8 ms·

The Workman Keyboard Layout

194 points by weslly 13y ago

ryeon 13y ago
Frankly, I don't have the time or patience to re-learn the keyboard. I'll stick with QWERTY.
- quink 13y ago
  I've only ever been able to hunt and peck QWERTY, not having learned it through touch typing, nor did I ever pick it up. So when I learned Dvorak, through touch typing, it affected my QWERTY skills exactly not one bit. The only way in which my QWERTY skills are now bad is through attrition, but it's still no problem to accomplish a reasonable percentage of my previous speed. It just comes up pretty rarely that I have to type on QWERTY these days, and if I do for a few minutes it's no problem. It's as if the two are in completely different areas of my brain, and for anyone wanting to learn Dvorak, then this is a very easy way indeed.
kefka 13y ago
The problem with this keyboard and others (like Dvorak, Colemak) is nobody else uses them. I have one of those old indestructible IBM model M keyboards with removable keycaps. I love that keyboard. I decided I'd try to learn DVORAK and work with it regularly, so I did so. And I realized something: every time I'd work with a keyboard, I _will_ be working with QWERTY. There's no way I would request to an employer that I have a special keyboard just for me, or try to reconfigure software to support it. So I went back to QWERTY. May not be ideal but I know everyone supports it.
- jcoder 13y ago
  I've worked several programming jobs since switching to Dvorak, and it has never been an issue---it takes < 10 seconds to change the layout OS-wide. No need to request a special keyboard (and I leave my keycaps as QWERTY because I touch-type anyways).
  - SkyMarshal 13y ago
    Touch-typing is the key, if you have to look at the keys regularly then switching to a new layout will be an order of magnitude more difficult.
    - leif 13y ago
      I learned dvorak by printing out the layout and glancing over at the paper while typing back in high school. It took me about a month to get comfortable and I'm now basically a touch-typing bilinguist (though I'm slower at qwerty, it's more mental effort to do the conversion on the fly since my muscle memory is dvorak).
      - SkyMarshal 13y ago
        Nice learning hack.
      - read 13y ago
        I did the same thing! And I'm embarrassingly slower at qwerty now. The best part for me was when I first started having dvorak reflexes on a qwerty keyboard.
    - icambron 13y ago
      Agreed. I'll add that if you can't touch-type, your keyboard layout is the least of your problems. Take a few days off and learn.
- all2well 13y ago
  I'm relatively sure that every OS supports changing the keyboard layout without being root and for just one user, so unless your employer specifically disabled that, then that shouldn't be an issue. The point about the keycaps is valid, but ideally you shouldn't be looking at them anyways. Additionally, I learned Dvorak an a QWERTY labeled keyboard, and found that eventually I just associated the labels I saw with what I was actually typing.
- quink 13y ago
  > There's no way I would request to an employer that I have a special keyboard just for me Why not? > or try to reconfigure software to support it. Why not? If there's a much better alternative out there that can make you more productive - and Dvorak has been one of those things for me - your employer should be jumping up and down in joy at throwing however many $10 keyboards at you as you're asking for. There are also plenty of USB devices that convert between the two, or keyboards with hardware switches. Or, of course, in software. I use AutoHotkey, because keyboard layout switching in Windows is completely broken, and it works pretty well. If that's your excuse for not using Dvorak rather than anything else, you're doing both yourself and your employer a huge disservice, especially if you're going to take that attitude to other things.
- sneak 13y ago
  You don't need a special keyboard, or to change your keycaps. Keyboard layouts are for touch typists only. We're talking about software here.
keyle 13y ago
8 votes and "Error establishing a database connection"... I thought those days were over :(
- beefsack 13y ago
  Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.workmanlayout.com/blog/?p=21 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
- corresation 13y ago
  W3TC and all of these issues would be a thing of the past. That there are Wordpress sites that lack it or its analogues perplexes.
beefsack 13y ago
It's an impressively in depth and well reasoned analysis, and takes into account common bigrams which is something I'd never considered being important for keyboard layouts. I tried switching to Dvorak many moons ago, I'm feeling it may be time to have another crack at an alternative layout, both out of interest in improving efficiency and reducing strain.
adamnemecek 13y ago
Seems down, Google cache link http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SFeCVEfVPaoJ:www.workmanlayout.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SFeCVEf...
theboss 13y ago
I don't see what the point of changing your keyboard layout is. I don't know if QWERTY is even a good layout but what does it matter? Isn't the best keyboard layout the one you already know? Thinking about it now, I can't think of any common digraphs or trigraphs that are inconvenient to type on a qwerty keyboard. Don't fix what ain't broke.
- samspot 13y ago
  According to the article, the point is to ease the author's repetitive strain injury and tendonitis.
  - theboss 13y ago
    I also have RSI from years of piano, typing, and then (this is almost embarrassing to say) high level starcraft. Changing your keyboard layout isn't going to fix bad habits and the things you have to do to stay healthy (stretching, taking breaks, and strengthening).
    - ceautery 13y ago
      Good point. About 15 years ago I had the beginnings of RSI, and discovered the immense benefit of just getting up and walking around every now and then (good for the eyes, too). Also there are a few wrist/forearm massages that helped, basically I just squeezed wherever it felt necessary. I also changed my typing style to use my arms to slide my wrists around the keyboard a little rather than overextending fingers, and I rotated my hands inward about 30 degrees (maybe less, never measured it). I still keep about 60-ish WPM with this method, even at 42 years old. Anyway, I like the Workman layout a lot, especially that the common move for index fingers is down, and the common moves for middle and ring are up. Great thinking!
      - colanderman 13y ago
        I also changed my typing style to use my arms to slide my wrists around the keyboard a little rather than overextending fingers, and I rotated my hands inward about 30 degrees Yes, this. I've been typing this way my entire computing life (22 years) and have yet to develop symptoms of RSI from typing. (Note: I have developed RSI symptoms from mousing -- and relieved them by using a trackball.)
brentm 13y ago
The idea sounds interesting but it would likely turn into one of the greatest drains of my productivity of all time.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  Yeah, even if this has some average benefits, you only live once and that benefit has to be weight against the time it takes to learn it.
eksith 13y ago
One thing that struck me is that this layout is immediately intuitive. Unlike Dvorak and of course QWERTY or any other popular layout, I can already picture myself typing in it (of course I learned on QWERTY, so I wasn't in-tune with key familiarity before that). I can't explain why exactly, but this layout just makes sense. Can't wait to try this out.
msoad 13y ago
Situation for keyboard layout is even worse now that we have a lot of keyboards that we work with. For example I use these keyboards on daily life: - My laptop keyboard - My iPhone keyboard - My iPad keyboard - Car navigation keyboard - Keyboard on my Google TV remote control - Keyboard on copy machine at work It's somehow impossible to change all those keyboard layouts and if you change a few of them then you will be confused when typing.
- leif 13y ago
  It's reasonable to be a bilingual typist. I use dvorak on my personal and work computers, but qwerty for other people's computers and iphone/ipad. It's really not too bad.
- colbyaley 13y ago
  I originally thought this two. Trick: when typing QUERTY, look at your keyboard. Anything else, try to just look at the screen. Helps your brain differentiate layouts.
  - tsm 13y ago
    Please tell me you're a non-QWERTY user. It'd require specific concentration to mistype QWERTY otherwise...
- verisimilidude 13y ago
  At my desk, I use a Dvorak keyboard. However, I often need to rip my laptop away from my desk for meetings, emergencies, etc. When I'm typing on the laptop, I use Qwerty. It's not a problem at all. I don't need to think about it; my hands just do the right thing depending upon where I'm typing.
  - clarkm 13y ago
    It's good to hear that. Being afraid of forgetting how to touch type on a qwerty was one of the reasons I never made the plunge into alternative keyboard layouts. Though, now that I think about it, alternating between keyboard layouts is really no different than using a modal editor like vim -- after a while it just becomes second-nature.
6ren 13y ago
Optimize for Java? (it needs this more than other languages do). But, to be fair, typing is (or should be) a tiny fraction of your coding time. Even in Java.
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  Think of it this way: typing is a distraction from thinking, and minimizing it is a good thing. When I type much slower than I think, make mistakes or otherwise have to think about the keyboard, it pulls me out of flow.
deleted 13y ago
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- colanderman 13y ago
  Or learn QWERTY with your hands placed diagonally. I never learned how to type "properly", i.e. "home-row" typing: my hands rest naturally somewhere between the middle and upper row at maybe 30° angles from the vertical, and some keys I strike with either hand depending on the word (e.g. t/y g/h b/n). Yet I type faster than most people I know, and have had no RSI issues due to typing almost daily for 22 years. (I have had RSI issues due to using (gripping) a mouse; replacing the mouse with a trackball / no mouse eliminated this.) This "nontraditional" method of typing leaves my wrists straighter and reduces repetitive motion, to which I credit my fortunate freedom from RSI. The downside is that I am unable to use so-called "ergonomic" split keyboards, as my fingers are trained to work both sides of the keyboard. (And I say "ergonomic" in quotes, because while most "ergonomic" keyboards, such as the Kinesis, are designed to reduce movement, my personal experience is that ergonomics is all about making more varied movement.)
  - mharrison 13y ago
    Interesting. I have a split ergodox and switch to a laptop keyboard a bit. My fingers don't seem to mind the angle too much. Though it is crazy how keyboard layout has been status quo for nearly 100 years.
stormbrew 13y ago
I'd really like a keyboard layout optimized for phone usage, particularly with swype or predictive keyboard styles in mind. In particular I think you actually want to go the opposite direction of things like dvorak with such a keyboard because you want to make common motions distinct from each other. With swype, dvorak would leave most common words having a very similar motion profile. Qwerty is perhaps better, but I suspect non-optimal from how often I have to guide it.
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  While not exactly what you're looking for, on Android I've had a good experience with the MessagEase keyboard. The key idea is to have fewer, bigger buttons, and use swiping motions within those to distinguish other characters. Even after getting used to predictive typing, I quickly came to prefer the MessagEase keyboard, in part because I tend to type weird characters, which are much more bother with the regular keyboard. With all the times I would have to correct swype, I might be as fast or faster with MessagEase. Oh, it also has cursor movement built in.
  - stormbrew 13y ago
    Huh, that's pretty interesting. I have a bit of trouble getting out of swype mode (in my head) to use it, though.
  - tsm 13y ago
