from my personal experience that actuation force seems to be almost directly proportional to typing speed and how long it takes to get tired. Maybe those with heavier fingers and/or stronger muscles would prefer a heavier keyfeel. My fastest typing has been done on a ~40g rubber dome that actuates quite close to the top, and then has a very springy "cushion" past that (contrary to a lot of "common wisdom", they don't have to go all the way down to actuate --- that's what the "tit" on the bottom of the dome is for, and the longer and softer it is, the more cushion you get). Definitely not linear, but the bump is very subtle. As for my speed: I can sustain around 150-160 for long periods, with brief (~10 second) bursts over 200.
amelius 5y ago
Tbh, typing speed doesn't matter much to me: I still need to think, which usually takes much more time than converting those thoughts into keystrokes.
- rgoulter 5y ago
  One place where typing speed does impact other people is synchronous messaging, like Slack. If you're asking someone for help, you're requesting their attention. It's better if you can type with sufficient speed to give plenty of information/context as to what you're talking about.
  - RealStickman_ 5y ago
    If you ask somebody for help and haven't included all relevant facts in the first message you've already done something wrong. https://nohello.net/ https://nohello.net/
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
evanmoran 5y ago
I had an RSI issue where it was uncomfortable to reach for the H key and I was convinced existing layouts didn’t take this into account. I also thought that learning new keys was overrated so I attempted to generate keyboard changes with the least number of key changes from qwerty and with significantly less side-to-side motion. The results were very promising and then after trying them out for a bit it turned out Minimak-8 felt better to type on. Big shoutout to Minimak even if it didn’t help my H key :) http://www.minimak.org/ http://www.minimak.org/
boterock 5y ago
I switched to Colemak 4 years ago or so, and I think it is one of the best investments of my time ever made. Yes, you will feel similar to that feeling you get when you write with your left hand (something like, why tf I'm doing this, if i'm perfectly capable of living my life as I have been doing before), but it is a skill that will benefit you all your life and I would recommend you to do so. Still, it is not perfect. The pinky getting tired is something that happens, but it is still so much better than QWERTY. I don't think I will try that QWYRFM layout, as I haven't felt big pain since switching (before switching I felt some pain, but after, I slightly feel something, but after a lot of effort, and not enough to feel worried). And I think if I start feeling something to worry, there are some things I could do before, like using a split keyboard, or optimizing the desk height, before switching to another layout. Again, try Colemak (or if you want to try any other layout, welcome). It will do good for you.
twobitshifter 5y ago
Has anyone successfully adopted the engram layout?
not2b 5y ago
What the author may be missing is that keyboards are much, much better now than they were in the 1990s, when RMS was having problems. The touch is much lighter, the amount of force needed to depress the keys is much less. Hitting control-alt-meta-cokebottle-Q for everything to make Emacs work on an early 90s keyboard was a recipe for pain. I've been typing on computers for almost as long as RMS has, don't have those problems. I guess I should mention that I have my own self-taught touch typing style. I only use eight fingers, except for using my left pinky finger for the shift key. Works for me.
- GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
  Hands and posture are simply personal. What works well for most people might be painful for others
xjrp 5y ago
The bigger problem is not the layout it’s the keyboard itself, if you have rsi switching to an ergodox can improve the situation, if this is not enough something like a dactyl manuform or a kinesis advantage 360 should do the trick. This combined with light switches like tactile (MX brown) or linear (red) will reduce your pain immensely.
- opan 5y ago
  It is absolutely the layout, but ergonomic keyboards are still great. I built a Pinky4 split keyboard and it didn't solve pain in my right hand caused by Dvorak. After learning Workman (50/50 balanced hand usage unlike any other layout I know of), the pain is gone. The split helps by moving stuff like modifiers, space, and backspace to thumb keys, it just wasn't "enough" on its own.
- ziml77 5y ago
  I wonder if anyone has studied the effects of different weights of switches. Personally I've always liked the lighter ones. The heavier ones felt uncomfortable and tiring. But I see people in the mechanical keyboard community praise the heavier switches, so I've always assumed that my hands are just weak. The worst ones I used were ones that I got because the MK community doesn't consider browns to be able to be in the same class as other tactile switches because the bump is so weak. I ended up getting Zealio V2s, but I had to take them off my board after only a few days of use. The tactile bump is stupidly strong, but once you pass it there's almost no force pushing back. You're basically guaranteed on each press to bottom out with a ton of force. It was jarring and I was very afraid of what kind of damage that would do to my hands long term.
  - xjrp 5y ago
    I’m in the same box, I’ve tried Box Jade, Holy Pandas, MX Brown, Gateron Ink Black, Topre, MX Blues, Tangerine and Gateron Ink red. I also add some test switch zealio, etc… But my favorite switch and daily driver are the gateron ink reds because they are so light.
