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I switched to Dvorak twice. Once in high school because I thought it would be fun, but I bought a labelled keyboard cover and never really learnt it. The secon

I switched to Dvorak twice. Once in high school because I thought it would be fun, but I bought a labelled keyboard cover and never really learnt it. The second time, 5 years into my career, I did it for health reasons, and my hands hurt much less as a result. This time though I didn’t get any keyboard covers, didn’t have a relabelled keyboard, and didn’t learn the key mapping. I used an onscreen reference only, and phased it out after a few days. I switched cold-turkey on day one of a Christmas break, made sure to do some practice each day, and 2.5 weeks later when I went back to work I was touch typing Dvorak, albeit slowly. Nowadays I type fast and get nothing out of looking at the keyboard. I normally use blank or QWERTY labels. And it’s great. I don’t think I could have taught myself touch typing on QWERTY because I was already too ingrained with bad habits, but switching layout was a great opportunity to start from scratch and get it right.

goku12 1y ago
> I don’t think I could have taught myself touch typing on QWERTY because I was already too ingrained with bad habits It is possible to learn touch typing on a layout where you have already developed bad practices. That's what I did on Qwerty. There will initially be a tendency to switch back to the hunt-and-peck method, since you're not yet fully comfortable with touch typing. This can be curtailed by forcing yourself from looking at the keyboard. It's nearly impossible to hunt-and-peck without looking at the keyboard occasionally. However, that tendency will eventually disappear as you become comfortable with touch typing, as it's the easier style among the two.
- evanjrowley 1y ago
  I share the same views as the parent comment, but I also agree with you there could be a strong case for touch typing with QWERTY. There's probably a lot to be gained by switching to a blank keyboard in general, QWERTY or not.
evanjrowley 1y ago
Fellow Dvorakist here. I totally agree that touch typing is the way to go when learning it. Labels just hold you back and you get so much more from learning to touch type. I also agree with your point about touch typing QWERTY. I'd even bet that learning to touch type any non-QWERTY keyboard layout, even if it's less efficient than QWERTY, is beneficial purely because it erases bad habits ingrained over time from undisciplined typing. Blank keycaps are the a true meta.

goku12 1y ago

> I don’t think I could have taught myself touch typing on QWERTY because I was already too ingrained with bad habits It is possible to learn touch typing on a layout where you have already developed bad practices. That's what I did on Qwerty. There will initially be a tendency to switch back to the hunt-and-peck method, since you're not yet fully comfortable with touch typing. This can be curtailed by forcing yourself from looking at the keyboard. It's nearly impossible to hunt-and-peck without looking at the keyboard occasionally. However, that tendency will eventually disappear as you become comfortable with touch typing, as it's the easier style among the two.

evanjrowley 1y ago
I share the same views as the parent comment, but I also agree with you there could be a strong case for touch typing with QWERTY. There's probably a lot to be gained by switching to a blank keyboard in general, QWERTY or not.

evanjrowley 1y ago

Fellow Dvorakist here. I totally agree that touch typing is the way to go when learning it. Labels just hold you back and you get so much more from learning to touch type. I also agree with your point about touch typing QWERTY. I'd even bet that learning to touch type any non-QWERTY keyboard layout, even if it's less efficient than QWERTY, is beneficial purely because it erases bad habits ingrained over time from undisciplined typing. Blank keycaps are the a true meta.