
Ask HN: How long does it take to learn a new keyboard layout? - ryeguy_24
I type at 130 WPM with QWERTY.  Two questions:<p>1. For those who have done it, how long does it take to learn a new keyboard layout (e.g. DVORAK, others) and exceed your previous speed.<p>2. Is switching back and forth easy to do (like speaking two languages fluently)?
======
landgenoot
I am typing fluently this using the Colemak layout and I can switch easily to
Qwerty. Colemak is the easiest/fastest layout for me. It is like driving stick
vs automatic, I can change whenever I want without thinking about it. I also
tried Dvorak. However, shortcuts like CTRL+C were not possible with one hand
anymore. This was a no go.

The hardest part of learning a keyboard layout is the first week. During this
week you cannot type on the autopilot at all (even my qwerty skills were
fucked up).

I recommend starting learning a new layout during a holiday because it will
break your productivity. For training, you can use
[http://klavaro.sourceforge.net/en/index.html](http://klavaro.sourceforge.net/en/index.html),
which has support for Colemak.

After 4 weeks of typing more than one hour per day, I managed to hit the 50
WPM at Colemak. It is also important to type 30 minutes per day using qwerty
during this 4 weeks so that you will not lose your qwerty skills.

~~~
limeblack
There are some shortcuts like ctrl+O and ctrl+P that are easier with one hand
on Dvorak. I personally have ctrl c, z and v in two places on my Dvorak
keyboard. The Dvorak locations and qwerty locations. It's not particularly
difficult to make a keyboard like this in Microsoft keyboard creator or Mac
Ukulele.

Alternatively many people use Dvorak with QWERTY keyboard shortcut locations.

------
bbojan
I think the problem with most of the layouts is that they are typist-oriented
(e.g. people who enter mostly English text), so they mainly focus on the
letters. Programmers' workflow is different.

I'm in the process of switching to an Ergodox keyboard and I logged all my
keystrokes (on a regular QWERTY keyboard) for about a week. My work was maybe
80% writing code and 20% writing emails, Slack messages etc. Here are the top
10 most frequently used keys:

    
    
         Key      #     %
      ---------+------+---
      Down      14139 11.3
      Up        11514  9.2
      Backspace  6748  5.3
      Right      6529  5.2
      Space      5409  4.3
      Left       4908  3.9
      Tab        4847  3.8
      R Ctrl     4665  3.7
      E          3937  3.1
      L Shift    3824  3.0
    

There's only one letter there!

The rest of the keys are pretty much in the same position in all the layouts
discussed here. Therefore I think significant speed improvements for
programmers can only come with a more radical re-think of a keyboard layout.

~~~
Symbiote
I wouldn't encourage anyone to switch for speed.

Switch for comfort.

Repeating in full a comment I made 5 months ago [0]

I learnt during the summer after the first year of university, when I was
working on a small summer project at the university. It can't have been more
than two months, probably more like one. I didn't touchtype Qwerty, although I
could type fairly fast while looking at the keyboard.

I made the "tent" showing the keyboard layout, as described at [1].

It's simply more comfortable to use Dvorak. The clearest way I have to show
that is by tapping fingers on the table: it's much easier to go small-to-large
than large-to-small. On Dvorak, that means typing digraphs like sn, st, sh,
nt, nh, th is optimized (Qwerty equivalent: ;l ;k ;j lk lj kj — what a waste
of easy-to-type combinations!). The reverse combinations are rarer in English:
ht, hn, hs, tn, ts, ns.

All the rare letters are on the bottom row, so the most awkward movement —
bottom row then top row — is minimized.

Added to that, hand alternation is much better, which is also more
comfortable. Taking my first sentence, "after" and "was" are all on one hand,
and trigrams like "ear" (learnt), "rst" (first), "ect" (project) are common,
yet ugly to type on Qwerty.

