

I charted my progress learning DVORAK every day for a year - ZaneClaes
http://lifebyexperimentation.com/2013/08/learn-dvorak/?

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voidz
As someone who has used the Dvorak layout for over 15 years, and loves it,
it's my impression that the biggest reason people don't learn it, is because
they don't know what they are missing. But dvorak is so much nicer, it was
well worth the annoying first couple of weeks.

Another common misconception is that people fear that they will for some
reason "unlearn" Qwerty, which is not the case at all. In fact, after this
many years, for me it is easy to look at a qwerty layout, with the actual
layout on the OS set to Dvorak, even while typing.

The best thing about learning dvorak is how it taught me things about how the
brain learns concepts, autonomously. For example, I remember how, after an
hour of practice, I went to do something unrelated, and every now and then I
became conscious of how my brain was still processing the previous hour of
practice. So I would see images in my mind's eye of pressing letters on the
dvorak layout.

I also noticed how smoothly I started to type dvorak in the beginning of a
practicing session, and, after a while, seemed to become more frustrated
because the number of mistakes increased as time progressed. That made me
realise that I should stop practicing when that moment of frustration would
hit me, and then "let my brain take over from here". Then, once I stopped,
there came the images, letting me know that the brain was still processing
what I was trying to teach it.

It took me about a month of practice and the better I became, the more natural
dvorak started to feel. Now I can type on both qwerty and dvorak, although
qwerty does make me realise every single time, how bad that layout really is,
in comparison. But what's also fun is that the brain seems to associate
layouts with the actual computer -- if I was typing on a school computer, I'd
start typing in qwerty without even realising it. Then, when I came home and
continued behind my own PC, I continued in dvorak.

So for me, the most important thing that made me continue practicing it, was
that this experience of learning dvorak in itself was already a lot of fun. It
taught me how awesome the brain is, especially if you don't force it to do
what you want with a timeframe in mind - learning dvorak at a speed that was
good for me, and letting the brain carry on without "me" forcing it to become
better, is how I learned more about how the brain is able to program itself
with newly introduced concepts.

~~~
organsnyder
> But what's also fun is that the brain seems to associate layouts with the
> actual computer -- if I was typing on a school computer, I'd start typing in
> qwerty without even realising it. Then, when I came home and continued
> behind my own PC, I continued in dvorak.

I've noticed the same thing, but on a smaller scale: I use a Mac at work, but
a PC at home. I have the same keyboard model (a Logitech wireless) in both
locations. When I type on the Logitech model on the PC at home, I find myself
hitting Alt (which is mapped to Cmd on my Mac) when I mean Ctrl. However, I
don't have that problem when I use my PC laptop. It's interesting how the
brain makes those associations.

~~~
devknot
I had a similar experience. When I went to France I bought a laptop, they only
sell them with AZERTY layouts. Now, at work they had a QWERTY keyboard for me.
Without realizing it I could write in AZERTY at home and QWERTY at work
without any problem whatsoever.

The difference between both layouts is not that big, but enough to be felt.

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melling
At least for programming, it seems like predictive typing, Intellisense,
templates, etc, negate the advantages a given keyboard might provide compared
to a regular typist. Emacs or vi bindings contribute a lot to keystrokes type.

~~~
ZaneClaes
Perhaps... but even for a programmer, I'd submit that there's still plenty of
"regular communication" (emails, slack/gchats, etc.) which would benefit from
higher WPM.