    Fellow MessagEase user here. It's absolutely fantastic. It's great at non-dictionary words and special characters (there's no need to press a magic option key to switch to the symbol set), as mentioned above. Two other things I like: a) It has built in arrow keys, perfect for going back to insert a skipped letter or similar. b) Typing errors occur at the character level, not the word level. And are hence easier to fix. (Or, if left unfixed, are usually still legible.) No damnyouautocorrect moments. Edit: I forgot to mention one of the most important parts: it's incredibly fast once you know what you're doing.
- jccalhoun 13y ago
  Back in the pre-iphone dark ages I used to use the fitaly keyboard on my handspring visor. http://www.fitaly.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm http://www.fitaly.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm I think ti could still be a good keyboard for phones but they seem to have died off and the layout is patented or something and so there don't seem to be any versions of it for android.
xtracto 13y ago
I like the statistics of the different writings he writes at the end, however I would have liked a comparision of the different layouts while writing different programming languages (C, Ruby, JavaScript, etc). I've seen two problems with alternative keyboard layouts: a) they are not done for programming (keys ~|!<>_-/"' are oddly laid out) or they are not made for international languages (Spanish in my case, for which ñ,á,é,í,ó,ú are difficult to find. Or worse yet (in case of Dvorak) when using an "international" version, the programming-related keys are horribly placed.
- mharrison 13y ago
  I had a programming layer on my ergodox, but due to some bugs in the firmware haven't bothered with it... Ideally (when I get time to fix it), I'll have a thumb key to hold down and get any programming symbol (optimized to Python for me) on or nearby the home row.
blowski 13y ago
An interesting read whenever the topic of keyboard layouts comes up: http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors Summary of that article: The 'QWERTY was developed to slow down the typist' story is a lie. There is no serious evidence that Dvorak is a 'better' layout. If you were starting from scratch, there would probably be no advantage choosing one over the other, except that QWERTY is the standard. Retraining is a waste of time. One of the key quotes: > The study design directly paralleled the decision that a real firm or a real government agency might face: Is it worthwhile to retrain its present typists? If Strong's study is correct, it is not efficient for current typists to switch to Dvorak. The study also implied that the eventual typing speed would be greater with QWERTY than with Dvorak, although this conclusion was not emphasized. I have no reason to believe that the Workman layout offers any other advantages.
- Afforess 13y ago
  In addition: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-lies-youve-been-told-about-the-origin-of-the-qwerty-keyboard/275537/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-li...
- fsck--off 13y ago
  Look at the HN thread about this article [1], specifically the top comment. Among other things, that study failed to take into account the "plateau effect" that occurs in all types of exercise regimens after several weeks of the same type of training. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438124
  - vidarh 13y ago
    (EDIT: Downvoting doesn't make the claims in the references comment any less wrong. How about arguing the point instead) I stopped taking that comment remotely seriously when it claimed: > As a matter of fact, it is a well known and well documented phenomenon in the literature that if you train at close to maximal capacity on the same training regimen for longer than 3 to 4 weeks, you will stop making gains. You'll see big increases the first 3 weeks, and after that, nothing. This is a nervous system effect. ... which most people who have done heavy weight lifting for example can tell you is at best wildly misleading, and at worst, pure, unadulterated bullshit. To flatten out after 3-4 weeks would take such extreme over-training, at stress levels way beyond what even most high level athletes would normally even able to achieve in training, that it is extremely unrealistic for most people to every experience it. Certainly not "just" by training at something until you feel you can't do any more. At that point most people are not anywhere near a real maximum. I don't lift to a "training" 1RM (maximum weight I can at any time lift once) every week, much less manage/try to stress myself into a real max. (the reason for distinguishing these, is that it is normal that you can lift up to 10% +/- more in high stress situations like competitions), so maybe what I do don't count in that guys eyes. But I exercise large compound lifts to near failure (that is, until I have good reason to think that I will be unable to complete the next repetition) every workout - 3-4 times a week. So I'll hit my training 5RM, 3RM, 1RM for the various lifts on consecutive weeks. They are reasonably interchangeable. If I feel good enough, I may go for a 1RM to try to set a new personal record even if it's not the "right week". And see slow but steady improvement for months on end before I shake anything up, and when I do change things, it is mainly for other reasons - some progressions may follow the same program for years. Changing too often does not help - it just confuses you tracking. Most people are far more likely to run into limitations due to form/technique failures or lack of flexibility that they need to fix than due to any CNS limitations. Gains do slow down as you get closer to your limits, and you certainly can over-train, but it takes a lot to over-train so badly that you stop seeing gains after 4 weeks even when you massively brutalise major muscle groups on a semi-daily basis. I can't even imagine what you'd need to do to overload your nervous system from typing in that short time-span.
srgpqt 13y ago
As a keyboard layout aficionado, I appreciate the thinking that went into this keyboard layout. I've been a fulltime dvorak user for over 10 years. I also tried Colemak but found that many motions felt awkward while using it. Anyways, I thought I'd give this one a try just for the hell of it. And... so far I am quite pleasantly surprised. I fully memorized the layout in about half an hour. It feels comfortable to type on, just like Dvorak does. Typed up this comment with the Workman-P layout, and seriously considering switching to it now...
Afforess 13y ago
>QWERTY was supposedly designed for typewriters to solve a very specific problem–to keep the types from jamming against each other. The most frequently used keys were placed apart from each other to prevent them from jamming. This results in a non-ergonomic layout. However, there are alternatives. Nope: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-lies-youve-been-told-about-the-origin-of-the-qwerty-keyboard/275537/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-li...
- mistercow 13y ago
  That paper presents a good case that the layout was influenced by feedback from telegraph operators, but it doesn't really do much to refute the idea that changes were also being made for the purpose of preventing jams. Obviously the claim that it was intended to slow typists down is unlikely. If the layout was rearranged in part to prevent jams, then it would have been rearranged so that nearby letters weren't hit in sequence. Without careful study of ergonomics, one wouldn't necessarily realize that that would slow a typist down. But it would probably prevent jams. I also found some of the claims made in the paper very odd. They claim that because "SE" and "Z" are easy to mistake in Morse code, that those letters were placed near each other. How this would be helpful eludes me.
  - deleted 13y ago
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- juliajuli45 13y ago
  my classmate's half-sister makes $72 every hour on the internet. She has been without a job for eight months but last month her payment was $16159 just working on the internet for a few hours.Here's the site to read more...... ------------------->http://www.works23.com http://www.works23.com
- vanderZwan 13y ago
  Although it's great that you shared this article so more people know about the history of QWERTY, I don't think it should be the top voted comment; what QWERTY was or wasn't designed for is interesting, but what matters is what it is like to use it in practice now. I am more interested in a discussion about whether or not this Workman layout works as advertised and is worth the effort of switching to.
barrkel 13y ago
I realized [my fingers] were moving too much laterally [...] Just ask yourself, how often do you type ‘the’, ‘these’, ‘them’, ‘when’, and ‘where’, etc. on a day-to-day basis? All of these words are typed in Dvorak without any lateral finger movement, and only two letters outside the home eight. 'ls' is, however, awkward to type. That's why I alias it with 'd'; problem solved. It is much more efficient to ride the momentum of a single arm or wrist stroke and type a combo rather than just one key. This is not my experience: An example of this is the word OPERATION. If you were to type this in Dvorak, you could type it as o-pe-r-a-t-io-n where each grouping is a hand stroke–a total of 7 hand strokes. The letters 'pe' are the slowest typed for me when typing 'operation'. I strongly prefer alternation, as the finger on the opposite hand can be lined up on the upcoming key just as the current key is being typed. Having to move the hand around for keys that are on one side slows things down.
mharrison 13y ago
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the norman layout here. I consider it to be an improvement over colmak and workman. Using it on my ergodox (and I know another relatively prominent geek doing the same), and really enjoying it. https://normanlayout.info/ https://normanlayout.info/
pm 13y ago
Best part is that now you can play FPSs using the mouse and DASH keys.
WalterSear 13y ago
The novel analyses were nice, but seeing various programming languages analyzed would be even cooler.
4dl0v3-p34c3 13y ago
I am surprised no one has talked about the QGMLWY Layout, or the fully English optimized QFMLWY layout?: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization Take not of the script you can download to pipe your scripts to, and learn what is the best layout you actually need: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?requirements http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?requirements Here's a list of them: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Keyboard_layouts http://deskthority.net/wiki/Keyboard_layouts There was another that was truly optimized for use Coders, that is not Dvorak based. It had the Option key (⌥) as part of its modifiers. I assume it was called something like the coders layout? I don't recall. If any one can recall it, that would be awesome.
- V-2 13y ago
  I used it for some time and I quite liked it, more than Colemak. I was reaching 80-90 wpm (I'm about 140-150 wpm on QWERTY). However English is not my native language and since QGMLWY is optimized for English, it wasn't a viable alternative for me in long run. Interestingly, even though I quit typing on QGMLWY long ago, when I occassionally switch to that layout (I still have it installed), I'm able to type on it. Muscular memory dies hard. I do make typos, but I feel that if I returned to practice, I'd pick it up again quickly.
ricardobeat 13y ago
The Norman layout [1] beats Workman at it's own metrics (or so it says on the tin), and from brief experimentation makes more sense to me. I've always wanted to try an alternate layout, and this post led me to find minimak [2]. I'm typing with it right now and really enjoying the similarity to qwerty (only 4 keys changed) with reduced movement, plus 99% of my shortcuts remain the same. [1] http://normanlayout.info http://normanlayout.info [2] http://minimak.org http://minimak.org
- eertami 13y ago
  I'm tempted to try out minimak. My only concern is that... do the numbers that get thrown around about percentage improvement only apply to touch typists? I've never been strict enough with myself to learn touch typing (I still hit 120WPM so speed isn't an issue) and worry that the benefit won't be as obvious.
  - ricardobeat 13y ago
    I think the numbers given are relative to total effort|movement, not speed, so it applies to anyone, but touch-typing should give you less strain.
    - deekayen 13y ago
      The metric I lean on the most is the one published by Andong at http://www.andong.co.uk/dvorak/Default.aspx http://www.andong.co.uk/dvorak/Default.aspx. I guess that's odd since I spent the least amount of time talking about it and put it at the bottom of the page. It is focused on metrics of efficiency and effort. If you wanted speed, you might want to look at things like finger distance and home row usage more closely, in which case Arensito or Colemak might have an edge.
