January 27, 2010

Dvorak

A few years ago, I bought Interface Oriented Design, and got through just about the entire…preface…when I came across this:

[O]ther layouts, such as Dvorak, are more efficient for typing. You can switch your computer keyboard to use an alternate layout; the switching module works as an adapter. Inside the keyboard driver, the keystrokes are converted to the same characters and modifiers (e.g., Shift, Alt, etc.) that are produced by the regular keyboard.

The QWERTY keyboard layout was derived from concern about implementation. According to one web site, “It is sometimes said that it was designed to slow down the typist, but this is wrong; it was designed to allow faster typing—under a constraint now long obsolete. In early typewriters, fast typing using nearby type-bars jammed the mechanism. So Sholes fiddled the layout to separate the letters of many common digraphs… The jamming problem was essentially solved soon afterward by a suitable use of springs, but the keyboard layout lives on.”

Beyond being more efficient for typing, a little research revealed that Dvorak had a track record for reducing carpal tunnel – something I was experiencing from time to time.

So I decided to give it a shot. I bought a copy of Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor (where you learn from a viking!) and got to work.

After only a few hours, I had developed a QWERTY-to-Dvorak map in my brain, and was able to touch type (more or less) at about 10 words per minute.

The next day was strange – I didn’t know Dvorak yet, but I also couldn’t quite remember QWERTY. I realized that my brain only has room for one keyboard layout. Nevertheless, I practiced on.

By the third day, I was a Dvorak typist. And I might as well had been since I first learned to type. I had absolutely no idea how to type in QWERTY anymore. Not even my own name. Since then, I have memorized common words (like my name) in QWERTY, but the experience of typing them is much like reading a language you don’t know out loud. I was simply reciting anonymous keystrokes.

So am I glad I did it? Hell yes! The carpal tunnel thing checked out – I haven’t had to deal with that since. And typing in general is more comfortable and ergonomic. I’m not sure whether I’m actually typing faster or not, as I was a pretty quick typer beforehand. But I’m certainly not typing any slower.

Kevin Holesh

I’ve been wondering how to go about this transition myself. I like the looks of “Ten Thumbs” so far.

I’m wondering how you handled the physical hardware part. Do you still have QWERTY letters printed on your keyboard? You probably don’t look at the letter’s anyway, but it would be awesome if you could someone scrape off the letters so it’s just a blank keyboard.

Olivier Bon

Thanks for writing about that.

I have the same question as Kevin really, how about the hardware? do you just use a qwerty keyboard and disregard the letters? I work on a mbp a lot of the time and the idea of pressing “f” and getting “u” sounds pretty confusing?

Brandon Kelly

I just use normal QWERTY keyboards, and touch type. You can buy keyboard label stickers that show both the QWERTY and Dvorak letter for each key, but unless you never use other people’s computers, you’re probably better off without them.

For keyboard shortcuts, where your hands may not already be on the keyboard and it’s faster to just hunt and peck, you memorize the mappings. (X is Q, ? is Z, B is X, etc.)

Ryan Masuga

Don’t forget there is the Mac keyboard mode called “Dvorak - Qwerty” which is a combination of the two. If you’re just typing regularly, the keyboard is Dvorak, but when you press Command, the keys go Qwerty on you, so you don’t ever have to re-learn any Photoshop keystrokes, for example (that was huge for me because I know many, many keystrokes based on the Qwerty layout).

I too, practiced Dvorak using Ten Thumbs, and within a few days was typing as fast as I could with my advanced hunt-n-peck Qwerty style that I’ve been using for years (I nearly failed Typing in 6th grade…twice). I don’t see how Dvorak can’t be as fast or faster than Qwerty if only because all the vowels are right there under your fingers!

Ty Wangsness

About 6 years ago I learned the dvorak layout and really liked it for everything except programming.  I ended up using it on my laptop for IM and such but left my desktop in qwerty for programming and gaming (games hated the dvorak - qwerty OS X layout). 

When I first learned it I too lost the ability to touch-type qwerty, but after a while using both it was natural again to use either one. It eventually got to the point where I had both computers set up next to each other and would automatically touch-type using the proper layout without thinking about it.  The brain is a very interesting organ.

Haven’t used dvorak in a long time now… as I recall I didn’t care for where the curly quotes and brackets were at so programming was awkward.

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