  - csdvrx 5y ago
    > I wonder if anyone has studied the effects of different weights of switches. Personally I've always liked the lighter ones. The heavier ones felt uncomfortable and tiring. But I see people in the mechanical keyboard community praise the heavier switches, so I've always assumed that my hands are just weak I don't know about studies, but I prefer membrane keyboards for this reason: far less strength is required.
1MachineElf 5y ago
I've been typing english and only english on Dvorak for 6 years. For my needs, I am very happy with it. There is one point I would like to make that the author misses (and it's not unique to Dvorak). Learning an alternative layout can make you a better typist for the sole reason of requiring effort to learn it. When most of us type with QWERTY, it is effortless, however we also carry with us all of the bad typing habits we've accumulated over time - all of the stuff we did wrong on a QWERTY board out of habit that our typing classes tried to condition out of us but it still remains. When you try to learn a new layout, you're putting in more effort than ever before into typing with correct form. That alone is a big factor for why non-QWERTY typists perform better.
Woodi 5y ago
So, scientists didn't confirmed qwerty or things like that directly cause RSI/CTx... But lets keep discussing that ! Let's circle from qwerty to dvorak and back again, with some minor route twiks to more exotic layouts... Pleas stop... R. is the problem ! 'R' like in 'repeat'. Programmer or pianist or pro-gamer or violinist or baker or whatever ! It's self abuse - Stellman wrote big parts of Emacs, gcc, some OS, other things while using mail and lists. jzw wrote Netscape, screensavers and other things. Other examples ?
kleiba 5y ago
I've been typing on QWERTY for over 40 years now, and have been an extensive Emacs user for decades, and luckily never had an issue with RSI. So, I wonder to what extent genetics play a role? What is the percentage of (heavy) QWERTY users that run into RSI issues at some point in their lives?
- lokedhs 5y ago
  In in your position as well, and I'm not thinking that perhaps the RSI issues are more common for me peoples who use "correct" hand placement. I find Emacs to be very difficult to use with the proper hand placement, so perhaps it teaches users a different way to type. I rarely use the pinkys to type, and have my hands shifted compared to the standard position (my index fingers are on f and h). What this means is that I'm not always using the same fingers to type the same letters, allowing me to distribute the stress on my fingers. Of course, I end up up moving my hands more, but I don't see that as a problem. I don't look at the keyboard while typing. I have no problems with typing entire sentences without looking down, and I type reasonably fast.
anthk 5y ago
Switch Control and Caps Lock.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
psanan 5y ago
My own experiments with this point to similar conclusions. QWERTY is not laid out that badly, really, and for me (with no RSI problems, yet) the benefits of using the default, especially being able to type on other people's computers, far outweighed any benefit from the alternate layout (Workman). However, the excursion was completely worth it for me - I switched in the first place because I never learned to touch type properly, and figured it would be easier and more fun to learn from scratch on a new layout. That was true, and soon I found I'd entirely forgotten QWERTY, so I re-learned that from scratch, touch-typing, and am about as fast and accurate as I was on the alternate layout. Blog post after all that: https://patricksanan.org/personal/adventures-in-keyboarding-part-iii.html https://patricksanan.org/personal/adventures-in-keyboarding-...
- Symbiote 5y ago
  Qwerty is laid out terribly. The fourth and fifth-least frequent English letters have the first and second-best location on the right hand, and a rarely-used symbol (;) has another. Of the most frequent letters (ETAOIN), only one (A) is directly under a fingertip at a resting position, and two of them require the longest stretches (T, N). Dvorak, by comparison, puts the least frequent letters on the bottom row: ;QJKX BMWVZ (PYGF are less frequent than M and W). It has all of ETAOIN on the middle row.
bclnr 5y ago
> Some forward-thinking people have set about evaluating key layouts objectively on metrics like these. [...] > What If You’re Bilingual? On that topic some might be interested in this little analysis: https://github.com/bclnr/kb-layout-evaluation https://github.com/bclnr/kb-layout-evaluation
chr86 5y ago
Myself, I had already switched to Colemak when I developed RSI due to heavy typing at my work. What did it for me was the unnatural position of my hands, wrists bent upwards and outwards in order to fit onto the "tiny" laptop keyboard. The solution was simply to switch to a run-of-the-mill ergonomic keyboard (ERGO K860) and surprise, surprise, my RSI lessened and eventually disappeared in 2 weeks or so. So, for me it was definitely the hand posture, NOT the layout that caused the problems!
eternityforest 5y ago
It's amazing how there seems to be more talk about layouts than ways to type less in the first place. What we really need is a study on RSI and productivity vs overall workflow. We already know Vim guys can edit code fast, what we need to know is who does best on a real world project with more debugging, research, and documentation reading than coding, how much IDE autocomplete helps, whether the 10 clicks and 2 minutes it takes me to do something is healthier than the 3 lines and 30 seconds it takes a CLI user, etc.