- deekayen 13y ago
  I must confess, since I swapped R and H in revision 2, Workman usually gets the edge on Norman using Workman metrics, depending on the input text. I guess I'll hunt down whatever text revisions are appropriate on normanlayout.info.
mistercow 13y ago
I feel like improvements over Colemak are going to be pretty incremental at this point. In this case, there's a pretty big trade-off on leaving home row for the sake of not reaching for the H. What I'd like to see is some proper innovation like good programmer-usable chorded layouts that work with existing inexpensive hardware (I don't mind buying a good non-ghosting keyboard, but I don't want to pony up a few grand for a Velotype).
- xiaomai 13y ago
  have you seen plover? (http://plover.stenoknight.com/ http://plover.stenoknight.com/)
  - innino 13y ago
    Never heard of special stenographic keyboards or typing techniques before.
  - innino 13y ago
    Never heard of special stenographic keyboards or typing techniques before.
  - mistercow 13y ago
    Yeah. It's a good start, but steno feels pretty kludgy to me, and a ton of work needs to be done to make it usable for programming.
jswanson 13y ago
Switched to Dvorak after plateau-ing in typing speed and experiencing pain in my hands and wrist. Helped immediately, but what also hleped almost as much was: - Aliases for frequent shell commands - Remapping 'caps lock' to 'control' (on US keyboards)
koloron 13y ago
I'm a happy user of the Neo layout. It's very different from QWERTY (or rather German QWERTZ) but optimised for English and German bi- and trigrams as well as programming. Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo Or take a good look at its multilevel layout here: http://neo-layout.org/ http://neo-layout.org/ ("Ebene 3" is especially interesting for programmers…)
borplk 13y ago
I'd love to learn something like this but my problem is that I'm scared I'll disable myself from being able to use a regular QWERTY keyboard without looking like an idiot. Changing keyboard layout of library or university computers or basically any other computer than your own comes with a lot of trouble.
- aunty_helen 13y ago
  Colemak user here. Yes it will slow you down when using QWERTY but if you are using both daily it is barely noticeable.
- JamesNelson 13y ago
  I've been using Colemak for a couple years now - but instead of learning it with my laptop's keyboard, I learnt it with a new Kinesis Advantage Pro. I now find that if I'm using a standard keyboard, I can type qwerty without much more difficulty before, but if I'm using the Kinesis, I have no trouble touch typing Colemak. My guess is that the massive difference in the actual keyboards stops my brain from getting confused.
msluyter 13y ago
I used to use dvorak, but ironically, I switched to querty because I was having RSI issues and I reverted to two finger hunt and peck for a while (not a fun time). Now that things are better I've considered going back, but the sticking point for me is ctrl-c/ctrl-v. These were always awkward for me under Dvorak, and at the time almost impossible to remap. This has perhaps inspired me to give colemak (which retains the usual c/v positions) a shot.
- fusiongyro 13y ago
  Can't speak for other OSes but Mac OS X has a Dvorak layout that switches to Qwerty for hotkeys. I leaned on this pretty heavily when I first switched to Dvorak.
bbx 13y ago
On a sidenote, I never found out why French keyboards switched both the Q and W keys to turn it into AZERTY (and why the M was moved next to the L).
skriticos2 13y ago
I'm typing Dvorak since almost ten years now and from what I remember it's damn hard to re-learn the layout (was touch typing QWERTZ before). The hard part in not even the initial memorization of the keys, but the old reflexes that kick in once you stop actively focusing on each key and let your subconscious take over. I did not regret my decision (far from it), as Dvorak is indeed nice to type and quite readily available out of the box. Normally you don't get much benefit from switching layouts though. Especially as developer. As an author or someone who is writing prolonged texts in plain English, yes it's definitely an advantage. Yes, it's also more fun to type. But really, QWERTY is good enough in most cases. You don't really need to bother.
- gcb0 13y ago
  100% of alternative layout users i know are developers. 100% of the layouts still treat symbols as second class citizens. my typing would vastly improve if a keyboard simply added another row for symbols so they are one key press only. changing layouts only help in a few cases and turns using somebodyelses computer or a phone or a tablet or a virtual keyboard or remote vim sessions, etc a royal pain in the ass, because they will be qwerty.
  - seferphier 13y ago
    I think the best way is to have a custom keyboard. Google ErgoDox, you can program your own keys to suit your needs
  - eCa 13y ago
    I'm seriously considering remapping the number row so that tve symbols are first class. I think that would bring the greatest cost/benefit ratio.
  - koloron 13y ago
    Symbols are in the same class as uppercase letters in the Neo layout. They are easily accessible by pressing the caps lock key. Hover your mouse over "Ebene 3" here: http://neo-layout.org/ http://neo-layout.org/
  - deleted 13y ago
sneak 13y ago
The "all books combined" distance figure for the qwerty layout seems wrong.
gcb0 13y ago
typical faster horses solutions. sadly all alternative keyboard solutions are spoiled by riding the health bandwagon and are utter crap. and the ones that aren't turn out to be so expensive they die (datahand) or get bought out and turned in non keyboard replacement products (fingerworks)
fractallyte 13y ago
From the article: 'However, I believe that the way that alternative layouts focus on just the home row for optimization is somewhat misguided. We should optimize the keys inside the hand’s natural range of motion and not just strictly the home row.' While alternative layouts strive to make typing easier, they invariably come up against the constraints of a grid-based key placement. Using a genuine 'anatomic'/'ergonomic' placement would put reset the whole layout argument: how to optimize for a given language, with human-friendly placement of keys (say, using the Kinesis Advantage keyboard or equivalent). Now that would be an interesting experiment in layouts! (Would there even be a home row?) And, BTW, I've 'forked' my usual Dvorak layout to make it easier for Lisp programming. We (particularly Linux users) tweak our window managers and screen accessories to individual perfection; why not our keyboard layouts too?
merty 13y ago
What about tracking everything you type for a month to see which letters you use the most as well as their frequency and then generating a keyboard layout that will actually work for you? These keyboard layout wars seem just too subjective to me.
PLejeck 13y ago
I love the idea of alternative keyboards, and I spent a few months trying to learn Dvorak, but no matter what I stop because it screws all my keyboard shortcuts. OSX's "Cmd Qwerty" feature was nice, but didn't help in Inkscape (since it uses Ctrl) or Vim. I wish the Programmer's Layout of this would take HJKL into account at least. That's and :wq being a nice "roll" down the top left of my keyboard are what keep me on QWERTY.
- chowwesley 13y ago
  I use the cmd qwerty mode and program just fine. In terms of vim, I actually like it a lot more. j and k are typed with the left hand (coincidentally j is still on the left side - same as qwerty). The right hand does h and l (again, h is on the left side and maps to going left). On the other hand, Eclipse is super annoying because it seems half the bindings are cmd qwerty and half are dvorak but that's another issue. I've started using Vrapper to get vim bindings in eclipse and that seems to be working out okay so far.
alexandros 13y ago
Can't access the article due to database error, but since we're discussing keyboard layout effectiveness for developers: If we were indeed limited by input, why wouldn't this come up in discussions about languages like CoffeeScript (or even Python/APL) that save keystrokes to begin with? In the case of Coffee and Python, the keys saved are actually the hard-to-press symbols as well. And yet I've never heard the point come up. Perhaps this is more about our need to feel superior by adopting a routine of cargo-cult efficiency than anything else. In the broader view of productivity, optimising keyboard layouts is more like optimising memcpy() in C. While it may bear some results, it's rarely the actual bottleneck.
- vanderZwan 13y ago
  > since we're discussing keyboard layout effectiveness for developers. We're not, at least not in the way you think. > In the broader view of productivity, optimising keyboard layouts is more like optimising memcpy() in C. While it may bear some results, it's rarely the actual bottleneck. This article is a solution developed by a someone in response to his own RSI problem, optimised for writing English with minimal strain, and presumably tested based on "how much do my arms hurt." So it's a solution/optimisation to a different problem altogether (which may or may not be relevant to you.)
- lelf 13y ago
  Personally, I wonder why there's not many discussions about hacker's keyboard layout. Where at least ()+-=. are dedicated keys
deckiedan 13y ago
I've been typing on Workman layout for almost 2 months. I've not been very disciplined about doing practice every day. I'm only using it on my Microsoft Natural 4000 ergonomic keyboard, and still using a regular QWERTY bog-standard-dell keyboard at work, which means I can still type pretty effectively on colleagues' computers. I quite like it. It does seem to make a lot of sense. Switching back and forth between a normal QWERTY board and Workman-on-a-special-board takes at most one sentence of brain-mush, but then it's fine. The thing which slows me down the most I think is programming in VIM. I'm not going to remap anything, as all the commands I think of as sentences (c)hange-(i)nside-(t)ag, (d)elete-(t)il, etc. And there's a lot of muscle memory to overcome. Also with sh commands. Still, I do like it. One of the reasons I decided to go for Workman rather than one of the alternatives is that the whole column-layout for physical keyboards seems like a better design in general, so one day, if I can afford it, I will try and get one. I have been really struggling with RSI for a years now, so along with changing layout, I'm also trying to take more breaks, sit with a better posture, etc. It does seem to be helping. After 2 months of very irregular typing on it, this also being my first time doing 'formal' touch typing, I'm around 50wpm typing normal prose, which still feels a bit slow to me, but I am improving.
TerraHertz 13y ago
Although I completely agree that QWERTY is poor and Workman looks like a very good system, I'm in my late 50s and think it would be a painfully slow process to get used to a different key layout. And I don't seem to get RSI. But what does really steam me about keyboards in general, is the numeric keypad. I'm right handed, so the mouse sits to the right of the keyboard. And of course the mouse gets used a lot. Which means my right hand is always swinging back and forth from RH keyboard home and the mouse. Now it happens that I _never_ use the numeric keypad. Never have to enter large blocks of numeric data, and so am quite happy using the numeric top row. Used to it that way, and don't see anything wrong with it. So to reach the mouse I'm moving much further than I should have to, across the wasted space of the numeric keypad. Also if desk space is a bit tight I keep hitting the mouse on the RH side of the keyboard - again because of that extra length to the right. It's a workspace centering thing too - the main area of the keyboard should sit on the centerline of the screen, to avoid small but persistent twisting of the spine and neck. But then the keyboard R end sticks way out, and the mouse movement field gets pushed further to the right. It's been bugging me increasingly for years. I've found a few 'small' format keyboards without the numeric pad, but the designers always go overboard and think that 'small' means everything on the keyboard ought to be small - smaller keys, thin base therefore short key travel and terrible touch feedback, flat keytops (another pet hate - you get no tactile feeling of centering, and so have to keep watching your fingers type), compressed layouts of the existing keys (arrrgh!), and so on. What I really, really want, is something like an old klunky and reliable IBM (like I'm typing on now) but with no numeric pad. No other change. I'd long ago have simply taken a hacksaw to a standard keyboard and cut the numeric pad off, except guess where the controller IC _always_ is in keyboards? Right above the numeric keypad, of course. It's so annoying! Why does no one, that I've ever been able to find, make a full size, heavy, long-key-travel, concave key-tops, easy-typing, standard layout (or Workman layout!) keyboard without that stupid numeric keypad? In these days of USB it's especially dumb, since if someone really wanted a keypad as well they could just buy a separate keypad and plug it into a USB port. There's NO reason why it must be included in every damned keyboard in existence. If anyone knows of such a thing for sale, I'd very much like to hear it. I'd buy several.