If you can touchtype Qwerty, type this to simulate typing the first two
sentences:

G pdaolk hfoglu kjd ;fmmdo aykdo kjd ygo;k tdao sy flg.do;gktw ,jdl G ,a;
,sovglu sl a ;mapp ;fmmdo roscdik ak kjd flg.do;gkte Gk ialqk ja.d nddl msod
kjal k,s mslkj;w rosnanpt msod pgvd slde

To remain closer to the defaults of the world, I've never bothered with
Colemak or similar. I can add Dvorak to any computer I use, which I will
occasionally do if someone asks me to use their computer to take minutes in a
meeting or similar.

[1]
[http://www.dvzine.org/zine/20-21.html](http://www.dvzine.org/zine/20-21.html)

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16568867](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16568867)

~~~
limeblack
Dvorak is preinstalled on every modern computer. For that reason I agree it
only takes a minute to enable.

------
xsznix
1\. It's only one data point, but here's a chart of my typing speed while
learning a new fully custom layout:

[https://xsznix.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/screen-
shot-2016-...](https://xsznix.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/screen-
shot-2016-05-16-at-16-25-03.png)

2\. I use QWERTY on mobile devices, Dvorak on standard keyboards, and RSTHD on
split ergo keyboards, and I can switch between all of them without any hassle.
It helps if you use a different keyboard form factor for each layout, but even
if not, I don't think it's difficult to maintain adequate fluency on QWERTY
when you need to use someone else's computer.

------
bathMarm0t
I switched to dvorak and would never go back.

1\. It took me two weeks to get to ~35wpm, and it was absolutely grueling. The
next two months I ramped up to ~80. Now I'm slightly faster than my top qwerty
speed (qwerty is incredibly hard to type in dvorak btw), but the investment is
worth it. Typing is very easy, and I no longer have RSI issues.

2\. I use my family's computer from time to time. There's a break in period /
your brain literally flips. It's a very unique experience. I think if I
switched more often I'd be able to maintain performance in both.

Thinking a little more about it, learning to type in a new format was such a
strange and enjoyable experience. You feel your brain struggling and one day
something just kind of clicks, a dam breaks way, and your fingers float above
the keyboard, the words appearing on the screen and you're not sure how.

------
jseliger
What drives your desire to switch?

I ask because if it's ergonomics, you may want to explore an ergo board, e.g.
the Kinesis Advantage: [https://jakeseliger.com/2011/07/17/further-thoughts-
on-the-k...](https://jakeseliger.com/2011/07/17/further-thoughts-on-the-
kinesis-advantage-unicomp-space-saver-and-das-keyboard%E2%80%94two-years-
later). There are others as well, like Ergodox-EZ.

~~~
eip
Highly recommend the EZ. I am never going back.

------
tom_
I switched from QWERTY to Dvorak 16 years ago. At my best I could do 110wpm
with QWERTY. I've rarely attained more than 90wpm on Dvorak, maybe, andI'd
expect a bit less day to day.

1\. Judging by the times I've tried TypeRacer, I've never exceeded my old
speed. But that's OK; I changed because I was having problems with my wrists,
and I was worried about my career. That destroyed any interest I might once
have had in typing quickly.

2\. Yes - but I switched to Dvorak not long after I started using a split
keyboard, and I think that really helped keep the muscle memory for the
layouts separate. No problem for me typing Dvorak on spit keyboards, and no
problem typing QWERTY on non-split keyboards. I can still type at ~70wpm on a
non-split QWERTY keyboard, and people that have seen me do that are typically
surprised to later find out it's not what I'm used to.

QWERTY on a split keyboard, I can do, but I have to look at my hands while I
do it. Dvorak on a non-split keyboard, I find very difficult. But luckily I
basically never have to do it.

(One thing I would also add: it's good to be able to type fast, because that
lets you rattle out whatever it is you currently have in mind. Don't let
anybody tell you that being able to type quickly isn't at least sometimes
useful. But, in general, you can get away with typing a lot slower than you
think.)

------
kbd
I switched to Dvorak at least 10-15 years ago (and have been enjoying it ever
since) so I can't tell you exactly how long it took me, but I'd say to expect
to have lower productivity in Dvorak for a month. By then you should be at
least near enough to your QWERTY proficiency that the switch will no longer be
hurting you.