117 points by erwald 5y ago

> Uncomfortable pinky movements Any keyboard layout that leads to more ulnar deviation is simply a no-go for me. So Dovrak and Colemak are out, evidently (never tried them, but TFA says they use the pinky more, so if I believe that then I must not use them). Ideally the pinky should not be used at all for typing. I've had to teach myself to not use one-handed modifier keystrokes that involve ulnar deviation. The key to this, for me, has been the sticky keys accessibility feature -- it works fantastically well for me. If you've never heard of sticky keys before then I highly recommend you look it up and try it. It's not that that I type every modifier combination keystroke using sticky keys, but that using sticky keys helped me unlearn bad habits. Another key to this, for me, is to use vim and not emacs. Modal editing means not relying on modifier keys -- conversely, non-modal editing means being extremely dependent on modifier keys. IMO reaching for modifier keys is probably half the RSI picture, with resting wrists while typing being the other half.

Symbiote 5y ago
I think if you rule out Dvorak and Colemak due to pinky use, you should also rule out Qwerty. The best option would be to buy a keyboard with multiple thumb keys, so you can press e.g. enter and backspace with your thumb. (Not using one-handed combinations is the general advice on any typing course -- A and M should use the shift keys on the right and left hand, respectively, as should ^A and ^M.)
- cryptonector 5y ago
  I have learned to minimize pinky use on QWERTY, but you're right about thumb keys: I could really use control, shift, and alt modifiers right below the space bar. And you're right about typing courses, but.. I never took one, and I think that's true of most people. Perhaps more education would suffice to avoid most typist RSI.

terracottage 5y ago

The problem of RSI isn't QWERTY, the problem is putting all your fingers on the home row. Type with your hands at an angle, and your wrists inline with your arms and palms. Problem solved.

probotect0r 5y ago
I use a fairly ergonomic low profile split keyboard, and have no issues with my wrists, but I have some mild RSI in my index finger, near the knuckle joint. I have been trying to figure out how to fix this for a while, and haven't really found a solution, other than to switch to an alternative layout which is not as hard on the index finger. Anyone have a similar issue?
politician 5y ago
That's what I've discovered in my own life as well. My 'home row' on a non-split QWERTY keyboard is 'AWEF' 'JKL<Shift>'.
goodpoint 5y ago
> Problem solved Not at all! RSI is complex because it can involve a hundred muscles and tendons. People can have inflammation and pain even in wrists, shoulders and elbows due to keyboard use. Reducing finger travel by using Dvorak can be very beneficial. Obviously it will do little for things like ulnar pronation.
nomel 5y ago
This position is how I've always typed, but I still had RSI problems. I switched to Dvorak with great, personal, success. If you watch a video of someone typing on Dvorak vs Qwerty [1], it's clear that the experience is very very different with any of these reduced motion layouts. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udc9CH8ICVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udc9CH8ICVQ
- vemv 5y ago
  That video shows poor technique, it's the arms/hands that should hover over the keyboard, in one motion. Stretching the fingers for reaching a given key is bad, Dvorak masks this by minimizing travel, which is simply a workaround / optimization for the wrong thing that long-term will result in the same problems (simply delayed a few years). I could use an intentionally bad keyboard layout and it wouldn't matter. Arms are designed to be moved.

arciini 5y ago

> In Pan & Schleifer (1996), subjects experienced more arm discomfort/pain/fatigue the more keys they pressed while doing a data entry task.[23] Finally, Feng et al. is a recent (2021) cross-sectional study that found that “prolonged computer use time and working without breaks were associated with presence of wrist/hand symptoms”.[24] But of course correlation is not causation, and there are many potential confounders here, e.g. maybe people who spend lots of time at the computer exercise little, and it is the lack of exercise, not computer use, that causes problems. I generally agree with this. I've found that I have less wrist pain now that (1) I've gotten a better mouse and (2) I work out my wrists and forearm occasionally. I think the keyboard is a much smaller cause, especially since a lot of repetitive stress comes more from gaming and use of mice for me.