- xiaomai 13y ago
  Many mechanical keyboards have a no number pad option. Two off the top of my head are: http://codekeyboards.com/ http://codekeyboards.com/ (currently sold out, so you would have to wait a bit), and the Happy Hacking Keyboard (http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Hacking-Keyboard-Professional2-Black/dp/B000EXZ0VC http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Hacking-Keyboard-Professional2-B...).
jarek-foksa 13y ago
If you are going to learn Workman layout, check my app Type Fu: http://type-fu.com http://type-fu.com. It has full support for Dvorak and Colemak layouts as well.
RWeaver 13y ago
It sounds like all of these layouts are just people taking guesses and reporting on their anecdotal experience. Has anyone ever tried determining a fitness function (travel distance, priority finger use, sequential characters on nearby fingers) and running random layouts through a genetic algorithm? For sample data use english, romance languages, open source code, etc, for a good general purpose layout. If you're going to relearn a layout it might as well be the optimum one.
- PLejeck 13y ago
  I think there were some people trying to apply machine learning and genetic algorithms to it.
- deckiedan 13y ago
  Did you actually read the OP? He actually did do quite a lot of research of exactly this. Also you should check out the carpalx project. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?
  - RWeaver 13y ago
    Thanks for the link. He definitely did quite a good job with the fitness function (bigrams, finger priority, etc), I just didn't see quite how he came up with the workman layout specifically. If he manually evaluated a few layouts and made tweaks, then surely there is further optimisation to be done for any given body of text. For something as central as a keyboard layout it seems like even those small gains could have huge effects.
- deekayen 13y ago
  It's not just guessing. The Carpalx does have algorithms for scoring various characteristics like finger bigrams, finger travel, and outputs the optimal results based on scores for key presses and bigrams, etc.
raimue 13y ago
The QWERTY layout has been around for so long that it is difficult to just change to something else. People are used to the well-known keyboard interface to the computer/smartphone/tablet/... and actually expect it that way, no matter how inefficient it may be. Of course, you may switch personally to an alternative layout, but the overall design used by everyone else will not change. It's just a burden for yourself to be able to type two different layouts with comparable speed as you cannot change the layout everywhere you use computers.
rjzzleep 13y ago
as a dvorak user i find his measurements very interesting. has anyone noticed that while the distance traveled in dvorak is higher than both other alternatives, it alternates hands much more frequently (23% vs. 31%+ same hand frequency), and moves towards the top row more frequently than to the bottom one. I don't know about you but for me it's easier to extend my fingers top than it is to flex them towards the bottom row. there is also less time spent on the number row, but repetitions with the same finger are more likely. i still think there ought to be a better way to deal with special characters than shift keys
- vanderZwan 13y ago
  > i still think there ought to be a better way to deal with special characters than shift keys https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541910 (make the number keys hide under the shift keys, as they are used much less frequently)
reirob 13y ago
I am really happy and thankful for people working on improving the keyboard usage. I knew about Dvorak and Colemak but it's the first time I am discovering the workman layout. The author went to a length of analysis and effort to come up with this layout - including trying dvorak and colemak - the end of that page contains many comparisons between qwerty, dvorak, colemak and workman. As well by reading this article I learned about the TypeMatrix keyboards [1] - I must say I am very intrigued by this idea - I would definitely order one if it contained a good trackpoint. I myself learned touch typing first QWERTZ (German layout), then after moving to France had to learn AZERTY (the worst layout ever, especially for programmers). In the end because I had to travel and work on keyboards in different countries a lot - I decided to learn QWERTY US International, I configured it with AltGr Dead-Keys and now I am able to use the same layout where ever I go (even Russia and CIS countries) and on my computer I have all the accents for French, German and Turkish. So yes, I know it is not optimal for the Finger usage, but I need a keyboard layout that (a) is available on ALL stock computers, (b) on my computer can be enhanced to allow writing ALL the accents of European languages by using key-combinations. I think alternative keyboard layout researches should take into account international usage. But this is just my opinion. [1] http://www.typematrix.com/ http://www.typematrix.com/
- Codas 13y ago
  You might also want to take a look at the ergodox: http://ergodox.org/ http://ergodox.org/ It's not so easy to buy as its just a DIY project. Massdrop organizes some group buys [1], next one should be due anytime this year. [1] https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ergodox https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ergodox unfortunately, requires an account even to see the offers
  - lake99 13y ago
    Thanks for the pointer for ergodox. For those who did not want to sign up for Massdrop just to check the prices, this is what it says at the moment: This group buy is no longer available! We can remind you when the group buys is back on: Requested! 1027 users requested this product
- eru 13y ago
kybernetyk 13y ago
The statistics comparisons of classical texts (Moby Dick, etc) typed with each layout are pretty interesting. Though they are much irrelevant to me. Could you please run the linux kernel sources through that statistics application?
infinity0 13y ago
As well as the "typing out a novel" tests, he should also do a "typing out the Linux kernel" test.
mlu 13y ago
I don't get the point why someone would learn a new keyboard layout. - It is very hard to learn since muscle memory is very difficult to change. - I think it would take me a while to be as fast as on my current layout QWERT[ZY]. - I see no real advantage for learning a new keyboard layout. None of my friends and coworkers ever complained about keyboard layout and the urge to change it. - When you want to get things done, learning a new layout would be the last thing you want. - You may not have your new keyboard layout available at different workplaces. So I think this is just a hipster thing. Prove me wrong :)
- stinos 13y ago
  I'm not convinced either, but your arguments basically are: I don't get it, it's hard, and I don't know anybody doing it. If you read it like this, you should see such arguments don't make much sense :]
- to3m 13y ago
  The most serious problem with learning a different keyboard layout for hipstering purposes is not only that it requires a certain degree of effort, but that nobody can tell you've done it unless you tell them. Which you absolutely never must. Because you'll never hear the end of it. As this thread is demonstrating amply.
- joemccall86 13y ago
  I don't get the point why someone would learn to ride a motorcycle. - It is very hard to learn since your muscles are trained for driving a car - I think it would take me a while to be as confident as in my current Monte Carlo LS - I see no real advantage for learning a new automobile. None of my friends and coworkers ever complained about driving a car and the urge to change it. - When you want to get from point A to point B, learning a new vehicle would be the last thing you want. - You may not have a motorcycle available at different car rental places when you travel Didn't really prove you wrong, and maybe I am a hipster :-) I found it enjoyable learning a new layout. Maybe it was just for the sake of trying something new. My productivity didn't suffer since I never really abandoned QWERTY. I didn't utilize colemak in my work until I was relatively fluent. Learning workman might be an interesting weekend excursion, but I have no plans to use it for work until I'm fluent, if it is as fun to type on as colemak.
dontmakemelaugh 13y ago
I switched to Dvorak a few months ago. It's much better than I expected. The switch was painful and it took like 3 months to get fast enough. Compared to Qwerty writing Dvorak is so much easier on the hands. I would say the strain is reduced by 50% at least and it's potentially faster to type (less movement, less way). I will never switch back to Qwerty unless someone forces me to do so.
NAFV_P 13y ago
Would a multi-layout keyboard be possible?
gkya 13y ago
Just started using this and can say that it is awesome. I used to use Turkish Q keyboard previously, because it is the layout of my laptop; albeit I write in English primarily, and have already reached ~5 wpm, in fifteen minutes. I strongly suggest giving it a try.
programminggeek 13y ago
Keyboard layouts are a fun topic to be sure, and retraining your brain to use a different one is an awesome adventure. Where it always falls down for me is the whole experience of switching machines. It is just a massive fail when I need to remap my brain back and forth like that. I enjoyed learing Colemak and I would probably enjoy Workman, but it isn't the most practical thing for me to do long term. Also, a lot of the keybinds in vim or emacs are designed around certain ergonomics and being efficient in an editor is often a more useful thing for me than being efficient when I am typing.
DavidWanjiru 13y ago
Maybe what really needs to happen is for someone to make a "software keys" keyboard, where the characters are not imprinted on the keyboard, but are displayed on the keys instead. That way when you change stuff around, as is variously suggested here, WYS remains WYG, as it were. Rad or dud?
hrktb 13y ago
I like the research that went into all this before deciding on the layout. I don't think it would fit many people's use pattern, instead anyone seriously typing for a living could take the same approach and come out with a personalized layout. Now, if only it could be easier to remap a set of devices keyboard with an arbitrary layout. That's a kind of pet peeve, but if you are a programmer, depending of the language you use the most at a given time, the most used keywords and special characters won't be the same (i.e optimizing for lisp or perl would make wildly different layouts). For people also speaking non english languages, the most used letters won't be the same depending of the language as well. To try to come out with a new layout supposed to be efficient for everyone is a fool's errand.
jgillman 13y ago
The Workman layout sounds interesting, though I don't have the brain-cycles to try switching. The Shift + Capslock = Escape seemed interesting though (especially for a vim user). If you want to use it with KeyRemap4MacBook this should save you a bit of time: <item> <name>Change Shift + Capslock to Esc</name> <identifier>private.shift_and_capslock_to_esc</identifier> <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::CONTROL_L, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::ESCAPE</autogen> <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L, KeyCode::ESCAPE</autogen> </item>
latraveler 13y ago
Thats an interesting idea. I'm sure the QWERTY could be improved but it would be tough trying to switch back and forth until it was fully adopted.

