Dvorak

Lately, me switching from the QWERTY keyboard layout to the Dvorak keyboard layout has discouraged me from doing too much typing while I get used to it, but I'm slowly getting used to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard

What I do like about it is that certain words are quite effortless to type. One of the theories behind the keyboard layout, which I have no idea why it wasn't thought of in QWERTY, is that your fingers should move as little as possible when typing. This is indeed the case, as most letters you type actually end up being on the home row - an estimated 70% of all keystrokes (compared to QWERTY's palsty 32%), meaning a large majority of the time, the most effort you use typing consists of at most, your index finger moving to the right or left one key. The next most common row is the top row (22%), since it's easier to move your fingers up on the keyboard than down, leaving the final 8% on the bottom row. By comparison, QWERTY is top row heavy at 52%, and uses the bottom row twice as often (16%).

For the most part, I am enjoying the layout, but there are some personal drawbacks. In particular, I don't like using my pinkies to type, but Dvorak sits two common keys and one semi-common key in just the right spots to be serviced by it - A, S, and -. I'm finding that I am indeed using my pinky for these keys since they're right there, and they quickly get tired. The kicker is that I'm naturally shifting my hand to reach everything around those keys with my fourth finger, which I'm guessing I do because I feel I have to shift my hand to hit those keys whether or not I use that finger or my pinky, and I'd rather hit them with the stronger finger of the two. This has been commented by others before - those who like to avoid the use of their weakest finger can find Dvorak tiring.

The other thing is that, since most people are right-handed, Mr. Dvorak biased the keyboard towards the right hand, meaning you type more with it. Now this might be fine if it weren't for the fact that my right hand's my mouse hand. It's like I can't type and operate the mouse at the same time, and my mouse sits relatively far from my keyboard.

On a QWERTY keyboard, two of the more annoying keys to hit were B and Y, sitting in that little dead zone that's a pain for either hand. In Dvorak, it's better - one of them is now X, which is hit like never. Unfortunately the other is F, which is still kinda common. This one maybe can't be helped, a letter has to be there... but I think I'd rather dread writing adjectives than every random word with an F in it.

But the real bad thing for a lot of people isn't something that's wrong with the layout, really - it's that applications don't allow users to map their own keys as hotkeys. Yes, your hotkeys are all over the place, and what's worse is that they happen to be next to other commands that are catastrophic when hit accidentally. Ctrl-C is right next to Ctrl-R - reload web page, otherwise known as wipe out forum post. Ctrl-V sits one key to the right of Ctrl-W - close browser tab... also known as wipe out forum post. I mean, I might get used to everything else, but this is always going to be around.

Which is really sad that the one thing most likely to make me switch keyboards is because of application developers hard coding their interfaces rather than letting their users change them if they want to change to something easier for them. I'm always a proponent of letting the user change his controls, I do it all the time for fighting games and am a little offput when the option isn't available to me. In fact, Bayonetta (XBox 360) suffers from this and suffers from it bad. I mean, it wouldn't be that big an issue if I liked the rest of the game, but I don't and this compounds it. Seriously, it takes literally 10 minutes to code a game to accept user-defined controls, and I am not exaggerating one bit. Making the menu art, okay... maybe a day or two, but that's a small price to let to let the player play the game the way he wants, instead of forcing your way down his throat.

... But I digress. There's another layout I'm thinking of trying, Colemak, which may improve on the Dvorak design while (a) keeping QWERTY's keyboard shortcuts and (b) balancing the board to a more 50/50 right hand/left hand split. However, both layouts are vastly superior to QWERTY in terms of typing efficiency. QWERTY was not designed with that in mind, not by a long shot, and in fact the fastest typer in the world, Barbara Blackburn, was a Dvorak typer.