Optimal_Persona 5y ago
I am a 100% laptop keyboard/trackpad user for both work & play for 10 years now and I haven't had any RSI since I stopped using a mouse (and paid close attention to overall posture, including having wrists straight but relaxed in both X and Y axis). To your first citation, purely anecdotal but - over the years when I click on articles by programmers with serious RSI - the ones who identify their text editor are more often die-hard Emacs users (like Stallman). I don't think continual chording is a biologically respectful use of our analog digits. :-)

assbuttbuttass 5y ago

I used to type using the Dvorak layout when I was in high school. I gradually lost the ability to type in QWERTY at all. When I took the GRE I learned it would have to be in QWERTY, so I just switched back. I used QWERTY ever since.

kaba0 5y ago
I also tried to convert to an alternative layout, but then realized that on phones, qwerty is pretty objectively a good thing (due to large travels that help greatly there with accuracy). So I dissed the idea.
- lytefm 5y ago
  At least for me, phone muscle memory and keyboard muscle memory are two completely different things. I've fully switched to the Neo2 Layout about 10 years ago and can't touch type on QWERTZ at all. But on my phone, using QWERT, I know where the letters are without thinking.

politician 5y ago

> Colomak favor the right hand ... asymmetry. Has anyone explored the effects of duplicating keys across hands?

scoofy 5y ago

I switched to Dvorak in my 20's. I don't think i got faster, but my right-hand wrist which would irritate me and was one reason for the switch, definitely was more comfortable after, and hasn't given me any problems since. That said, switching was a huge pain in the ass.... like horrible for the first two months, and i promised myself i'd keep typing in both. However, i eventually lost the ability to type in qwerty, after about two years, but i honestly don't care, i genuinely love Dvorak. The biggest concern most people probably don't think about is keeping shortcuts like CTRL+X/C/V/S/F, which apple thankfully has a layout for "Dvorak-CMD-Qwerty." The shortcuts are very obviously put where they are so you can toggle them quickly. Many programs don't account for this layout, which is why I wrote an Intellij IDE key mapping for it: https://github.com/scoofy/Intellij-IDEA-Dvorak-QwertyCMD-keymap https://github.com/scoofy/Intellij-IDEA-Dvorak-QwertyCMD-key... The layouts that i think don't get enough love, are the one-handed dvorak layouts designed for amputees. The idea that, in the end, the author suggests yet another standard seems a bit absurd to me.

theonemind 5y ago
I switched to Dvorak from QWERTY without any special control/cmd mapping. As it turns out, it works out fine. I even vim'ed with it. It's just finger memory. The hjkl all in a row might help you remember/initially learn, but once you know which keys on Dvorak move you the right direction, it doesn't take any more time or concern you any more than hjkl on QWERTY do. You know which direction you want to move, and your fingers hit the keys to make it happen without respect to them not having any meaning by keyboard position.
- opan 5y ago
  Very well put. I continued using vim and other shortcuts normally through a Dvorak switch and a Workman switch. It's really not that big of a deal.
xhevahir 5y ago
I switched after developing hand injuries at work (in a job that didn't involve computer use). Since then, whenever I've had to use QWERTY for whatever purpose I've started getting pain in my tendons after a few hours which goes away almost as soon as I'm able to switch back to Dvorak. Like you, though, I found that picking up Dvorak was a total pain in the ass. A while ago I saw a YouTube video in which a guy was telling his viewers that learning it was easy and that the effort was a small price to pay. When I commented that I had had a period of months when I couldn't type anything spontaneously, he suggested that maybe this was due to my age. I was all of thirty at the time I learned it.