194 points by weslly 13y ago

ryeon 13y ago

Frankly, I don't have the time or patience to re-learn the keyboard. I'll stick with QWERTY.

quink 13y ago
I've only ever been able to hunt and peck QWERTY, not having learned it through touch typing, nor did I ever pick it up. So when I learned Dvorak, through touch typing, it affected my QWERTY skills exactly not one bit. The only way in which my QWERTY skills are now bad is through attrition, but it's still no problem to accomplish a reasonable percentage of my previous speed. It just comes up pretty rarely that I have to type on QWERTY these days, and if I do for a few minutes it's no problem. It's as if the two are in completely different areas of my brain, and for anyone wanting to learn Dvorak, then this is a very easy way indeed.

kefka 13y ago

The problem with this keyboard and others (like Dvorak, Colemak) is nobody else uses them. I have one of those old indestructible IBM model M keyboards with removable keycaps. I love that keyboard. I decided I'd try to learn DVORAK and work with it regularly, so I did so. And I realized something: every time I'd work with a keyboard, I _will_ be working with QWERTY. There's no way I would request to an employer that I have a special keyboard just for me, or try to reconfigure software to support it. So I went back to QWERTY. May not be ideal but I know everyone supports it.

jcoder 13y ago
I've worked several programming jobs since switching to Dvorak, and it has never been an issue---it takes < 10 seconds to change the layout OS-wide. No need to request a special keyboard (and I leave my keycaps as QWERTY because I touch-type anyways).
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  Touch-typing is the key, if you have to look at the keys regularly then switching to a new layout will be an order of magnitude more difficult.
  - leif 13y ago
    I learned dvorak by printing out the layout and glancing over at the paper while typing back in high school. It took me about a month to get comfortable and I'm now basically a touch-typing bilinguist (though I'm slower at qwerty, it's more mental effort to do the conversion on the fly since my muscle memory is dvorak).
    - SkyMarshal 13y ago
      Nice learning hack.
    - read 13y ago
      I did the same thing! And I'm embarrassingly slower at qwerty now. The best part for me was when I first started having dvorak reflexes on a qwerty keyboard.
  - icambron 13y ago
    Agreed. I'll add that if you can't touch-type, your keyboard layout is the least of your problems. Take a few days off and learn.
all2well 13y ago
I'm relatively sure that every OS supports changing the keyboard layout without being root and for just one user, so unless your employer specifically disabled that, then that shouldn't be an issue. The point about the keycaps is valid, but ideally you shouldn't be looking at them anyways. Additionally, I learned Dvorak an a QWERTY labeled keyboard, and found that eventually I just associated the labels I saw with what I was actually typing.
quink 13y ago
> There's no way I would request to an employer that I have a special keyboard just for me Why not? > or try to reconfigure software to support it. Why not? If there's a much better alternative out there that can make you more productive - and Dvorak has been one of those things for me - your employer should be jumping up and down in joy at throwing however many $10 keyboards at you as you're asking for. There are also plenty of USB devices that convert between the two, or keyboards with hardware switches. Or, of course, in software. I use AutoHotkey, because keyboard layout switching in Windows is completely broken, and it works pretty well. If that's your excuse for not using Dvorak rather than anything else, you're doing both yourself and your employer a huge disservice, especially if you're going to take that attitude to other things.
sneak 13y ago
You don't need a special keyboard, or to change your keycaps. Keyboard layouts are for touch typists only. We're talking about software here.