Advice for learning: Start with basic typing exercises that drill in the
muscle memory. Then switch over and keep a keyboard layout visible. Switch
back to QWERTY when you need to. When you rarely need to look up letters but
still need to think sometimes, switch permanently and try not to switch back
to QWERTY.

On keyboard shortcuts: while some such as copy and paste are worse because
they involve the right hand, I find many keyboard shortcuts are actually
better on Dvorak despite being designed with QWERTY in mind. J and K for
instance (think vi navigation) are really convenient. There are a bunch I feel
that way about, and that's in addition to other characters used in programming
often being more convenient as well, such as brackets/braces and
hyphen/underscore.

On fluency: I definitely have a hard time switching back to QWERTY. Funny
story: an interview didn't go well once when I had to complete a programming
task on one of their computers. It was Windows (I use Mac) with a QWERTY
layout! I must've looked like I didn't know how to use a computer. But I'm
typing this paragraph in QWERTY and it's doable. Most of what makes me feel
slower on QWERTY is just that it's so much less comfortable to type in than
Dvorak.

------
Bry00A
If you're already typing 130 wpm on QWERTY, wow, and don't bother with other
layouts. You might eek out a bit more speed, but it's a lot of pain for not
much gain. I've never exceeded my QWERTY speeds and I've been typing DVORAK
for over ten years now. I'm sticking with DVORAK because I find it more
comfortable and, as an added bonus, it keeps the kids off my computer.

------
danielvf
I’ve twice spent a few months on alternate keyboards. Once Dvorak and once
Colmak. (about an hour a each day of dedicated practice plus using it for work
and play each day.)

Unfortunately, at the time I was moving between several computers, some of
which weren’t mine, and I could switch them all over. This daily switching
back and forth was painful.

In the end, it wasn’t really worth it. It took at least a month to get back to
being able to type without mistakes with QWERTY, and the first few days were
torture. Took months to get back to my old speed.

You know that scene from Space Jam where the NBA player looses his talent,
tries to play with some kids on the street, gets crushed, and wanders away in
confusion and sadness... well, that was pretty much me.
[https://youtu.be/mWeII9xkTnw](https://youtu.be/mWeII9xkTnw)

------
sdfin
It took me about three weeks to learn Colemak. I practiced with keybr.com but
Klavaro is also good. It was not easy to switch back and forth to qwerty, I
forgot how to touch type with qwerty.

If you are going to need to switch to qwerty often and you already type at 130
WPM I would not recommend learning another layout.

------
inimino
I switched in about a month. I never changed the keycaps, so Dvorak was touch-
typing only from day one (try all the keys until you find the one you want,
looking doesn't help). Now when I use QWERTY I need to look down.

My speed is about the same as it was, but I wasn't looking for more speed.

------
scriby
I learned Dvorak in high school and was proficient in it after a couple weeks.
In addition to actual practice, I found it helpful to just practice mentally
during downtime.

I used Dvorak exclusively and lost the ability to type on qwerty keyboards.
This became pretty inconvenient, so I re-learned qwerty, but then I couldn’t
type in dvorak any more.

A while later I practiced dvorak again and have been able to switch back and
forth without issue ever since (even though I don’t use dvorak very often
now).

I found that dvorak wasn’t actually that good for programming due to the
positioning of punctuation, math, and auxiliary keys. It’s also annoying for
gaming or using hotkeys in general (especially copy + paste).

------
peelle
I learned QWERTY first in high school around 2000. An hour a day over, 5 days
a week over a month to get it down. Probably a few weeks of practice to do it
without hesitation.

I learned Dvorak in 2005 or 2006. I spent about 4-5 hours, over 2 evenings
with a free typing tutor program. After that it took me about 2 weeks
internalize it. At that point I was probably the same speed or faster than
before.

After that I used QWERTY for a few hours a week for the next few years. For
public, and other peoples computers. After a little practice it was easy to
switch back and forth without issue.

Around 2012, I stopped having to use public and other peoples computers so I
stopped using QWERTY but maybe once or twice a year.

As of now I can with a little bit of mental effort switch back to using
QWERTY, but nowadays I often miss type a few keys in QWERTY. I am slowly
loosing it.