dkbrk 5y ago

This is a really good review. Anecdotally, some years back I started developing pretty bad RSI from typing. I was also a pretty mediocre typist. So I switched to Dvorak and got serious about touch-typing. I found it much more comfortable and since then I've never had any problems with typing-induced RSI. With QWERTY, I was doing all sorts of things to try to stop the RSI. I tried to control the position of my wrists, the angle of my hands, how I hit the keys. I experimented with wrist rests. Since I switched to Dvorak I found I didn't need to pay attention to any of that. I can type virtually continuously for hours at a time at >100wpm, and while my speed will drop from my hands and the muscles in my forearms getting tired, even at that point I don't get RSI. I had another set of RSI not that long ago, but I determined that was due to using my pinky on the ctrl key in emacs. That's a pretty well known problem, but I had used emacs for quite a few years without it being an issue. At that time, though, I had started using org-mode in a big way and was using a lot of C- bindings, and hitting it that often turned out to be a problem after all. Swapping ctrl and caps lock (and using my ring finger for it) fixed it entirely. Even if the studies say that the difference in speed is marginal, I'm convinced based on my subjective experience that Dvorak is much more comfortable. That's difficult to quantify, though, and conducting a high-quality study to conclusively demonstrate it is extraordinarily difficult.

chillacy 5y ago

> One week or so ago I switched from Colemak to typing on QWYRFM due to the reduced load it places on the pinkies. I typed Dvorak for 10 years before I started getting RSI again in my right ulna. It turns out that the 'S' key being hit by the pinky in Dvorak caused me a lot of pain. I ended up switching to BEAKL, a pretty obscure layout which is specifically made to alleviate stress on the pinky. It moves the relatively common S key to the right hand pointer finger, for instance. It turns out that the theory underpinning the dvorak layout assumes that homerow hits are strictly better than upper and lower row, but the pinky and ring finger are such weak fingers that it's often better to move the index or middle fingers up or down a row than hit a key on the home row with the pinky.

Zircom 5y ago
Interesting. I've never trained or practiced my typing, but I've always naturally typed using only my thumb, pointer and middle finger, no pinky or ring fingers at all, but still manage to hit 80-100WPM without them on QWERTY. Good instincts I guess.
- jacobmischka 5y ago
  This sounds wild and frankly I don't believe you.
  - Zircom 5y ago
    So small caveats, I lied a little. This is the first time I've ever really sat down and analyzed my typing. I do use my ring fingers slightly, on my left hand I use my ring finger for "z" "a" and "q" exclusively, and on my right hand I use the ring finger for backspace exclusively. I also only use my left thumb to hit the space bar and use my right index finger for space when my left thumb isn't available, and don't use my right thumb at all. I managed to hit 93WPM(really 102WPM if you look, it wouldn't continue until I finished the last word which I didn't notice for quite a few seconds lowering the final time) my first try while holding my phone in my mouth which was a little distracting to be honest, and after about 10 minutes of warming up and not holding the phone managed to get it to 132WPM. First try at 93WPM - https://gfycat.com/groundedpettyeider https://gfycat.com/groundedpettyeider Had to cut it to 60 seconds to fit into gfycat, so it starts a little into me already typing but gets the idea across Last try getting to 132WPM - https://i.imgur.com/r2ecd1Z.png https://i.imgur.com/r2ecd1Z.png

heavenlyblue 5y ago

I had been programming since I was 11 years old (now 30 years old professional programmer). I’ve spent innumearable hours at computer keyboard. I can type QWERTY and Russian layout blindly both and I constantly use both. Never had any issues with my wrists or finger pain. What am I doing wrong? Just to be clear I am not trying to say that people who use DVORAK are wrong. It’s just that you tend to forget there’s a huge population of people who due to their regional issues can’t even use DVORAK and most of them don’t have that problem with the wrists. Maybe the only reason you had those issues is because the only time you actually learnt how to properly type on the keyboard is because you properly spent time learning how to blind type comfortably in DVORAK?

alar44 5y ago
"Been smoking 20 years, still no lung cancer!" You're only 30. Give it 10 years. Not being snarky, the damage is being done, you're just not at that point yet. 38, been programming since the same age and I'm starting to feel it. Change your habits now and start focusing on ergonomics.
- spullara 5y ago
  I'm 49, typing for 39 years, nothing yet. Anecdotes don't really help though.
  - fortran77 5y ago
    I'm 59. Been programming most days/week since 1980 or so. And I play the piano 2+ hours/day. No RSI.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      Maybe there's more to RSI than, you know, typing per se.
      - heavenlyblue 5y ago

hnlmorg 5y ago

> In other words, the idea is that QWERTY was designed so that humans would type as slowly as possible in order to prevent mechanical jamming. Nope. That's an oft cited story but it's not true. The point of QWERTY was actually to increase typing speed. The debunking of this is pretty well documented these days (there even a note on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties) so it's disappointing an article as researched as the one submitted here has made such an easy to check mistake. But I think the bigger trap it falls into, and the same trap many on HN fall into when posting their anecdotes too, is that RSI isn't universally equivalent. It depends on hand sizes, the keyboards you use, any other hand exercises one might do, underlying health conditions, and even just how you hold your hands at the keyboard. So what might help alleviate RSI for one person could easily make it much worse for another person.