keyle 13y ago

8 votes and "Error establishing a database connection"... I thought those days were over :(

beefsack 13y ago
Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.workmanlayout.com/blog/?p=21 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
corresation 13y ago
W3TC and all of these issues would be a thing of the past. That there are Wordpress sites that lack it or its analogues perplexes.

beefsack 13y ago

It's an impressively in depth and well reasoned analysis, and takes into account common bigrams which is something I'd never considered being important for keyboard layouts. I tried switching to Dvorak many moons ago, I'm feeling it may be time to have another crack at an alternative layout, both out of interest in improving efficiency and reducing strain.

adamnemecek 13y ago

Seems down, Google cache link http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SFeCVEfVPaoJ:www.workmanlayout.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SFeCVEf...

theboss 13y ago

I don't see what the point of changing your keyboard layout is. I don't know if QWERTY is even a good layout but what does it matter? Isn't the best keyboard layout the one you already know? Thinking about it now, I can't think of any common digraphs or trigraphs that are inconvenient to type on a qwerty keyboard. Don't fix what ain't broke.

samspot 13y ago
According to the article, the point is to ease the author's repetitive strain injury and tendonitis.
- theboss 13y ago
  I also have RSI from years of piano, typing, and then (this is almost embarrassing to say) high level starcraft. Changing your keyboard layout isn't going to fix bad habits and the things you have to do to stay healthy (stretching, taking breaks, and strengthening).
  - ceautery 13y ago
    Good point. About 15 years ago I had the beginnings of RSI, and discovered the immense benefit of just getting up and walking around every now and then (good for the eyes, too). Also there are a few wrist/forearm massages that helped, basically I just squeezed wherever it felt necessary. I also changed my typing style to use my arms to slide my wrists around the keyboard a little rather than overextending fingers, and I rotated my hands inward about 30 degrees (maybe less, never measured it). I still keep about 60-ish WPM with this method, even at 42 years old. Anyway, I like the Workman layout a lot, especially that the common move for index fingers is down, and the common moves for middle and ring are up. Great thinking!
    - colanderman 13y ago
      I also changed my typing style to use my arms to slide my wrists around the keyboard a little rather than overextending fingers, and I rotated my hands inward about 30 degrees Yes, this. I've been typing this way my entire computing life (22 years) and have yet to develop symptoms of RSI from typing. (Note: I have developed RSI symptoms from mousing -- and relieved them by using a trackball.)

brentm 13y ago

The idea sounds interesting but it would likely turn into one of the greatest drains of my productivity of all time.

thrownaway2424 13y ago
Yeah, even if this has some average benefits, you only live once and that benefit has to be weight against the time it takes to learn it.

eksith 13y ago

One thing that struck me is that this layout is immediately intuitive. Unlike Dvorak and of course QWERTY or any other popular layout, I can already picture myself typing in it (of course I learned on QWERTY, so I wasn't in-tune with key familiarity before that). I can't explain why exactly, but this layout just makes sense. Can't wait to try this out.

msoad 13y ago

Situation for keyboard layout is even worse now that we have a lot of keyboards that we work with. For example I use these keyboards on daily life: - My laptop keyboard - My iPhone keyboard - My iPad keyboard - Car navigation keyboard - Keyboard on my Google TV remote control - Keyboard on copy machine at work It's somehow impossible to change all those keyboard layouts and if you change a few of them then you will be confused when typing.

leif 13y ago
It's reasonable to be a bilingual typist. I use dvorak on my personal and work computers, but qwerty for other people's computers and iphone/ipad. It's really not too bad.
colbyaley 13y ago
I originally thought this two. Trick: when typing QUERTY, look at your keyboard. Anything else, try to just look at the screen. Helps your brain differentiate layouts.
- tsm 13y ago
  Please tell me you're a non-QWERTY user. It'd require specific concentration to mistype QWERTY otherwise...
verisimilidude 13y ago
At my desk, I use a Dvorak keyboard. However, I often need to rip my laptop away from my desk for meetings, emergencies, etc. When I'm typing on the laptop, I use Qwerty. It's not a problem at all. I don't need to think about it; my hands just do the right thing depending upon where I'm typing.
- clarkm 13y ago
  It's good to hear that. Being afraid of forgetting how to touch type on a qwerty was one of the reasons I never made the plunge into alternative keyboard layouts. Though, now that I think about it, alternating between keyboard layouts is really no different than using a modal editor like vim -- after a while it just becomes second-nature.

6ren 13y ago

Optimize for Java? (it needs this more than other languages do). But, to be fair, typing is (or should be) a tiny fraction of your coding time. Even in Java.

andrewflnr 13y ago
Think of it this way: typing is a distraction from thinking, and minimizing it is a good thing. When I type much slower than I think, make mistakes or otherwise have to think about the keyboard, it pulls me out of flow.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

colanderman 13y ago
Or learn QWERTY with your hands placed diagonally. I never learned how to type "properly", i.e. "home-row" typing: my hands rest naturally somewhere between the middle and upper row at maybe 30° angles from the vertical, and some keys I strike with either hand depending on the word (e.g. t/y g/h b/n). Yet I type faster than most people I know, and have had no RSI issues due to typing almost daily for 22 years. (I have had RSI issues due to using (gripping) a mouse; replacing the mouse with a trackball / no mouse eliminated this.) This "nontraditional" method of typing leaves my wrists straighter and reduces repetitive motion, to which I credit my fortunate freedom from RSI. The downside is that I am unable to use so-called "ergonomic" split keyboards, as my fingers are trained to work both sides of the keyboard. (And I say "ergonomic" in quotes, because while most "ergonomic" keyboards, such as the Kinesis, are designed to reduce movement, my personal experience is that ergonomics is all about making more varied movement.)
- mharrison 13y ago
  Interesting. I have a split ergodox and switch to a laptop keyboard a bit. My fingers don't seem to mind the angle too much. Though it is crazy how keyboard layout has been status quo for nearly 100 years.

stormbrew 13y ago

I'd really like a keyboard layout optimized for phone usage, particularly with swype or predictive keyboard styles in mind. In particular I think you actually want to go the opposite direction of things like dvorak with such a keyboard because you want to make common motions distinct from each other. With swype, dvorak would leave most common words having a very similar motion profile. Qwerty is perhaps better, but I suspect non-optimal from how often I have to guide it.

andrewflnr 13y ago
While not exactly what you're looking for, on Android I've had a good experience with the MessagEase keyboard. The key idea is to have fewer, bigger buttons, and use swiping motions within those to distinguish other characters. Even after getting used to predictive typing, I quickly came to prefer the MessagEase keyboard, in part because I tend to type weird characters, which are much more bother with the regular keyboard. With all the times I would have to correct swype, I might be as fast or faster with MessagEase. Oh, it also has cursor movement built in.
- stormbrew 13y ago
  Huh, that's pretty interesting. I have a bit of trouble getting out of swype mode (in my head) to use it, though.
- tsm 13y ago
  Fellow MessagEase user here. It's absolutely fantastic. It's great at non-dictionary words and special characters (there's no need to press a magic option key to switch to the symbol set), as mentioned above. Two other things I like: a) It has built in arrow keys, perfect for going back to insert a skipped letter or similar. b) Typing errors occur at the character level, not the word level. And are hence easier to fix. (Or, if left unfixed, are usually still legible.) No damnyouautocorrect moments. Edit: I forgot to mention one of the most important parts: it's incredibly fast once you know what you're doing.
jccalhoun 13y ago
Back in the pre-iphone dark ages I used to use the fitaly keyboard on my handspring visor. http://www.fitaly.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm http://www.fitaly.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm I think ti could still be a good keyboard for phones but they seem to have died off and the layout is patented or something and so there don't seem to be any versions of it for android.

xtracto 13y ago

I like the statistics of the different writings he writes at the end, however I would have liked a comparision of the different layouts while writing different programming languages (C, Ruby, JavaScript, etc). I've seen two problems with alternative keyboard layouts: a) they are not done for programming (keys ~|!<>_-/"' are oddly laid out) or they are not made for international languages (Spanish in my case, for which ñ,á,é,í,ó,ú are difficult to find. Or worse yet (in case of Dvorak) when using an "international" version, the programming-related keys are horribly placed.

mharrison 13y ago
I had a programming layer on my ergodox, but due to some bugs in the firmware haven't bothered with it... Ideally (when I get time to fix it), I'll have a thumb key to hold down and get any programming symbol (optimized to Python for me) on or nearby the home row.

blowski 13y ago

An interesting read whenever the topic of keyboard layouts comes up: http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors Summary of that article: The 'QWERTY was developed to slow down the typist' story is a lie. There is no serious evidence that Dvorak is a 'better' layout. If you were starting from scratch, there would probably be no advantage choosing one over the other, except that QWERTY is the standard. Retraining is a waste of time. One of the key quotes: > The study design directly paralleled the decision that a real firm or a real government agency might face: Is it worthwhile to retrain its present typists? If Strong's study is correct, it is not efficient for current typists to switch to Dvorak. The study also implied that the eventual typing speed would be greater with QWERTY than with Dvorak, although this conclusion was not emphasized. I have no reason to believe that the Workman layout offers any other advantages.

