6 ms·

There's no good evidence that Dvorak is better for either speed or RSI.

dheera 5y ago
So what? There's no good evidence for QWERTY and it's based on assumptions about mechanical typewriters that are no longer true whereas Dvorak is at least based on something that applies to modern life. There's adecnotal evidence of both in favor of Dvorak which is more than good enough for me. Anyway, it was super easy to learn, I was lightyears ahead of my classmates in touch typing, so I'm happy.
- lazide 5y ago
  Well, if you do something that doesn’t match what 90% (or for Dvorak, more like 99.99%) of society does, especially if it is in a way that is incompatible, you end up having to do both ways or suffer significant friction in everyday life if it is a common skill or requirement. It does open some unique niches, but it’s also easy to oversell that advantages while ignoring the disadvantages. Dvorak is even less useful than being a leftie (since lefties still have the same hands in the same orientation), it’s more like if someone switched/mirrored the hands themselves. Which, if everyone had the same setup would be fine. But since not everyone does, better get used to constantly switching and adjusting things.
  - dheera 5y ago
    > suffer significant friction in everyday life I don't. > if it is a common skill or requirement It almost never is, in my personal experience. Dvorak is available as an option on all the major OSes on a per-user basis. It's literally zero issue.
    - lazide 5y ago
      Glad to hear it works for you! I travel frequently (well did not that long ago), and regularly work on a equipment that others use daily. I’d get nothing but hassles if I had to change keyboard layouts, especially since there is so much variation in keyboards I interact with sometimes that touch typing gets high error rates at first. And if I didn’t switch someone’s layout back before leaving, the anger would be non-trivial. Most folks I know at some point also need to use a computer at work, or did at school (but aren’t techies), so not knowing QWERTY isn’t going to go well for them. As would trying to switch keyboard layouts every time they go somewhere or do something. Most folks have zero time for that kind of thing.
rgoulter 5y ago
The claim I'd make in favour of Dvorak is that it's much more comfortable than QWERTY, without an impactful drop in speed. (Though, after using Dvorak for long enough, it's about as fast as QWERTY for me). I have a video on YouTube where I type using the Dvorak layout. One of the comments said "wow, it looks like your hand is doing nothing, but you're typing 90 wpm". QWERTY is ubiquitous enough that I think all English-speaking computer users must know it; so I wouldn't recommend Dvorak instead-of QWERTY. (I'm typing on QWERTY now).
- Aerroon 5y ago
  >"wow, it looks like your hand is doing nothing, but you're typing 90 wpm". I think this isn't necessarily a good thing when it comes to RSI. Spreading out the load onto other muscles and having some minor downtime seems to help me the most. Eg on my mouse hand turning down sensitivity made things better, because it required me to make bigger sweeping motions with my arm rather than small motions with my hand.
eimrine 5y ago
> There's no good evidence that Dvorak is better for either speed or RSI. This is because there is absolutely no ability to set up a "good" experiment which results ought to be consider as "good". And as a Dvorak touchtypist I can assure you that if you are at least 30 years old or you have already your touchtyping skill on qwerty than you will not gain anything from re-learning. But for me when I realized that I need touchtyping (for programming without struggling with keyboard's keys which are even not from my mother language's alphabet) and I have found Dvorak's work, I just refused to use qwerty immediately and 10 years ago I consider this as one of three best decisions in my life. Other two was to learn English and to invest in Bitcoin.

So what? There's no good evidence for QWERTY and it's based on assumptions about mechanical typewriters that are no longer true whereas Dvorak is at least based on something that applies to modern life. There's adecnotal evidence of both in favor of Dvorak which is more than good enough for me. Anyway, it was super easy to learn, I was lightyears ahead of my classmates in touch typing, so I'm happy.

lazide 5y ago
Well, if you do something that doesn’t match what 90% (or for Dvorak, more like 99.99%) of society does, especially if it is in a way that is incompatible, you end up having to do both ways or suffer significant friction in everyday life if it is a common skill or requirement. It does open some unique niches, but it’s also easy to oversell that advantages while ignoring the disadvantages. Dvorak is even less useful than being a leftie (since lefties still have the same hands in the same orientation), it’s more like if someone switched/mirrored the hands themselves. Which, if everyone had the same setup would be fine. But since not everyone does, better get used to constantly switching and adjusting things.
- dheera 5y ago
  > suffer significant friction in everyday life I don't. > if it is a common skill or requirement It almost never is, in my personal experience. Dvorak is available as an option on all the major OSes on a per-user basis. It's literally zero issue.
  - lazide 5y ago
    Glad to hear it works for you! I travel frequently (well did not that long ago), and regularly work on a equipment that others use daily. I’d get nothing but hassles if I had to change keyboard layouts, especially since there is so much variation in keyboards I interact with sometimes that touch typing gets high error rates at first. And if I didn’t switch someone’s layout back before leaving, the anger would be non-trivial. Most folks I know at some point also need to use a computer at work, or did at school (but aren’t techies), so not knowing QWERTY isn’t going to go well for them. As would trying to switch keyboard layouts every time they go somewhere or do something. Most folks have zero time for that kind of thing.

rgoulter 5y ago

The claim I'd make in favour of Dvorak is that it's much more comfortable than QWERTY, without an impactful drop in speed. (Though, after using Dvorak for long enough, it's about as fast as QWERTY for me). I have a video on YouTube where I type using the Dvorak layout. One of the comments said "wow, it looks like your hand is doing nothing, but you're typing 90 wpm". QWERTY is ubiquitous enough that I think all English-speaking computer users must know it; so I wouldn't recommend Dvorak instead-of QWERTY. (I'm typing on QWERTY now).

Aerroon 5y ago
>"wow, it looks like your hand is doing nothing, but you're typing 90 wpm". I think this isn't necessarily a good thing when it comes to RSI. Spreading out the load onto other muscles and having some minor downtime seems to help me the most. Eg on my mouse hand turning down sensitivity made things better, because it required me to make bigger sweeping motions with my arm rather than small motions with my hand.

eimrine 5y ago

> There's no good evidence that Dvorak is better for either speed or RSI. This is because there is absolutely no ability to set up a "good" experiment which results ought to be consider as "good". And as a Dvorak touchtypist I can assure you that if you are at least 30 years old or you have already your touchtyping skill on qwerty than you will not gain anything from re-learning. But for me when I realized that I need touchtyping (for programming without struggling with keyboard's keys which are even not from my mother language's alphabet) and I have found Dvorak's work, I just refused to use qwerty immediately and 10 years ago I consider this as one of three best decisions in my life. Other two was to learn English and to invest in Bitcoin.