erwald 5y ago
the very next sentence reads: "This idea is apparently false."
- wyattpeak 5y ago
  It does, but the article is pretty cagey in its retraction (including following up with the comment "Though on the other hand, jamming is really bad for typing speed!"). The author seems to me to at least partly still believe its true, merely acknowledging that it's a difficult position to maintain.
  - erwald 5y ago
    i am the author and i didn't mean to be wishy-washy about it. i read several of the papers involved and think it's more likely than not that qwerty was designed for fast typing, or at least not designed to type slowly. but i wouldn't say it's a done deal -- the paper i cited gives the most convincing argument, imo, but it didn't move me up to 100% confidence or anything. i didn't want to give the appearance of being too certain, because i'm not.

desireco42 5y ago

In my modest experience, most people who have issues with RSI and especially carpal problems, they almost universally use Emacs! It is such obvious thing. I know you can remap keys or whatnot, but if you look at people experimenting with layouts and trying to resolve RSI problems, it is always Emacs. I used emacs briefly, not long enough to say, but it seems pretty obvious where the problem is. I understand why people don't want to change their favorite editor.

ericbarrett 5y ago
If I were an Emacs user I'd swap CapsLock and Control, since that's the layout used when Emacs was first written.
- yonaguska 5y ago
  I no longer use emacs, but that's the first thing I change on any new workstation. I hate that windows doesn't support an out of the box config for this.
- tom_ 5y ago
  What sort of keyboard was that? The space cadet keyboard is often cited as inspiration for the Emacs combos. The Wikipedia article suggests its layout had mostly-symmetrical meta keys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard

marcodiego 5y ago

The old story that QWERTY was intentionally created to be slow to type is a myth: https://www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-was-the-qwerty-keyboard-designed-to-slow-down-typists-1 https://www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-was-the-qwerty-k...

userbinator 5y ago

Personal anecdote, but I know a few people who got RSI/CTS and had a chance to watch them type --- and what they all had in common was how "stiff" their typing posture was, and the strength at which they hit the keys. They weren't fast either, probably in the 50-70wpm range. One of them, before he got RSI, even commented on how bad my posture was and how it'd "make it easier to injure myself". I find that relaxing, as counterintuitive as it may sound at first, actually helps with typing speed and comfort. To me it makes sense that if you tense up all your muscles and punch the keys really hard, you're much more likely to injure yourself, slow down, and tire more quickly. I think the vast majority of keyboards also have too high of an actuation force, which also adds to the strain of typing. If you look at videos of fast typists (150wpm+), they don't look like they're exerting much effort at all; many of them aren't using the "standard" key-to-finger mapping, and a lot of them "smear" their hands all over the keyboard. Here's one example (not me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4NUqoXI8Xw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4NUqoXI8Xw

opan 5y ago
I'm just gonna say that as someone typing 120+wpm for years now, I hate to see high actuation force vilified like this. It's my preference and I quite enjoy the higher force needed. Fewer accidental presses, and you can even lightly drum on your keys without them activating, which is fun and relaxing. I went from cherry mx blues to cherry mx greens to kailh box navies and I love them to pieces. I find that the people who swear by very light linear switches rarely type as fast as me, take that as you will. I think they fell down a strange rabbit hole.
- userbinator 5y ago
  The observation comes from my personal experience that actuation force seems to be almost directly proportional to typing speed and how long it takes to get tired. Maybe those with heavier fingers and/or stronger muscles would prefer a heavier keyfeel. My fastest typing has been done on a ~40g rubber dome that actuates quite close to the top, and then has a very springy "cushion" past that (contrary to a lot of "common wisdom", they don't have to go all the way down to actuate --- that's what the "tit" on the bottom of the dome is for, and the longer and softer it is, the more cushion you get). Definitely not linear, but the bump is very subtle. As for my speed: I can sustain around 150-160 for long periods, with brief (~10 second) bursts over 200.

amelius 5y ago

Tbh, typing speed doesn't matter much to me: I still need to think, which usually takes much more time than converting those thoughts into keystrokes.

