3 ms·

> The part that is a myth was that they prevented jamming by “slowing typists down”. What they did is moved commonly adjacently pressed letters apart from each-

> The part that is a myth was that they prevented jamming by “slowing typists down”. What they did is moved commonly adjacently pressed letters apart from each-other so they wouldn’t be pressed at about the same time. This was not done explicitly to speed or slow typists (at the time, there was no established typing technique and there were no expert typists), except insofar as a constantly jammed keyboard was extremely slow. Indeed, which was designed to speed typing up, hence my point. :) > The true part of the common QWERTY criticism is that the layout of the keys was not decided primarily based on the positions on the keyboard or human hand anatomy. As a result, the keyboard layout per se (both the positioning of the physical keys themselves and the choice of association between letters and keys) is not especially efficient or ergonomic. I get that but it doesn't take away from my point that the RSI complaint is hugely specific to the individual. Or to put it another way, if QWERTY were really as bad as the stories posted on HN make out then you'd see more cases of RSI given it is used by literally hundreds of millions of people every day. I'm in my 40s and have been using QWERTY since the 70s without any side effects (I did start getting RSI in the arm from playing FPS every waking moment back when PC 3D FPS were new, but never from typing). > A related (milder) criticism can be leveled at the Dvorak layout, which was designed for the typewriter technology of ~1930, where the home row and top row of the keyboard were easy to press but the bottom row was much slower and less convenient, based on the consistent steep step between rows of keys. Computer keyboards have always had a different physical shape compared to 1930s typewriters, so the relative difficulty of typing different key combinations is different, and an optimized layout therefore looks different. Which again also misses my point that RSI depends on vastly more than just your keyboard layout.

jacobolus 5y ago
There are an awful lot of people who develop RSI from keyboard use, nearly all of which is preventable. Better training would help a lot, but better designed equipment would also make a big difference. Changing the QWERTY association between keys and letters shouldn’t be the highest priority, but the advantage it has is that it can be done in software, without change to physical devices. Reshaping the keyboard to better match human anatomy would make a bigger difference.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  > There are an awful lot of people who develop RSI from keyboard use, nearly all of which is preventable. I'm not saying there aren't. What I'm saying is it's not directly because of the keyboard layout. You go on to say this yourself in the very same post as your point above: > Changing the QWERTY association between keys and letters shouldn’t be the highest priority, People talk too much about keyboard layout with regards to RSI and totally blank out all the other factors that contribute. If the problem was only related to the keyboard layout and QWERTY is as bad as HN commenters make out, then we'd hear a lot more cases of RSI. But it isn't, which statistically suggests the problem is more nuanced. ie type of keyboard (mechanical, chiclet, even down to the specific manufacturer and the parts they've used), position of keyboard in 3D space relative to the operator, position of hands on keyboard, typing style, health of the operator, operator's workflow, etc. There are so many variables at play that blaming the keyboard layout had always struck me as a massively lazy deduction.
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    > we'd hear a lot more cases of RSI I think you dramatically underestimate how many people suffer from RSI and how much it affects their lives. In the US alone, we are talking about millions of people. In some surveys >50% of keyboard workers have complained about wrist pain from typing. There was some planned OSHA office worker ergonomics enforcement in the late 1990s, carefully studied for a decade before being finally put into place in 2001 just as Clinton was leaving office, but it got killed by GOP congress and the Bush II administration. If not for that we would hear more about this problem, and there would be a lot more options for ergonomic keyboards today. Instead, this became a problem that employers blamed on their workers and left workers to figure out for themselves. > position of keyboard in 3D space relative to the operator, position of hands on keyboard, typing style, health of the operator, operator's workflow, etc. Yes of course. And things were to some extent better when almost all of the people using keyboards were trained professional secretaries. From walking around large offices full of computer programmers, I would speculate that at least 3/4 of current office workers have inappropriately positioned and oriented keyboards; maybe even 90% or more. The biggest problem (among many) with modern equipment/practice is that people type with unstraight wrists, slouch or lean over in their chairs, and stick their elbows out forward or way out to the side. The keyboard should be held close to the torso and angled so that its top is parallel to the forearms (what this angle should be depends on relative height of torso and table or keyboard tray). Typists should keep their wrists as straight as possible (not flexed or extended; pronation is unfortunately unavoidable on a standard keyboard), and should have their palms and wrists “floating” above the keyboard while actively typing. The primary goal should be to avoid any nontrivial static load on any muscles throughout the body, and try to keep joint positions neutral. Splitting the keyboard in half, separating the two halves by at least a few inches, and independently positioning and orienting each half can make a huge improvement. > [If] QWERTY is as bad as HN commenters make out [...] There are very few HN commenters who care at all about QWERTY, and even most of those are relatively ambivalent. It’s a design poorly matched to modern hardware, and changing it can make a nontrivial improvement, but it’s also not the main problem.