Some related observations:

For the longest time I have been forced to use QWERTY for all onscreen
keyboards like my cell phone and tablets. Recently I got a Chromebook, and it
let me have onscreen Dvorak. Turns out my brain is currently wired for
onscreen QWERTY. I'm not sure if I really should put any effort into learning
an onscreen keyboard.

I can type both Mandarin Pinyin, and the Japanese equivalent. For whatever
reason setting up these input systems hard locks QWERTY underneath them. I
have tried to do the mental gymnastics to use QWERTY to write in these other
scripts and it is just too frustrating. I end up finding a way to switch it.

------
vermilingua
I’ve been using Colemak for a few years now, and I find it very easy to switch
back and forth (mainly because I have to regularly). I became fluent in
colemak in around two weeks to a month of pretty much exclusive usage. I type
faster in Colemak, because ironically I still can’t touchtype QWERTY.

My tips are: print your new layout and stick it in your FOV for where you
usually type. I used the new layout on my phone, which helped with memorising
placement. Try and mentally map old keys -> new keys, so that until you have
the muscle memory there, you’ll at least know it cerebrally.

------
cbzehner
I switched to Dvorak in a weekend (~8 hours) using something like
[https://learn.dvorak.nl/](https://learn.dvorak.nl/)

It took me about a month to get comfortable and stop making mistakes and I
switched back and forth regularly for the first two years (working in IT).

Now I mostly use Dvorak and when I switch it's not a problem but my typing
speed in Qwerty is about a third slower.

Having done it, I'm happy with it but I probably would have learned Colemak
instead because it's closer to Qwerty and would make those infrequent switches
easier.

------
hakanderyal
I've switched from qwerty to programmer dvorak 11-12 years ago. It took me 2
weeks of practicing to get comfortable with it.

I constantly switch between dvorak and qwerty (as much as 4-5 times in a
minute), and it takes no effort, I'm more or less equally comfortable with
both of them.

I'm also a designer, and I didn't bother relearning the shortcuts on design
programs on dvorak, so I switch back to qwerty with a shortcut when I use
them, than switch back to dvorak for typing.

If you switch to dvorak, I also suggest giving up using arrow keys and using
emacs/vi keymaps for moving the cursor around, it will be much more efficient.

I really suggest taking a look at programmer dvorak[0] if most of the typing
you do is writing code. It's more efficient and relaxed to use commonly typed
characters ( &[{}(=*)+]!;,.:<> ), at the expense of having to use shift for
numbers.

[0]:
[https://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/](https://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/)

------
GatorD42
I switched to Dvorak about ten years ago then switched back about five years
ago. I switched back because I use swipe text input on phones which works much
better (only?) with QWERTY, and swipe text became and still is very important
for me.

Although I could type faster and much more comfortable on Dvorak I regret ever
making the change, I feel I am still not as fast on QWERTY as I was before I
switched to Dvorak. I make a lot of mistakes typing now and can't seem get
much faster or more accurate with practice.

It was very difficult for me to do both or switch between the two - I was much
better at Dvorak until I gave it up. My QWERTY was prbly 30 wpm max while
using Dvorak. It helps to switch context or use different keyboards for
switching. I think I got to 90 wpm Dvorak, QWERTY is now around 65-70.

I have problems typing comfortably and motor learning / coordination issues
that might make me unusual, but I have read that fluency with both is rare and
very difficult.

Oh shortcuts were more annoying in Dvorak, only other issue aside from swipe
text.

~~~
pmoriarty
With the Swiftkey app you can swipe with Colemak or Dvorak, if you want.

~~~
nayuki
@pmoriarty: Speaking speculatively, swiping on Dvorak might be harder for the
machine to recognize because more common English letters are on the home row
instead of separated like QWERTY.

@GatorD42: I hear a decent proportion of people who complain or fear that
keyboard shortcuts won't work well in Dvorak. But in my own experience, I have
no problems whatsoever (even common keys like Ctrl+C/V/X/Z/W/A/S/T). One
caveat though, is that many shortcuts are on the right side and prefer using
Right Ctrl - but some machines like the entire Microsoft Surface tablet/laptop
series omit Right Ctrl which makes keyboard shortcuts absolutely infuriating.