rgoulter 5y ago
One place where typing speed does impact other people is synchronous messaging, like Slack. If you're asking someone for help, you're requesting their attention. It's better if you can type with sufficient speed to give plenty of information/context as to what you're talking about.
- RealStickman_ 5y ago
  If you ask somebody for help and haven't included all relevant facts in the first message you've already done something wrong. https://nohello.net/ https://nohello.net/
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

evanmoran 5y ago

I had an RSI issue where it was uncomfortable to reach for the H key and I was convinced existing layouts didn’t take this into account. I also thought that learning new keys was overrated so I attempted to generate keyboard changes with the least number of key changes from qwerty and with significantly less side-to-side motion. The results were very promising and then after trying them out for a bit it turned out Minimak-8 felt better to type on. Big shoutout to Minimak even if it didn’t help my H key :) http://www.minimak.org/ http://www.minimak.org/

boterock 5y ago

I switched to Colemak 4 years ago or so, and I think it is one of the best investments of my time ever made. Yes, you will feel similar to that feeling you get when you write with your left hand (something like, why tf I'm doing this, if i'm perfectly capable of living my life as I have been doing before), but it is a skill that will benefit you all your life and I would recommend you to do so. Still, it is not perfect. The pinky getting tired is something that happens, but it is still so much better than QWERTY. I don't think I will try that QWYRFM layout, as I haven't felt big pain since switching (before switching I felt some pain, but after, I slightly feel something, but after a lot of effort, and not enough to feel worried). And I think if I start feeling something to worry, there are some things I could do before, like using a split keyboard, or optimizing the desk height, before switching to another layout. Again, try Colemak (or if you want to try any other layout, welcome). It will do good for you.

twobitshifter 5y ago

Has anyone successfully adopted the engram layout?

not2b 5y ago

What the author may be missing is that keyboards are much, much better now than they were in the 1990s, when RMS was having problems. The touch is much lighter, the amount of force needed to depress the keys is much less. Hitting control-alt-meta-cokebottle-Q for everything to make Emacs work on an early 90s keyboard was a recipe for pain. I've been typing on computers for almost as long as RMS has, don't have those problems. I guess I should mention that I have my own self-taught touch typing style. I only use eight fingers, except for using my left pinky finger for the shift key. Works for me.

GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
Hands and posture are simply personal. What works well for most people might be painful for others

xjrp 5y ago

The bigger problem is not the layout it’s the keyboard itself, if you have rsi switching to an ergodox can improve the situation, if this is not enough something like a dactyl manuform or a kinesis advantage 360 should do the trick. This combined with light switches like tactile (MX brown) or linear (red) will reduce your pain immensely.

opan 5y ago
It is absolutely the layout, but ergonomic keyboards are still great. I built a Pinky4 split keyboard and it didn't solve pain in my right hand caused by Dvorak. After learning Workman (50/50 balanced hand usage unlike any other layout I know of), the pain is gone. The split helps by moving stuff like modifiers, space, and backspace to thumb keys, it just wasn't "enough" on its own.
ziml77 5y ago
I wonder if anyone has studied the effects of different weights of switches. Personally I've always liked the lighter ones. The heavier ones felt uncomfortable and tiring. But I see people in the mechanical keyboard community praise the heavier switches, so I've always assumed that my hands are just weak. The worst ones I used were ones that I got because the MK community doesn't consider browns to be able to be in the same class as other tactile switches because the bump is so weak. I ended up getting Zealio V2s, but I had to take them off my board after only a few days of use. The tactile bump is stupidly strong, but once you pass it there's almost no force pushing back. You're basically guaranteed on each press to bottom out with a ton of force. It was jarring and I was very afraid of what kind of damage that would do to my hands long term.
- xjrp 5y ago
  I’m in the same box, I’ve tried Box Jade, Holy Pandas, MX Brown, Gateron Ink Black, Topre, MX Blues, Tangerine and Gateron Ink red. I also add some test switch zealio, etc… But my favorite switch and daily driver are the gateron ink reds because they are so light.
- csdvrx 5y ago
  > I wonder if anyone has studied the effects of different weights of switches. Personally I've always liked the lighter ones. The heavier ones felt uncomfortable and tiring. But I see people in the mechanical keyboard community praise the heavier switches, so I've always assumed that my hands are just weak I don't know about studies, but I prefer membrane keyboards for this reason: far less strength is required.