Afforess 13y ago
In addition: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-lies-youve-been-told-about-the-origin-of-the-qwerty-keyboard/275537/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-li...
fsck--off 13y ago
Look at the HN thread about this article [1], specifically the top comment. Among other things, that study failed to take into account the "plateau effect" that occurs in all types of exercise regimens after several weeks of the same type of training. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438124
- vidarh 13y ago
  (EDIT: Downvoting doesn't make the claims in the references comment any less wrong. How about arguing the point instead) I stopped taking that comment remotely seriously when it claimed: > As a matter of fact, it is a well known and well documented phenomenon in the literature that if you train at close to maximal capacity on the same training regimen for longer than 3 to 4 weeks, you will stop making gains. You'll see big increases the first 3 weeks, and after that, nothing. This is a nervous system effect. ... which most people who have done heavy weight lifting for example can tell you is at best wildly misleading, and at worst, pure, unadulterated bullshit. To flatten out after 3-4 weeks would take such extreme over-training, at stress levels way beyond what even most high level athletes would normally even able to achieve in training, that it is extremely unrealistic for most people to every experience it. Certainly not "just" by training at something until you feel you can't do any more. At that point most people are not anywhere near a real maximum. I don't lift to a "training" 1RM (maximum weight I can at any time lift once) every week, much less manage/try to stress myself into a real max. (the reason for distinguishing these, is that it is normal that you can lift up to 10% +/- more in high stress situations like competitions), so maybe what I do don't count in that guys eyes. But I exercise large compound lifts to near failure (that is, until I have good reason to think that I will be unable to complete the next repetition) every workout - 3-4 times a week. So I'll hit my training 5RM, 3RM, 1RM for the various lifts on consecutive weeks. They are reasonably interchangeable. If I feel good enough, I may go for a 1RM to try to set a new personal record even if it's not the "right week". And see slow but steady improvement for months on end before I shake anything up, and when I do change things, it is mainly for other reasons - some progressions may follow the same program for years. Changing too often does not help - it just confuses you tracking. Most people are far more likely to run into limitations due to form/technique failures or lack of flexibility that they need to fix than due to any CNS limitations. Gains do slow down as you get closer to your limits, and you certainly can over-train, but it takes a lot to over-train so badly that you stop seeing gains after 4 weeks even when you massively brutalise major muscle groups on a semi-daily basis. I can't even imagine what you'd need to do to overload your nervous system from typing in that short time-span.

srgpqt 13y ago

As a keyboard layout aficionado, I appreciate the thinking that went into this keyboard layout. I've been a fulltime dvorak user for over 10 years. I also tried Colemak but found that many motions felt awkward while using it. Anyways, I thought I'd give this one a try just for the hell of it. And... so far I am quite pleasantly surprised. I fully memorized the layout in about half an hour. It feels comfortable to type on, just like Dvorak does. Typed up this comment with the Workman-P layout, and seriously considering switching to it now...

Afforess 13y ago

>QWERTY was supposedly designed for typewriters to solve a very specific problem–to keep the types from jamming against each other. The most frequently used keys were placed apart from each other to prevent them from jamming. This results in a non-ergonomic layout. However, there are alternatives. Nope: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-lies-youve-been-told-about-the-origin-of-the-qwerty-keyboard/275537/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-li...

mistercow 13y ago
That paper presents a good case that the layout was influenced by feedback from telegraph operators, but it doesn't really do much to refute the idea that changes were also being made for the purpose of preventing jams. Obviously the claim that it was intended to slow typists down is unlikely. If the layout was rearranged in part to prevent jams, then it would have been rearranged so that nearby letters weren't hit in sequence. Without careful study of ergonomics, one wouldn't necessarily realize that that would slow a typist down. But it would probably prevent jams. I also found some of the claims made in the paper very odd. They claim that because "SE" and "Z" are easy to mistake in Morse code, that those letters were placed near each other. How this would be helpful eludes me.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
juliajuli45 13y ago
my classmate's half-sister makes $72 every hour on the internet. She has been without a job for eight months but last month her payment was $16159 just working on the internet for a few hours.Here's the site to read more...... ------------------->http://www.works23.com http://www.works23.com
vanderZwan 13y ago
Although it's great that you shared this article so more people know about the history of QWERTY, I don't think it should be the top voted comment; what QWERTY was or wasn't designed for is interesting, but what matters is what it is like to use it in practice now. I am more interested in a discussion about whether or not this Workman layout works as advertised and is worth the effort of switching to.

barrkel 13y ago

I realized [my fingers] were moving too much laterally [...] Just ask yourself, how often do you type ‘the’, ‘these’, ‘them’, ‘when’, and ‘where’, etc. on a day-to-day basis? All of these words are typed in Dvorak without any lateral finger movement, and only two letters outside the home eight. 'ls' is, however, awkward to type. That's why I alias it with 'd'; problem solved. It is much more efficient to ride the momentum of a single arm or wrist stroke and type a combo rather than just one key. This is not my experience: An example of this is the word OPERATION. If you were to type this in Dvorak, you could type it as o-pe-r-a-t-io-n where each grouping is a hand stroke–a total of 7 hand strokes. The letters 'pe' are the slowest typed for me when typing 'operation'. I strongly prefer alternation, as the finger on the opposite hand can be lined up on the upcoming key just as the current key is being typed. Having to move the hand around for keys that are on one side slows things down.

mharrison 13y ago

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the norman layout here. I consider it to be an improvement over colmak and workman. Using it on my ergodox (and I know another relatively prominent geek doing the same), and really enjoying it. https://normanlayout.info/ https://normanlayout.info/

pm 13y ago

Best part is that now you can play FPSs using the mouse and DASH keys.

WalterSear 13y ago

The novel analyses were nice, but seeing various programming languages analyzed would be even cooler.

4dl0v3-p34c3 13y ago

I am surprised no one has talked about the QGMLWY Layout, or the fully English optimized QFMLWY layout?: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization Take not of the script you can download to pipe your scripts to, and learn what is the best layout you actually need: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?requirements http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?requirements Here's a list of them: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Keyboard_layouts http://deskthority.net/wiki/Keyboard_layouts There was another that was truly optimized for use Coders, that is not Dvorak based. It had the Option key (⌥) as part of its modifiers. I assume it was called something like the coders layout? I don't recall. If any one can recall it, that would be awesome.

V-2 13y ago
I used it for some time and I quite liked it, more than Colemak. I was reaching 80-90 wpm (I'm about 140-150 wpm on QWERTY). However English is not my native language and since QGMLWY is optimized for English, it wasn't a viable alternative for me in long run. Interestingly, even though I quit typing on QGMLWY long ago, when I occassionally switch to that layout (I still have it installed), I'm able to type on it. Muscular memory dies hard. I do make typos, but I feel that if I returned to practice, I'd pick it up again quickly.

ricardobeat 13y ago

The Norman layout [1] beats Workman at it's own metrics (or so it says on the tin), and from brief experimentation makes more sense to me. I've always wanted to try an alternate layout, and this post led me to find minimak [2]. I'm typing with it right now and really enjoying the similarity to qwerty (only 4 keys changed) with reduced movement, plus 99% of my shortcuts remain the same. [1] http://normanlayout.info http://normanlayout.info [2] http://minimak.org http://minimak.org

eertami 13y ago
I'm tempted to try out minimak. My only concern is that... do the numbers that get thrown around about percentage improvement only apply to touch typists? I've never been strict enough with myself to learn touch typing (I still hit 120WPM so speed isn't an issue) and worry that the benefit won't be as obvious.
- ricardobeat 13y ago
  I think the numbers given are relative to total effort|movement, not speed, so it applies to anyone, but touch-typing should give you less strain.
  - deekayen 13y ago
    The metric I lean on the most is the one published by Andong at http://www.andong.co.uk/dvorak/Default.aspx http://www.andong.co.uk/dvorak/Default.aspx. I guess that's odd since I spent the least amount of time talking about it and put it at the bottom of the page. It is focused on metrics of efficiency and effort. If you wanted speed, you might want to look at things like finger distance and home row usage more closely, in which case Arensito or Colemak might have an edge.
deekayen 13y ago
I must confess, since I swapped R and H in revision 2, Workman usually gets the edge on Norman using Workman metrics, depending on the input text. I guess I'll hunt down whatever text revisions are appropriate on normanlayout.info.

mistercow 13y ago

I feel like improvements over Colemak are going to be pretty incremental at this point. In this case, there's a pretty big trade-off on leaving home row for the sake of not reaching for the H. What I'd like to see is some proper innovation like good programmer-usable chorded layouts that work with existing inexpensive hardware (I don't mind buying a good non-ghosting keyboard, but I don't want to pony up a few grand for a Velotype).