------
Nadya
I typed 130-150 WPM with 160-170 WPM bursts on QWERTY, the layout I grew up
typing for most of my life.

I switched from QWERTY to Dvorak over the course of 8~ months and attained
120~ WPM with no discernible difference in comfort. I then switched from
Dvorak to Colemak over the course of 3~ months. I was back to 130-150 WPM but
lacked any ability to "burst" at faster speeds for short periods of time. I
felt slightly more comfort typing in Colemak than I did QWERTY/Dvorak but it
interrupted workflow too much and I ended up switching back to QWERTY. After
my experiences, I firmly believe any significant benefits people get from
switching keyboard layouts isn't from switching keyboard layouts, but rather,
from learning how to type properly. This goes for comfort, speed, and
accuracy. I know of very, very few people who I would define as "excellent"
typists (>120WPM) claiming any benefit from switching layouts.

Switching back and forth for Colemak/QWERTY is easy for me, I struggle with
Dvorak as I am out of practice ("use it or lose it").

Learn to Stenotype if you truly want speed [0]. If you switch keyboard layouts
it should only be because you never really "learned how to type" or if you
feel slight comfort gains are worth breaking existing workflows over.

On Mobile I use a QWERTY layout for English and flick input for Japanese.

E: Also I believe there are studies that "micro-movements" are more harmful in
the long term, causing more RSI. So Colemak's smaller, more comfortable
movements may have been long-term harmful. I can't find these studies but I
faintly remember reading about this. If anyone has any proof one way or the
other I'd love to see it.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype)

------
lichenwarp
I'm on colemak and I am typing this by voice because of carpal tunnel I doubt
any relation just poor posture, but I cannot type on qwerty anymore. I forced
myself to learn colemak in about three months by having instant message
conversations, it was a pain but it worked well I also used the provided
application on Windows (typefaster)

------
nayuki
I switched from QWERTY to Dvorak about 15 years ago. I used to type ~80 WPM on
QWERTY. For the first few weeks on Dvorak, I was typing at a tedious ~10 WPM.
Only after about two months did my speed get up to a respectable pace
(probably 60+ WPM). Nowadays I can do 120 WPM on Dvorak. The retraining was
well worth it for me, because I work many hours at the computer, and my
fingers move a lot less when typing English text on Dvorak.

As for switching back and forth, I can still use QWERTY, but it feels awkward
like "dancing with two left feet". I stumble, pause, make mistakes, and
correct them. But numerically speaking, I still type 60+ WPM on QWERTY when I
need to, despite the discomfort. More details in
[https://www.nayuki.io/page/i-type-in-
dvorak](https://www.nayuki.io/page/i-type-in-dvorak)

------
jlturner
It took me 2 weeks to “switch” to Dvorak in 2008.

Your brain will unlearn the touch position of QWERTY, and looking down at a
QWERTY, keyboard when you type will throw you off big time at first.

Eventually you’ll get used to looking at a QWERTY keyboard and typing Dvorak,
which is interesting (my mind maps different letters between the layouts).

You can relearn QWERTY fairly easily once you’re confident in Dvorak, and
you’ll be able to type in both, but I don’t ever find the need to type in
QWERTY. When helping a coworker out on their computer I’d just switch their
settings and switch back if I was going to be working there for awhile.
Additionally you can get a WASD / CODE keyboard which has a hardware Dvorak
dip switch, which is in Dvorak outputting to a system expecting QWERTY.

------
ntw1103
I haven't done the switch to DVORAK. But maybe this will help. I have switched
between number oh phone keyboards, and their special character mappings are
all different. I went from a Custom mapped droid4 to a blackberry priv. It
took me 3 weeks of steady usage before I stopped hitting alt+m for double
quote, which generated a period on the Priv. then I got a Gemini PDA, and this
is a third mapping, that is closer to a desktop mapping, but the camma and
period are different. It took me about 3 weeks to stop making mistakes. The
Gemini PDA is not my main device, and I switch between the Priv and the
Gemini. It is rare that I use the wrong mapping now.