jacobolus 5y ago

There are an awful lot of people who develop RSI from keyboard use, nearly all of which is preventable. Better training would help a lot, but better designed equipment would also make a big difference. Changing the QWERTY association between keys and letters shouldn’t be the highest priority, but the advantage it has is that it can be done in software, without change to physical devices. Reshaping the keyboard to better match human anatomy would make a bigger difference.

hnlmorg 5y ago
> There are an awful lot of people who develop RSI from keyboard use, nearly all of which is preventable. I'm not saying there aren't. What I'm saying is it's not directly because of the keyboard layout. You go on to say this yourself in the very same post as your point above: > Changing the QWERTY association between keys and letters shouldn’t be the highest priority, People talk too much about keyboard layout with regards to RSI and totally blank out all the other factors that contribute. If the problem was only related to the keyboard layout and QWERTY is as bad as HN commenters make out, then we'd hear a lot more cases of RSI. But it isn't, which statistically suggests the problem is more nuanced. ie type of keyboard (mechanical, chiclet, even down to the specific manufacturer and the parts they've used), position of keyboard in 3D space relative to the operator, position of hands on keyboard, typing style, health of the operator, operator's workflow, etc. There are so many variables at play that blaming the keyboard layout had always struck me as a massively lazy deduction.
- jacobolus 5y ago
  > we'd hear a lot more cases of RSI I think you dramatically underestimate how many people suffer from RSI and how much it affects their lives. In the US alone, we are talking about millions of people. In some surveys >50% of keyboard workers have complained about wrist pain from typing. There was some planned OSHA office worker ergonomics enforcement in the late 1990s, carefully studied for a decade before being finally put into place in 2001 just as Clinton was leaving office, but it got killed by GOP congress and the Bush II administration. If not for that we would hear more about this problem, and there would be a lot more options for ergonomic keyboards today. Instead, this became a problem that employers blamed on their workers and left workers to figure out for themselves. > position of keyboard in 3D space relative to the operator, position of hands on keyboard, typing style, health of the operator, operator's workflow, etc. Yes of course. And things were to some extent better when almost all of the people using keyboards were trained professional secretaries. From walking around large offices full of computer programmers, I would speculate that at least 3/4 of current office workers have inappropriately positioned and oriented keyboards; maybe even 90% or more. The biggest problem (among many) with modern equipment/practice is that people type with unstraight wrists, slouch or lean over in their chairs, and stick their elbows out forward or way out to the side. The keyboard should be held close to the torso and angled so that its top is parallel to the forearms (what this angle should be depends on relative height of torso and table or keyboard tray). Typists should keep their wrists as straight as possible (not flexed or extended; pronation is unfortunately unavoidable on a standard keyboard), and should have their palms and wrists “floating” above the keyboard while actively typing. The primary goal should be to avoid any nontrivial static load on any muscles throughout the body, and try to keep joint positions neutral. Splitting the keyboard in half, separating the two halves by at least a few inches, and independently positioning and orienting each half can make a huge improvement. > [If] QWERTY is as bad as HN commenters make out [...] There are very few HN commenters who care at all about QWERTY, and even most of those are relatively ambivalent. It’s a design poorly matched to modern hardware, and changing it can make a nontrivial improvement, but it’s also not the main problem.