Dvorak Basics
Origin
The history of keyboards goes as far back as the 19th century when the first typewriter appeared. Logically enough, it had the letters arranged in the alphabetical order. However, that was not a very good idea because the type bars jammed often. Then C. Scholes came up with a solution which name was QWERTY. There is much argument as to what the new layout was actually based on. Some even claim that for the marketing purposes the keys with the letters W, R, I, T, E were put in the upper row, so that salespeople could type this word fast. It can well be a made-up legend, however, no one tried to suggest any other basis for the particular letter layout in QWERTY. Obviously, because it just didn’t exist.
No wonder that in 1930s Dr. Augustus Dvorak came up with an alternative layout based on the frequency of the letters in the English language. It should have revolutionized the keyboard world but it didn’t. Let economists and politicians now argue why, but there is hardly a reason to use an obsolete keyboard with random letter layout when there is a clearly better one.
Modifications
The traditional Dvorak keyboard layout looks like this:
There are two more modifications for the left- and right-handers:
Any Dvorak layout can be easily installed in Windows without any special software.
The Principles of the Dvorak Layout:
- Vowels and consonants mainly belong to different hands.
- Common digraphs get the most comfortable position—home row and the same hand.
- Minimum jumping between top and bottom rows.
- The same-hand combinations roll from the outer fingers towards the middle of the keyboard.
- Comfortable typing of the most frequent combinations.
The Advantages of the Dvorak Layout
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Typing speed increase
This is not just an advertising trick. Suffice it to say that the fastest typist, Barbara Blackburn, the holder of the world typing record, switched to the Dvorak keyboard and showed the speed of 212 WPM. Many typists showed the same trend, not necessarily going as far as the world record.
It’s only fair to note that re-training takes some time and effort as well as consistent practice. However, if many people managed it, why not you?
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Typing accuracy potential
The Dvorak layout lets your hands alternate more often, hence the number of the occasional typos is reduced. Moreover, there is a big potential for accuracy improvement whereas accuracy with QWERTY typists usually reaches its limit and stops growing.
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Typist’s Comfort
The letters on the Dvorak keyboard are arranged in such a way that your fingers don’t have to travel too far from each other, so you waste less time than on QWERTY. After all, the Dvorak layout was invented as a result of detailed research specifically for the English language.
Your fingers are said to travel 15 times as little as on QWERTY. It is beneficial to your time saving and health as well. Your chances to earn professional typist’s diseases as RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) or Corporate Tunnel Syndrome lessen. Some claim that the consequences of these diseases can be successfully fought with switching to Dvorak.
After all, 60% of English typing is done on the home row of the Dvorak keyboard.
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Easy to learn from scratch
The logical organization of the keys on the Dvorak layout makes the process of learning faster and more effective. You immediately start typing real words instead of ASDF JKL; abracadabra.
Re-training, however, is much more difficult and takes a bit more time but it’s well possible. Only few people agree to switch back.
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