
Why You Should Switch to the Dvorak Keyboard Layout - collistaeed
http://workawesome.com/productivity/dvorak-keyboard-layout
======
j-g-faustus
Why you shouldn't switch:

    
    
        This reminds me of when I tried to switch to a Dvorak 
        keyboard. The trouble was, I don't use one computer. I 
        use all kinds of computers. I use other people's 
        computers. I use three computers fairly regularly at 
        home and three at work. I use computers in the test lab 
        at work. The trouble with customizing your environment
        is that it just doesn't propagate, so it's not even
        worth the trouble.
    

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000059....](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000059.html)

Which is my experience too. Dvorak would need to be at least 2-3 times faster
than Qwerty to outweigh the disadvantages, a "possibly 10% faster" doesn't cut
it.

~~~
tome
I hear this so often as an anti-Dvorak argument, and I cannot understand it.
It seems like a complete non-objection to me.

If I need to use an unfamiliar computer, I can revert to hunt-and-peck Qwerty.

If I use that computer so often that hunt-and-peck significantly slows me
down, I can afford to spend two minutes to switch the keymap to Dvorak.

[FWIW: I use Dvorak to prevent repetitive strain injury. "Time saving" is
hardly an issue.]

~~~
rimantas

      I use Dvorak to prevent repetitive strain injury.
    

Do you have any evidence that it helps? ("I don't have RSI" does not count. I
don't have it either, and I don't use dvorak).

~~~
tome
I don't know any links to hard data, but from what I recall there are a few
studies. If it's useful to you, then my personal experience is as follows:

    
    
      * I used to have RSI badly.
      * I read stuff on the internet about RSI.
      * One of the suggestions was to use Dvorak.
      * I started using Dvorak.
      * I took some other mitigating actions like getting a
        different chair, tilting my keyboard back
        and taking more
        typing breaks.
      * I noted that touch typing Dvorak was much more
        comfortable than touch tying Qwerty.
      * I haven't had RSI for ten years.
    

The cause and effect is not directly obvious, but I'm certain that Dvorak
helped me to some extent. The downside is: three weeks of frustration whilst
trying to learn it, and occasionally having to switch keymap on an unfamiliar
computer.

~~~
ent
I actually had a similar reason for switching to das, a layout optimized for
the finnish language. I was starting to get wrist pain while typing, started
to take notice of my posture and switched to typing with das.

Typing feels more natural and I can notice a huge difference to typing with
qwerty (which I can still almost touch type).

Again, I can't really say anything definite about the cause and effect but I
can recommend giving a better keyboard layout a try.

------
hapless
I switched to Dvorak about ten years ago. My experiences don't line up with a
lot of the speculation I see in this thread.

* Most speed gains come from hunt-and-peck QWERTY typists learning true touch typing for the first time. If your first formal typing classes were in, say, high school, you never really un-learned your wretched habits. (On typists who were trained correctly from day one, QWERTY has always been just as fast as alternative layouts, hence its market success.)

* I find Dvorak really is vastly more comfortable. I have RSI problems. The working day is a constant battle against pain and fatigue. I can type longer without fatigue using Dvorak than QWERTY.

* The "switching" problem is real. It only took me about three days to learn Dvorak well enough to regain my original QWERTY typing speed. It took almost two years to be able to switch between Dvorak and QWERTY at will, without resorting to hunt and peck. These days, I can could easily switch mid-sentence.

* The keyboard shortcuts problem is pretty much bullshit. I found that my muscle memory moved with the letters. One-handed ctrl X/C/V only mattered when I was typing with the wrong hand. (e.g. typing on the left side of the keyboard with my right hand.) I can even use keyboard shortcuts correctly when switching between QWERTY/Dvorak.

------
bad_user
Why I'm not switching ...

