Qwerty is a legacy layout

[oliverpolden]

I saw an old thread about Qwerty vs Dvorak and thought that now is a good time to revisit what with tablets becoming computers and third party keyboards available for them. Plus text input in VR, folding phones etc.

 

I've used Dvorak for about 17 years now and I can say it is vastly superior to Qwerty. I won't go into specifics but there are multiple reasons it's better and those reasons are easy enough to find online. But essentially, the reasons we use Qwerty are not relevant today, it's a legacy layout that is far from optimal.

 

I used to use a completely blank keyboard, but now I just settle for a physical Qwerty keyboard that is set to Dvorak.

 

It took me about two weeks to "learn" the layout, i.e. able to remember where all the keys are (punctuation is mostly the same, especially on number keys), then it took me another two weeks to get up to a reasonable speed. I think within two months I was up to speed or faster than qwerty.

 

I am glad I switched, but it can be a pain using other computers or devices where you can't change the layout although you're back to hunt and peck often anyway and I haven't lost that skill, plus I'm still able to use swipe keyboards.

 

There is Colemak which might be superior and variants of Dvorak e.g. for programming, or left and right single hands, it often depends what you use your keyboard for mostly, plus there are different physical layouts such as un-staggered keys. I prefer just using a standard Qwerty keyboard set to Dvorak so I can use any keyboard.

 

I would say it would be really nice to have split space bars. Where the each half is configurable so you could set for example backspace or delete on one half. We mostly use one thumb on the spacebar, so that's a whole other thumb that is redundant (try it!). I do however have Caps-Lock remapped to Backspace. That stretching your pinky all the way up to the top right is not good! I highly recommend changing just that. I think I use Karabiner elements (on MacOS) to do that, but Googling that should take you down the right path. There are ways to do it in Windows and Linux but I can't remember off the top of my head how to do it. Linux can usually do it out of the box and I think Windows needs you to change something in the registry. Oh and on that note, I have a Touch Bar, no physical escape key so I also remapped that Plus/Minus/Squiggly key to Escape. (I can't type it because it's remapped!).

 

Is it time to reconsider Qwerty? Can we get more functionality as standard out of the biggest key on the keyboard that only serves a single purpose? Do you care that you're using a less efficient and less healthy keyboard layout?

 

Linus tech tips did do a video a while ago, but I would love to see them do another, it's something we all use every day and take it for granted.

[Dedayog]

Well since people are now texting and typing roughly half the letters of words... we need to go back to the old 1 for ABC, 2 for DEF, etc. 

 

Seriously, if we can't even get people to try to spell words properly, why does the keyboard layout matter?

[Radium_Angel]

10 minutes ago, oliverpolden said:

Qwerty

Do you know why it was invented?

To keep typewriter keys from jamming against one another with fast typists.

Talk about legacy.

 

But it works for 99% of the population. So there's that...

[kelvinhall05]

Yes, yes, we know. And every time this argument is brought up, it gets shut down by the sheer amount of programs, games, etc that are designed for qwerty and qwerty alone. This makes me and pretty much all my keyboard friends stick with qwerty; not because it's good, but because it's by far the least hassle in terms of using a computer normally.

[kelvinhall05]

14 minutes ago, oliverpolden said:

I would say it would be really nice to have split space bars

It probably won't be standard any time soon but there are tons of keyboards with many bottom row keys. 

[oliverpolden]

7 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Yes, yes, we know. And every time this argument is brought up, it gets shut down by the sheer amount of programs, games, etc that are designed for qwerty and qwerty alone. This makes me and pretty much all my keyboard friends stick with qwerty; not because it's good, but because it's by far the least hassle in terms of using a computer normally.

Good point about programs and games, I have to say that has been a pain point of using Dvorak.

I'm aware there are all kinds of keyboards available with multiple keys for the thumbs but I think a split space bar is one thing that third party could reasonably put in an otherwise standard keyboard, even if the user just configures it to be space anyway. I'm thinking, what could reasonably become standard on a laptop keyboard or tablet case keyboard?

[kelvinhall05]

Just now, oliverpolden said:

Good point about programs and games, I have to say that has been a pain point of using Dvorak.

I'm aware there are all kinds of keyboards available with multiple keys for the thumbs but I think a split space bar is one thing that third party could reasonably put in an otherwise standard keyboard, even if the user just configures it to be space anyway. I'm thinking, what could reasonably become standard on a laptop keyboard or tablet case keyboard?

Well the problem with something as basic as a split spacebar, much less dvorak, colemak, other physical layout changes, etc, is that grandma who just wants a keyboard to type emails and play online bingo is gonna be confused as fuck when she has to hit backspace with her thumb. Plus, it's more expensive to produce (two keycaps, two more switches or rubber domes, etc).

 

Have you looked into a custom mech at all? You can have an all 1u bottom row if you really wanted...

[Radium_Angel]

7 minutes ago, oliverpolden said:

what could reasonably become standard on a laptop keyboard or tablet case keyboard?

 

I'd like to see this become a standard, lots of room for customization! 

[fred82]

26 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

 

I'd like to see this become a standard, lots of room for customization! 

so you could sleep on ur keeb .... anywhere ... in any position

no bad no bad

[oliverpolden]

1 hour ago, Radium_Angel said:

 

I'd like to see this become a standard, lots of room for customization! 

Wow, that's amazing. How many hands and fingers do they have?! Is that one big, very important "Enter/Return" key?!

[oliverpolden]

1 hour ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Well the problem with something as basic as a split spacebar, much less dvorak, colemak, other physical layout changes, etc, is that grandma who just wants a keyboard to type emails and play online bingo is gonna be confused as fuck when she has to hit backspace with her thumb. Plus, it's more expensive to produce (two keycaps, two more switches or rubber domes, etc).

 

Have you looked into a custom mech at all? You can have an all 1u bottom row if you really wanted...

Yes, as I said, I'm aware, although honestly I haven't looked recently. I've been in the industry for a while now and paid my dues for years with Linux, I'm not into that kind of customisation any more. I was once quite close to buying a Kinesis Advantage at one point. It's all about convenience for me now, which means no external keyboard, at least not when I'm away from home.

I'm more interested in small tweaks that could be done to a standard keyboard. To be fair, Dvorak, Caps lock remapped to backspace and the top left key remapped to Escape serves me very well (MacBook with Touch Bar). Having a split spacebar would mean the left side of my spacebar is no longer redundant.

 

Anyway, I started this topic to discuss what, if anything could be tweaked with standard keyboards that could become standard.

OLED/eInk/ePaper keycaps could be a nice standard, would help with games and applications, I know such keyboards also exist, but they're not standard.

[Radium_Angel]

40 minutes ago, oliverpolden said:

Wow, that's amazing. How many hands and fingers do they have?! Is that one big, very important "Enter/Return" key?!

I think it's a japanese keyboard with all their kanji, either way, pretty cool (or crazy, depending on your POV)

29 minutes ago, oliverpolden said:

Anyway, I started this topic to discuss what, if anything could be tweaked with standard keyboards that could become standard.

OLED/eInk/ePaper keycaps could be a nice standard, would help with games and applications, I know such keyboards also exist, but they're not standard.

Programmable keyboards tend to be very expensive

https://www.amazon.com/Optimus-Maximus-OLED-keyboard-white/dp/B0042FWNMW/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8#HLCXComparisonWidget_feature_div