------
smilesnd
Roughly a week when I did it. Learning it and getting comfort wasn't hard at
all.

Switching between the two was a little difficult if I went into autopilot, but
was manageable.

The worst part of the experience was if anyone else touch my keyboard I would
have to explain to them that it isn't qwerty, and wish them best of luck. Most
of the people didn't understand why I would do such a evil thing to my
keyboard. After a while it became such a thing that I actually went back to
qwerty just so I wouldn't have to listen to people talk about it.

------
raihansaputra
just another anecdata: I started learning Dvorak when I entered university,
where I learned CS while never having really programmed/coded before (limited
to HTML/CSS). Some of my classmates have touch-typed at that stage while I
still type inefficiently (looking at my keyboard mid sentence and whatnot). I
decided to move to Dvorak to force myself to touch type instead of trying to
restrain myself from looking at my keyboard. It took me a whole semester on
and off, mostly on learn.dvorak.nl, practicing 30-60 minutes a day. I still
type on QWERTY for the first semester, and switched full time when I already
feel comfortable touch-typing and preferring Dvorak in the second semester.
Related to another thread a few days ago, for me it's not about the speed,
more about the comfort (ergo) and not having to break / switch context to look
at the keyboard while I code / write. I type at the same speed or slightly
slower than I did on QWERTY, but my thoughts flow easier. I use MessagEase on
my smartphone for one handed typing.

~~~
Ginguin
MessagEase is my favorite (and only) mobile keyboard. I am happy to see
someone else using it in the wild!

~~~
raihansaputra
Yeah it's rare. My friends are still bewildered upon seeing I type with it.
I've managed to convince 2 other people to use it though!

------
jmcgough
I learned dvorak in high school over summer break. It took about 3 weeks to be
up to my qwerty wpm.

I actually had a difficult time going back and forth for a while. Eventually
my brain decided that a heavy mechanical keyboard (my model m at home) was
dvorak, and lighter non-mechanical kbs (school) were qwerty.

I had to switch over to qwerty to do pair programming easily a few years back.
Finally got to the point where I could type interchangeably, but I'm worried
that my muscle memory will lose qwerty again over time, now that I use it
less.

------
Aegon
1\. I became proficient (fluent) in a new keyboard layout within a few weeks.
At that point my typing speed was on par with qwerty (not faster though, I
believe). Fully adapting to a new keyboard layout went a bit faster than I had
anticipated.

2\. Switching back and forth was NOT easy. Whenever I used a new (qwerty)
computer I would fumble and it would take minutes before I could type normally
at all! Perhaps if one switches between two layouts often it becomes easier.

------
mattm
1\. It took me about a month. However, I wasn't working at the time so I
didn't need to switch back or worry about being productive. I only typed about
60 WPM and I reached the same level.

2\. It probably was at the beginning but after using Dvorak for so long, I
need to long at the keys while I type on a QWERTY layout. I suppose you could
keep both up if you had some reason to do so.

------
arh68
1\. 3-6 months to get comfortable, about 1 year to match speed. I've typed
Dvorak for about 10 years. I'm probably not any faster, but I like dvorak a
lot.

2\. Switching is easy; I switch all the time at work. Windows makes me login
with qwerty (you get what you pay for? :P).

You may never type 130wpm on dvorak/colemak/&c but life is too short for
qwerty.

------
justaaron
I'm touch-typing what my OS thinks is an American keyboard layout on a German
keyboard. Physical muscle memory counts for a lot more than mere efficiency,
in my book. However, if I were to need to switch to a different layout for
physical health reasons, I have no doubt that my brain would adapt, as it's
the initial part that is difficult, in that regard.

------
zilongli
The real question is: How long does it take to UNLEARN an old keyboard layout?

I tried that switch to DVORAK before. After a few weeks, I could blind-type
slowly in DVORAK, but whenever I went a bit faster, my QWERTY routines would
kick in.

Interestingly, I also forgot how to spell many English words. It turns out I
only remembered how to type those words on a QWERTY keyboard.