1\. It is not a standard ... I work on lots of workstations, including
machines I do not own. Context switching between Dvorak and Qwerty is hard for
me

2\. It is optimized for English ... I also do lots of typing in my native
language too, and there is a Dvorak layout optimized for my native language,
but it has differences ... and context-switching is even harder because of the
similarities.

In contrast, the Qwerty layout for my native language just replaces 5 symbol
keys near Enter/Backspace with the needed diacritics. All other keys stay the
same ... i.e. it's just an extension of the US layout.

3\. Qwerty gives me plenty of confort. I'm only doing something like 80 WPM
... I don't need more than that and it's a confortable speed for my hands (if
I'm going to get RSI from that, then Dvorak wouldn't be much of an
improvement)

~~~
tome
I completely agree with points 2. and 3., but 1. is a myth. It's an absolute
non-problem and it pains me to see it repeated again and again.

Any (remotely modern) workstation supports Dvorak. If you type for any
substatial length of time, switching from Qwerty and back again when you're
done will not be a time sink.

NB: This is not a reason _to_ use Dvorak. It's just a counter to your argument
that 1. is a reason _not_ to use Dvorak!

------
riffraff
once I was in a conversation with two friends of mine, one of them had
recently switched to dvorak and was explaining us how he was using some
software to improve his typing speed.

The other replied "you are a programmer, you're supposed to spend 90% of the
time thinking about what you do, why do you try to slightly improve the 10%
spent writing it"?

Do dvorak users out there find themselves much more productive at the end of
the day because of their typing speed?

~~~
futuremint
I don't spend a lot of time typing out my programs but I do spend a log of
time thinking them through. I have slight pain in my right wrist that comes
and goes.

I narrowed it down to 2 causes:

1: My car has a manual transmission, and all that gear changing in my commute
irritates the nerves.

2: Mousing. I spend a lot of time using the mouse to move all those damned
windows around. I switched to using my left hand for the mouse. Now the only
times my right wrist hurts are driving for extended periods in slow traffic,
or using the touchpad on my laptop a lot (I still use my right hand by habit).

Switching to Dvorak might be the most _obvious_ way to reduce RSI, but I don't
think it is the one best thing you can do.

Another thing I'm doing to combat #2 above is trying to get as much of my
programming done in Emacs as possible. I also have, "learn a decent window
manager" on my list of things to do.

Once I can do all programming & code browsing/navigation in Emacs, and also
use the keyboard to manage my windows... maybe Dvorak would help me.

~~~
didip
Interesting you said that programming in Emacs helps reducing RSI.

When I was a heavy Emacs user, my left hand outer-side wrist is in constant
pain because of always reaching the Control button.

~~~
futuremint
I always remap Caps Lock to be a Ctrl key. Using the lower-left Ctrl key would
just be... weird :).

With Caps Lock as control, and using the Alt key closest to the spacebar as
Meta, the key-chords in Emacs are comfortable for me (I just spread out my
left hand a little over home-row and I can reach them all w/o moving my hand).

I was a vim user long ago (I learned to program in vim) and constantly hitting
esc bothered me more than Emacs Ctrl key gymnastics.

------
rsaarelm
I switched to Colemak after getting my arm in a cast and having my typing
speed slowed anyway for three weeks. I've been using it for over a year now. I
can't start touch-typing qwerty instantly any more, but I can still type
comfortably on a qwerty keyboard as long as I can look at the keyboard, so
occasional stints on a non-Colemak workstation aren't a problem. I had been
touch-typing on qwerty for close to a fifteen years before this, and the
switch was surprisingly problem-free. Getting to a nice speed on Colemak took
about a month.

I haven't seen significant increase in typing speed, but there could be
ergonomic benefit from having to twist my hands less to hit the awkwardly
placed keys.

------
andreaja
Upon hearing that I use dvorak, people occasionally ask me if they should
switch, to which I usually shrug. I'm happy with dvorak, but almost everyone
else is happy with qwerty. I switched at a time where switching was cheap and
am now "victim" to a similar kind of lock-in that most qwerty users are.

