3 ms·

Dvorak does not evenly use all fingers - it is especially more right-hand dominant and that trait was actually why I hated it as a left-handed dominant person.

by Nadya 4y ago

Dvorak does not evenly use all fingers - it is especially more right-hand dominant and that trait was actually why I hated it as a left-handed dominant person. The amount of finger travelling the right hand has to do for Dvorak is insane. Almost all improvements of typing speed in Dvorak are attributed to the learner finally learning how to type in the first place. The main draw to learning Dvorak should for the ergonomics - which are strictly inferior to Colemak. While Colemak is nearly as right-hand dominant it doesn't require nearly as much finger travel making it more ergonomic for left-hand dominant people as well. Also - as someone who has learned both - I adamantly believe Dvorak is inferior to Colemak in almost every single way. From difficulty learning the layout to the ergonomics once learned to having to rebind or relearn hotkeys - especially common ones like cut/copy/paste. I only wish I had discovered Colemak prior to wasting time learning Dvorak all those many years ago. Colemak heatmap: https://zhangshenjia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/8.jpg https://zhangshenjia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/8.jpg Qwerty & Dvorak heatmap: https://whyfiles.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/dvorak3.jpg https://whyfiles.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/dvorak3.jpg (And as Bradwood pointed out in the response below - definitely biased towards typing English and not other languages. So people who primarily type a language that is not English may have drastically different experiences.)

opan 4y ago
I went from qwerty to dvorak after hitting a max speed of 160wpm in qwerty and I still found some ergonomic improvements in dvorak. Never hit the old speeds. You're right about the right hand bias, though. I traded my left hand pain from qwerty for worse right hand pain with dvorak. It lasted even after building an ergonomic keyboard, so I switched to the workman layout after that. Things are basically fine now. Workman actually does promise 50/50 hand usage, which is rather unique and not seen in other layouts, whether more or less efficient. This criterion made me choose it over the more extreme halmak layout. Also, I like the name "workman" and that the left side homerow spells "ash". I never liked the idea of colemak being intentionally similar to qwerty and changing up fewer keys than dvorak. I thought this idea was limiting and gave people the easy way out. Workman applies a similar idea, which again annoyed me at first, but I'm pretty used to it now. I'd say it makes it more confusing to type qwerty on another keyboard as some keys are the same and muscle memory can get mixed up between the two. I don't type qwerty much at all, so maybe this would improve over time. With dvorak I think only a and m were the same for the letters, so it felt more like hitting a distinct switch. Workman also avoids the issue in colemak that colemak mod-dh had to fix from what I understand. Of course these layouts are not all the same age, so one might learn their layout and become loyal to it before a better one is invented. Dvorak is quite old now, and colemak is at least older than workman. I no longer remember dvorak at all. I think I used it for 18-24 months or so. I'll probably remember qwerty forever since I grew up on it, and I use workman daily so it's safe for now. I have used workman for at least a year and a half, maybe two and a half now.

by Nadya 4y ago

opan 4y ago

I went from qwerty to dvorak after hitting a max speed of 160wpm in qwerty and I still found some ergonomic improvements in dvorak. Never hit the old speeds. You're right about the right hand bias, though. I traded my left hand pain from qwerty for worse right hand pain with dvorak. It lasted even after building an ergonomic keyboard, so I switched to the workman layout after that. Things are basically fine now. Workman actually does promise 50/50 hand usage, which is rather unique and not seen in other layouts, whether more or less efficient. This criterion made me choose it over the more extreme halmak layout. Also, I like the name "workman" and that the left side homerow spells "ash". I never liked the idea of colemak being intentionally similar to qwerty and changing up fewer keys than dvorak. I thought this idea was limiting and gave people the easy way out. Workman applies a similar idea, which again annoyed me at first, but I'm pretty used to it now. I'd say it makes it more confusing to type qwerty on another keyboard as some keys are the same and muscle memory can get mixed up between the two. I don't type qwerty much at all, so maybe this would improve over time. With dvorak I think only a and m were the same for the letters, so it felt more like hitting a distinct switch. Workman also avoids the issue in colemak that colemak mod-dh had to fix from what I understand. Of course these layouts are not all the same age, so one might learn their layout and become loyal to it before a better one is invented. Dvorak is quite old now, and colemak is at least older than workman. I no longer remember dvorak at all. I think I used it for 18-24 months or so. I'll probably remember qwerty forever since I grew up on it, and I use workman daily so it's safe for now. I have used workman for at least a year and a half, maybe two and a half now.