------
spicyusername
Took me about a month of near-total use to get back to the point where I felt
fluent.

I find it very difficult to switch back and forth, but not impossible. Mostly
that just means my secondary layout is pretty error-prone.

------
KayL
No long-term experiences in the same language but I'm typing in CJK & English.
I think it's quite a similar situation. When I typing CJK in desktop & mobile,
it's also a slightly different way to choose the word but my brain able to
handle it well.

------
Insanity
Well, I did a minor switch from Azerty (iso) to Qwerty (ansi) and it took
maybe a week or two.

Edit: I get about 140wpm with qwerty and similar with azerty, but switching
between them takes some time to get up to speed. Maybe because they are so
similar.. :)

------
ereyes01
After ~30 years of using a keyboard, I've never learned to type properly,
though I guess I'm somewhat fast (or fast enough). Admittedly, I'd be way
faster on QWERTY vs DVORAK if I were to try one of those.

------
dplgk
I'm interested in what reasons there are to switch besides speed, which I
assume is not a problem unless you are a stenographer i.e. I cannot think of
code faster than I can write for longer than a fraction of a minute.

~~~
landgenoot
It is an amazing experience when you can type a word without moving your
fingers at all (this happens when all the letters that you need are on the
home row).

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bufferoverflow
Are you actually limited by your current typing speed?

~~~
bathMarm0t
I worked with a programmer in his 40s who hunt and pecked. A generous estimate
of his speed would be 10 wpm. He would always yell back at anyone critiquing
his typing: Think more, type less.

He was one of the better programmers on the team. Whether this was because he
was forced to make good decisions to limit the amount of code on the screen or
not, who knows. I think the only critique I had was that his comments were...
a little lacking.

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sraquo
I tried Dvorak for a month a few years ago. For me it was just useless agony,
not only with key positions but also with app/OS shortcuts that are very much
designed for qwerty layout.

I have since switched to a split ergonomic keyboard (Diverge 3) and adjusted
the layout somewhat (kept qwerty, but put all the modifier keys in custom
locations). That took me about a month to exceed my previous speed. Typing on
standard keyboards when needed is not a problem either.

I never cared to measure my typing speed though.

~~~
rhizome
It would be interesting to design a keyboard whose key arrangement is weighted
toward standard shortcut combinations. Maybe put them mostly on the left hand
side to allow (right-handed) mousing without looking at the keyboard.

~~~
sraquo
Keyboards like Diverge and Ergodox are fully programmable so nothing's
stopping you from doing that today!

Also, I found that putting a small touchpad^ in a thumb-accessible area (near
where a laptop touchpad would be) is a good enough replacement for a mouse.

^ [http://www.ergonomictouchpad.com/](http://www.ergonomictouchpad.com/)

~~~
rhizome
Well yeah, but what about the rest of the keys? It's one thing to put all the
shortcut keys on the left or right side, but quite another to arrange the keys
so that typing is...possible.

~~~
sraquo
You don't have to change from the qwerty layout for general typing.

For example, you can program the keyboard in such a way that pressing X+A
sends Ctrl+C keys to the OS, where X is a custom modifier button (Not Ctrl but
a separate button that you assign for this use case) and A is, well, whatever
other button on the keyboard you want to use for this, not necessarily "C".

Or you can have a single button programmed to send Alt+Tab, or... whatever,
really, the firmware is very flexible.

~~~
rhizome
_pressing X+A sends Ctrl+C_

Yeah, I know about remapping and that's not going to happen. What a nightmare!
But the more I think about my idea the worse it sounds. What are the 12 most
common shortcut keys? It's hard to narrow them down to that, and I'm not sure
everybody would agree. Still, ergonomically it would be an interesting
challenge.

~~~
sraquo
> What are the 12 most common shortcut keys?

FWIW the WhatPulse app can tell you that (for your own typing) e.g.
[https://i.imgur.com/SuPLw9h.png](https://i.imgur.com/SuPLw9h.png)

I used its data to drive my custom layout decisions.