Despite being happy with dvorak, I see no real reason to evangelize a keyboard
layout. It's simply not that big a deal.

------
Encosia
Articles about this never talk about the impact of moving your common keyboard
shortcuts. Being physically unable to use Ctrl-S,Z,C,V with my left hand while
using the mouse with my right would be difficult to retrain around.

~~~
moobot
I've found that using X11's highlight + middle-click paste has drastically
reduced just about all of my reliance on using shortcuts for copy/paste, at
least in any application that requires me to keep my hand on the mouse (like a
browser) rather than keeping both hands on the keyboard (like Vim).

------
bitboxer
I thought it is proven that dvorak is not superior :

<http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/18/210216>

Is there something wrong with that article/research?

~~~
tome
You should be aware the the Dvorak vs Qwerty debate is politically charged. If
it turned out that Dvorak were superior, this would be evidence for market
failure.

A lot of people want to demonstrate that market failure [edit: does or] does
not exist, hence there are many more attempts to show the inferiority [edit:
or superiority] of Dvorak than you would expect to see in a politically
neutral context.

~~~
numeromancer
Also:

You should be aware the the Dvorak vs Qwerty debate is politically charged. If
it turned out that Dvorak were superior, this would be evidence for market
failure.

A lot of people want to demonstrate that market failure does exist, hence
there are many more attempts to show the superiority of Dvorak than you would
expect to see in a politically neutral context.

~~~
tome
Absolutely right. I edited my original post to take this into account. My aim
was to advise people to take Dvorak studies with a pinch of salt and
understand the context in which they are published.

Disclaimer: I'm very happy with Dvorak, since it feels more comfortable to me
than Qwerty and I have no doubt it helped me recover from repetitive strain
injury. Other than that, I have no horse in this race.

------
chronomex
I'm a big fan of Colemak (<http://colemak.com/>). It took me about a month to
learn it. I don't type significantly faster but my fingers move less. It feels
worth it, at least.

------
numeromancer
I switched to Dvorak for 3 years and became proficient at it. I put up with a
lot of annoyances, waiting for it to be worthwhile; it never was.

Luckily, I am blessed with self-doubt, and was able to say to myself "Hey,
self, stop being an idiot!", and switched back to QWERTY.

~~~
moobot
The benefits to me are all based around comfort. If using Dvorak isn't more
comfortable for you in everyday usage, then there's no reason IMO to stick
with it.

------
kschua
I have switched to a Dvorak keyboard now for over a year after 20 years as a
QWERTY typist.

To answer some of the questions in the comments

1) My peak speed for the Dvorak was at 100wpm compared to around 70wpm in
QWERTY (I am intentionally slowing my typing speed now)

2) It took me 4 months to convert and get back to the speed I got using
QWERTY. During that period, I switched between QWERTY and DVORAK a lot. The
program DVAssist made it easy to switch it using a simple function key

3) For those who have problems using Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, you can use Ctrl-Ins
and Shift-Ins respectively. I find it much easier

4) If you need to use Dvorak on another computer, I have created an on the fly
javascript program to do that on <http://www.electronizer.com/dvorak.html>
(Note : It only works on IE)

I personally find the Dvorak keyboard more comfortable to type with. I have an
RSI problem which I thought was due to the QWERTY, however, after getting to
my peak speed in Dvorak, the problem started coming back, thus I am actually
trying to slow my speed (I am contemplating being a 2 finger typist instead).

I reckon the problem with RSI and keyboard is not due to the keyboard layout,
but more in the positioning of the keyboard when typing. To elaborate, I
noticed people tend to centre their keyboards and align it to their body, this
has the problem where the right hand has to over extend to type because of the
numeric keypad placed on the right side of the keyboard. Couple this with the
fact that the mouse is on the right hand side on most people's keyboard, this
makes the right hand move more. An observation I noted was that people tend to
move the wrist and not the entire hand.

To combat RSI, I have adopted the following

1) Align the keyboard "G" to align with the centre of my body (or the
centreline as Wing Chun practitioner calls it). This enables both hands to
extend to the same length.

2) Move the elbow and less of the wrist (whole forearm movement, another of
Wing Chun's principle of using the whole arm)

3) Use the mouse with the left hand (easier done for me as I am a left hander)
and the number pad with the right hand

My motivation for switching to Dvorak was to combat RSI and to prove that I
can change a habit of 20 years.

If you are a 2 finger typist, I don't recommend switching to Dvorak. If you
are switching for RSI, my experience is that it doesn't work. If you switch to
Dvorak, you might miss out on a cool technology for mobile phones called
Swype. Unless of course they have Dvorak support in the future.

------
abecedarius
On the iPad/iPhone, you can't get an on-screen Dvorak keyboard. People
petitioned for it years ago and it's just not happening.