1MachineElf 5y ago

I've been typing english and only english on Dvorak for 6 years. For my needs, I am very happy with it. There is one point I would like to make that the author misses (and it's not unique to Dvorak). Learning an alternative layout can make you a better typist for the sole reason of requiring effort to learn it. When most of us type with QWERTY, it is effortless, however we also carry with us all of the bad typing habits we've accumulated over time - all of the stuff we did wrong on a QWERTY board out of habit that our typing classes tried to condition out of us but it still remains. When you try to learn a new layout, you're putting in more effort than ever before into typing with correct form. That alone is a big factor for why non-QWERTY typists perform better.

Woodi 5y ago

So, scientists didn't confirmed qwerty or things like that directly cause RSI/CTx... But lets keep discussing that ! Let's circle from qwerty to dvorak and back again, with some minor route twiks to more exotic layouts... Pleas stop... R. is the problem ! 'R' like in 'repeat'. Programmer or pianist or pro-gamer or violinist or baker or whatever ! It's self abuse - Stellman wrote big parts of Emacs, gcc, some OS, other things while using mail and lists. jzw wrote Netscape, screensavers and other things. Other examples ?

kleiba 5y ago

I've been typing on QWERTY for over 40 years now, and have been an extensive Emacs user for decades, and luckily never had an issue with RSI. So, I wonder to what extent genetics play a role? What is the percentage of (heavy) QWERTY users that run into RSI issues at some point in their lives?

lokedhs 5y ago
In in your position as well, and I'm not thinking that perhaps the RSI issues are more common for me peoples who use "correct" hand placement. I find Emacs to be very difficult to use with the proper hand placement, so perhaps it teaches users a different way to type. I rarely use the pinkys to type, and have my hands shifted compared to the standard position (my index fingers are on f and h). What this means is that I'm not always using the same fingers to type the same letters, allowing me to distribute the stress on my fingers. Of course, I end up up moving my hands more, but I don't see that as a problem. I don't look at the keyboard while typing. I have no problems with typing entire sentences without looking down, and I type reasonably fast.

anthk 5y ago

Switch Control and Caps Lock.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

psanan 5y ago

My own experiments with this point to similar conclusions. QWERTY is not laid out that badly, really, and for me (with no RSI problems, yet) the benefits of using the default, especially being able to type on other people's computers, far outweighed any benefit from the alternate layout (Workman). However, the excursion was completely worth it for me - I switched in the first place because I never learned to touch type properly, and figured it would be easier and more fun to learn from scratch on a new layout. That was true, and soon I found I'd entirely forgotten QWERTY, so I re-learned that from scratch, touch-typing, and am about as fast and accurate as I was on the alternate layout. Blog post after all that: https://patricksanan.org/personal/adventures-in-keyboarding-part-iii.html https://patricksanan.org/personal/adventures-in-keyboarding-...

Symbiote 5y ago
Qwerty is laid out terribly. The fourth and fifth-least frequent English letters have the first and second-best location on the right hand, and a rarely-used symbol (;) has another. Of the most frequent letters (ETAOIN), only one (A) is directly under a fingertip at a resting position, and two of them require the longest stretches (T, N). Dvorak, by comparison, puts the least frequent letters on the bottom row: ;QJKX BMWVZ (PYGF are less frequent than M and W). It has all of ETAOIN on the middle row.

bclnr 5y ago

> Some forward-thinking people have set about evaluating key layouts objectively on metrics like these. [...] > What If You’re Bilingual? On that topic some might be interested in this little analysis: https://github.com/bclnr/kb-layout-evaluation https://github.com/bclnr/kb-layout-evaluation

chr86 5y ago

Myself, I had already switched to Colemak when I developed RSI due to heavy typing at my work. What did it for me was the unnatural position of my hands, wrists bent upwards and outwards in order to fit onto the "tiny" laptop keyboard. The solution was simply to switch to a run-of-the-mill ergonomic keyboard (ERGO K860) and surprise, surprise, my RSI lessened and eventually disappeared in 2 weeks or so. So, for me it was definitely the hand posture, NOT the layout that caused the problems!

eternityforest 5y ago

It's amazing how there seems to be more talk about layouts than ways to type less in the first place. What we really need is a study on RSI and productivity vs overall workflow. We already know Vim guys can edit code fast, what we need to know is who does best on a real world project with more debugging, research, and documentation reading than coding, how much IDE autocomplete helps, whether the 10 clicks and 2 minutes it takes me to do something is healthier than the 3 lines and 30 seconds it takes a CLI user, etc.