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mi_lk
OT, but does using DVORAK prevent someone from using vim? I mean, do you have
to remap hjkl or what? Use arrow key?

~~~
akdas
I use Vim with Dvorak. No remapping required. The keys are just in different
places than on Qwerty.

~~~
mi_lk
Right, but having hjkl sit consecutively is sort of like wasd moves where you
don't have to think about the key you pressed, only about the shape. But I
guess it's just how you choose to build your muscle memory model.

~~~
akdas
I learned Vim after switching to Dvorak, so the Dvorak positions of hjkl are
what I'm used to. I don't have to think about the key I pressed.

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severine
This question is drawing some excellent responses, thanks for asking it.

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tryptophan
My main issue with alternate layouts is that none of the hotkeys make any
sense anymore. Copy ends up being on the other side of the keyboard from
paste..etc etc This adds significantly to the time needed to learn a new
layout.

~~~
taeric
Colemak is designed specifically not to do this.

------
_louisr_
1\. It took me 4 months, give or take 2\. No

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sudders
went from AZERTY to QWERTY, and took me about 2 weeks to get entirely used to
it

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nsfmc
around 2005-6 i considered switching over to dvorak, but trying it out, doing
tutorials, etc, never had much of an effect. i would say i was a pretty fast
qwerty typer, but i hadn't learned to properly touch type. instead, i was fast
enough to not need to see the keys once i had started typing but it relied on
a bunch of terrible hand positions.

around 2007, i broke my right thumb by hitting a pothole and that put my
typing (and all my bad habits) in a weird spot. At that point i decided to try
one-handed dvorak and failed, but i found that two handed dvorak was very
doable, so i spent about two weeks of my convalescence doing
[http://web.archive.org/web/20040803054502/http://www.gigliwo...](http://web.archive.org/web/20040803054502/http://www.gigliwood.com/abcd/abcd.html)
on and off and watching movies. About a week in, i swapped all my keycaps to
make the transition easier, but found that i missed having the home row nubs
on f/j (u/h in dvorak) because at this point i had started actually relying on
them for positioning as i had finally learned to touch type.

at this point, about two weeks in, i was solidly able to to use my modded
keyboard, but i still peeked at the keys occasionally so that i would re-
position my hands correctly at rest. it took me about a full month of
occasional typing in dvorak while i was in physical therapy to "make the
switch" mentally.

this probably marks my eleventh year typing in dvorak, by far the first few
months were the most awkward, especially since at the time i was using vi and
some of its key commands are optimized for qwerty while others have semantic
meanings. the most annoying thing in those early months is not so much the
letter positions, but recalling where all the special characters live:
.,'-;/=[] are all characters that you possibly associate with certain regions
of the keyboard, but in dvorak they are a punctuation-diaspora, scattered
across the edges of the keyboard. by around six months in, i think i was back
to my regular typing speed, but i believe i exceeded my qwerty speed easily a
year into dvorak simply because i had finally learned to properly touch type
and had developed muscle memory for all keys.

how hard is switching back? like you, i wondered about being keymap-bilingual,
but it turns out to not be all that important day-to-day. i definitely type
noticeably slower when i go back to qwerty keyboard (usually because i'm using
a friend's computer). in practice this happens remarkably infrequently. one of
the strange things of learning dvorak but leaving your keycaps in qwerty is
that i look at a `t` but i "see" a `p`. it's strange, it's the closest thing i
have experienced to having a sixth sense. because ios doesn't allow you to
remap its keyboard to dvorak, i use qwerty there all the time and it's not at
all disorienting.

One place, however, where you do need to remain somewhat sharp is pc gaming,
where games inconsistently pick up custom keymaps (i.e. in js this is the
distinction b/w evt.key and evt.code). in most cases, you just end up using
qwerty because it's a pain to remap (this was especially true for games like
dota2, but starcraft 2's grid layout remedies much of that). again, many apps
like illustrator/photoshop also have keyboard shortcuts located for physical
reasons and less for logical "this letter is short for that idea" reasons,
which can make the switch harder

that said, it's doable and i believe in you! at the very least, you'll become
a better typer and develop better habits from your time in dvorak. good luck!