~~~
henrikhansen
Actually you can. At least in iOS 4

~~~
rimantas
Looks like it is for hardware keyboard only, no? For on-screen you can choose
between qwerty, azerty and qwertz

------
ljlolel
Colemak is better for 3 reasons:

1\. It changes fewer keys so it's fas easier to learn. I picked it up in a few
hours.

2\. It changes fewer keys so I switch between Colemak and Qwerty regularly.

3\. It was designed after computers were invented. It keeps programming code
in mind. It also used computers to design the optimal layout to maximize
"finger-rolls" (really fast typing).

~~~
tomjen3
It depends, I won't argue with 1, but I change between Dvorak and Qwerty
constantly (I sometimes run a different layout for my IDE and one for my
laptop).

And I doubt there is a better layout for programming than programmers dvorak.

------
mtgred
I tried the Dvorak and Colemak keyboard layouts. The day I had to launch Vim
again I realized Qwerty was the way to go.

------
aplusbi
I've been thinking about switching to Colemak but the fact that I use Vim
daily has kept me from seriously considering it.

While I certainly can remap some keys in Vim, I'm not sure if that's such a
good idea in the long run. Some keys, such as h,j,k and l are no-brainers -
those should be remapped. But what about w, b and e? When I'm using those keys
it's all muscle memory, but should I really change w to y (word to yank)?

Do I want to spend my time learning a new keyboard layout AND relearning how
to use Vim? Ultimately I've decided that Qwerty is good enough for me. I don't
have RSI and I can type at a max speed of over 90 wpm (I probably average in
the 70s for "real world" typing).

~~~
carussell
I use Vim every day and don't remap.

 _Some keys, such as h,j,k and l are no-brainers - those should be remapped._

Not really. J and K remain side-by-side if you switch. H and L is also largely
the same: instead of reaching over for H on QWERTY, you reach up for L on
Dvorak; the left-to-right order of H and L is still correct, too. It even
unintentionally falls into the Dvorak Way, since up/down is under the left
hand, while left/right is under the right.

------
krummas
I switched to dvorak with a <http://typematrix.com> keyboard about 10 months
ago and not looking back, only drawback is that i cant type on the laptop
anymore. Having the enter and backspace keys in the middle of the keyboard is
truly the biggest benefit for me, hitting enter with a "strong" finger really
makes a difference.

The main reason i switched to dvorak was that i wanted a typematrix keyboard
and if i was relearning where the enter key etc is, i could as well switch to
dvorak.

It took about three months to be as fast as qwerty.

------
macrael
Regardless of whether Dvorak is better on physical keyboards, it is definitely
worse when it comes to soft keyboards, which are on the rise. I wrote about it
here: <http://macrael.com/blog/qwerty_rides_again.html> but the gist is that
since Dvorak puts frequently used characters next to one another, it makes it
more difficult to recognize different words' patterns (think swype) which is
what makes the autocorrect so good on today's phones.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Surely it's only a matter of time before someone takes the concept of the
iPhone keyboard or Swype and figures out a way to get improved input or error-
correction rates by throwing out the legacy QWERTY layout.

It's only with the introduction of the iPad that you can even type with all
your fingers anyway, and even then only in perfect conditions. Dvorak makes as
little sense as Qwerty for one finger pecking on a tiny phone, it's just that
people are used to using Qwerty in situations when it's non-optimal (i.e.
anything but mechanical typewriters that are susceptible to bar jams if two
nearby keys are hit quickly in succession).

Where's the one handed Dvorak keyboard for Android, or a chording keyboard
that uses multitouch? I don't want Dvorak, I want the same kind of ingenuity
and applied science as Dvorak used to create new solutions.

~~~
william42
Personally, I think touchscreen layouts should start making more commonly-used
keys bigger in accordance with <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts_law>

------
knodi
The other problem is that your control/alt/command + keystrokes become a
problem with Dvorak. So if your using VIM/EMac or another like editor you
going to not want to switch.

~~~
zck
I switched to Colemak last year, and I haven't had a problem with Emacs. But
then, to call 'forward-char, I think "C-f", not "Control-left hand index
finger home row". Having that extra layer of indirection in my head allowed me
to make the switch easily.

------
gchpaco
I had a wrist health scare in I guess early 2006 now; tendonitis instead of
carpal tunnel but the same sort of shooting pains. I changed a lot of things--
keyboard I typed on, wearing wrist braces, posture, but among other things I
switched to Dvorak. I think it is a important part of why I can type today
without pain; whenever I am forced to do QWERTY at length (which is admittedly
usually on poor keyboards) the pain starts to return.

------
Benjo
This article says they were able to find a copy of the original Navy study:

<http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html>

Was anyone able to find an online copy of the studies from Western Electric or
Oregon State University that the article referenced?

------
nanairo
I wonder: would a system like Apple's automatic corrections for iOS work worse
with Dvorak?

If Dvorak really makes travel time for your fingers shorter, wouldn't that
also make it harder for a predictive systems to cope with human's error?

(This is not a rhetorical or provocative question, but a serious question.)

~~~
powrtoch
The only issue I can imagine is that your mistakes might be more likely to
form real words. The way dvorak is set up so that the vowels are concentrated
means accidentally going one character to the left will probably result in
something intelligible looking, if not a real word ("beg"->"bag"), whereas in
qwerty you're likely to type gibberish ("beg"->"bwg"). Obviously it's easier
for auto-correct to notice gibberish than wrong words.

I see no reason that shorter travel time would impact it though.

~~~
nanairo
Yes, that's what I meant by short travel time. It would make it a lot harder
for auto-correct to understand what you were trying to type.

------
weego
Let's say for arguments sake I have been using qwerty for the last 23 years or
so, 15 or so touch typing. How much more efficient across my lifespan can
trying to teach myself a completely different layout really be? It could be
years before I clean out all the errors.

------
runjake
I use too many disparate keyboards (Dell, Apple, on-screen mobile keyboards,
physical keyboards, iPad keyboards) to even begin to bother. Also, I'm pleased
with my current typing speed, thank you.

To each their own, though.

------
stackthat
The biggest question has unanswered in this article

"What's the avg. switch time?"

When can I get back to my speed of QWERTY, 3 days, 1 month?

~~~
tome
I touched typed on Qwerty before learning Dvorak. It took me about 3 weeks to
get up to speed. It was extremely frustrating initially, but I'm delighted
with the results (ten years down the line).

------
ultrobast
I almost died when I had to use a Mac & all I got there was some unexpected
home key behaviour and the squiggle button.

------
magamiako
For those of us that are left-handed, dvorak is very cumbersome to use. It
_strongly_ prefers the right hand for typing, and if your dominant hand is the
other--dvorak feels really weird to type with.

Give me a dvorak, but favored for left-handed typers, and I could see it
improving my speed. Until then, I can break easily 120wpm in qwerty--I'm not
too concerned.