xiaomai 13y ago
have you seen plover? (http://plover.stenoknight.com/ http://plover.stenoknight.com/)
- innino 13y ago
  Never heard of special stenographic keyboards or typing techniques before.
- innino 13y ago
  Never heard of special stenographic keyboards or typing techniques before.
- mistercow 13y ago
  Yeah. It's a good start, but steno feels pretty kludgy to me, and a ton of work needs to be done to make it usable for programming.

jswanson 13y ago

Switched to Dvorak after plateau-ing in typing speed and experiencing pain in my hands and wrist. Helped immediately, but what also hleped almost as much was: - Aliases for frequent shell commands - Remapping 'caps lock' to 'control' (on US keyboards)

koloron 13y ago

I'm a happy user of the Neo layout. It's very different from QWERTY (or rather German QWERTZ) but optimised for English and German bi- and trigrams as well as programming. Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo Or take a good look at its multilevel layout here: http://neo-layout.org/ http://neo-layout.org/ ("Ebene 3" is especially interesting for programmers…)

borplk 13y ago

I'd love to learn something like this but my problem is that I'm scared I'll disable myself from being able to use a regular QWERTY keyboard without looking like an idiot. Changing keyboard layout of library or university computers or basically any other computer than your own comes with a lot of trouble.

aunty_helen 13y ago
Colemak user here. Yes it will slow you down when using QWERTY but if you are using both daily it is barely noticeable.
JamesNelson 13y ago
I've been using Colemak for a couple years now - but instead of learning it with my laptop's keyboard, I learnt it with a new Kinesis Advantage Pro. I now find that if I'm using a standard keyboard, I can type qwerty without much more difficulty before, but if I'm using the Kinesis, I have no trouble touch typing Colemak. My guess is that the massive difference in the actual keyboards stops my brain from getting confused.

msluyter 13y ago

I used to use dvorak, but ironically, I switched to querty because I was having RSI issues and I reverted to two finger hunt and peck for a while (not a fun time). Now that things are better I've considered going back, but the sticking point for me is ctrl-c/ctrl-v. These were always awkward for me under Dvorak, and at the time almost impossible to remap. This has perhaps inspired me to give colemak (which retains the usual c/v positions) a shot.

fusiongyro 13y ago
Can't speak for other OSes but Mac OS X has a Dvorak layout that switches to Qwerty for hotkeys. I leaned on this pretty heavily when I first switched to Dvorak.

bbx 13y ago

On a sidenote, I never found out why French keyboards switched both the Q and W keys to turn it into AZERTY (and why the M was moved next to the L).

skriticos2 13y ago

I'm typing Dvorak since almost ten years now and from what I remember it's damn hard to re-learn the layout (was touch typing QWERTZ before). The hard part in not even the initial memorization of the keys, but the old reflexes that kick in once you stop actively focusing on each key and let your subconscious take over. I did not regret my decision (far from it), as Dvorak is indeed nice to type and quite readily available out of the box. Normally you don't get much benefit from switching layouts though. Especially as developer. As an author or someone who is writing prolonged texts in plain English, yes it's definitely an advantage. Yes, it's also more fun to type. But really, QWERTY is good enough in most cases. You don't really need to bother.

gcb0 13y ago
100% of alternative layout users i know are developers. 100% of the layouts still treat symbols as second class citizens. my typing would vastly improve if a keyboard simply added another row for symbols so they are one key press only. changing layouts only help in a few cases and turns using somebodyelses computer or a phone or a tablet or a virtual keyboard or remote vim sessions, etc a royal pain in the ass, because they will be qwerty.
- seferphier 13y ago
  I think the best way is to have a custom keyboard. Google ErgoDox, you can program your own keys to suit your needs
- eCa 13y ago
  I'm seriously considering remapping the number row so that tve symbols are first class. I think that would bring the greatest cost/benefit ratio.
- koloron 13y ago
  Symbols are in the same class as uppercase letters in the Neo layout. They are easily accessible by pressing the caps lock key. Hover your mouse over "Ebene 3" here: http://neo-layout.org/ http://neo-layout.org/
- deleted 13y ago

sneak 13y ago

The "all books combined" distance figure for the qwerty layout seems wrong.

gcb0 13y ago

typical faster horses solutions. sadly all alternative keyboard solutions are spoiled by riding the health bandwagon and are utter crap. and the ones that aren't turn out to be so expensive they die (datahand) or get bought out and turned in non keyboard replacement products (fingerworks)

fractallyte 13y ago

From the article: 'However, I believe that the way that alternative layouts focus on just the home row for optimization is somewhat misguided. We should optimize the keys inside the hand’s natural range of motion and not just strictly the home row.' While alternative layouts strive to make typing easier, they invariably come up against the constraints of a grid-based key placement. Using a genuine 'anatomic'/'ergonomic' placement would put reset the whole layout argument: how to optimize for a given language, with human-friendly placement of keys (say, using the Kinesis Advantage keyboard or equivalent). Now that would be an interesting experiment in layouts! (Would there even be a home row?) And, BTW, I've 'forked' my usual Dvorak layout to make it easier for Lisp programming. We (particularly Linux users) tweak our window managers and screen accessories to individual perfection; why not our keyboard layouts too?

merty 13y ago

What about tracking everything you type for a month to see which letters you use the most as well as their frequency and then generating a keyboard layout that will actually work for you? These keyboard layout wars seem just too subjective to me.

PLejeck 13y ago

I love the idea of alternative keyboards, and I spent a few months trying to learn Dvorak, but no matter what I stop because it screws all my keyboard shortcuts. OSX's "Cmd Qwerty" feature was nice, but didn't help in Inkscape (since it uses Ctrl) or Vim. I wish the Programmer's Layout of this would take HJKL into account at least. That's and :wq being a nice "roll" down the top left of my keyboard are what keep me on QWERTY.

chowwesley 13y ago
I use the cmd qwerty mode and program just fine. In terms of vim, I actually like it a lot more. j and k are typed with the left hand (coincidentally j is still on the left side - same as qwerty). The right hand does h and l (again, h is on the left side and maps to going left). On the other hand, Eclipse is super annoying because it seems half the bindings are cmd qwerty and half are dvorak but that's another issue. I've started using Vrapper to get vim bindings in eclipse and that seems to be working out okay so far.

alexandros 13y ago

Can't access the article due to database error, but since we're discussing keyboard layout effectiveness for developers: If we were indeed limited by input, why wouldn't this come up in discussions about languages like CoffeeScript (or even Python/APL) that save keystrokes to begin with? In the case of Coffee and Python, the keys saved are actually the hard-to-press symbols as well. And yet I've never heard the point come up. Perhaps this is more about our need to feel superior by adopting a routine of cargo-cult efficiency than anything else. In the broader view of productivity, optimising keyboard layouts is more like optimising memcpy() in C. While it may bear some results, it's rarely the actual bottleneck.

vanderZwan 13y ago
> since we're discussing keyboard layout effectiveness for developers. We're not, at least not in the way you think. > In the broader view of productivity, optimising keyboard layouts is more like optimising memcpy() in C. While it may bear some results, it's rarely the actual bottleneck. This article is a solution developed by a someone in response to his own RSI problem, optimised for writing English with minimal strain, and presumably tested based on "how much do my arms hurt." So it's a solution/optimisation to a different problem altogether (which may or may not be relevant to you.)
lelf 13y ago
Personally, I wonder why there's not many discussions about hacker's keyboard layout. Where at least ()+-=. are dedicated keys

deckiedan 13y ago

I've been typing on Workman layout for almost 2 months. I've not been very disciplined about doing practice every day. I'm only using it on my Microsoft Natural 4000 ergonomic keyboard, and still using a regular QWERTY bog-standard-dell keyboard at work, which means I can still type pretty effectively on colleagues' computers. I quite like it. It does seem to make a lot of sense. Switching back and forth between a normal QWERTY board and Workman-on-a-special-board takes at most one sentence of brain-mush, but then it's fine. The thing which slows me down the most I think is programming in VIM. I'm not going to remap anything, as all the commands I think of as sentences (c)hange-(i)nside-(t)ag, (d)elete-(t)il, etc. And there's a lot of muscle memory to overcome. Also with sh commands. Still, I do like it. One of the reasons I decided to go for Workman rather than one of the alternatives is that the whole column-layout for physical keyboards seems like a better design in general, so one day, if I can afford it, I will try and get one. I have been really struggling with RSI for a years now, so along with changing layout, I'm also trying to take more breaks, sit with a better posture, etc. It does seem to be helping. After 2 months of very irregular typing on it, this also being my first time doing 'formal' touch typing, I'm around 50wpm typing normal prose, which still feels a bit slow to me, but I am improving.

TerraHertz 13y ago

Although I completely agree that QWERTY is poor and Workman looks like a very good system, I'm in my late 50s and think it would be a painfully slow process to get used to a different key layout. And I don't seem to get RSI. But what does really steam me about keyboards in general, is the numeric keypad. I'm right handed, so the mouse sits to the right of the keyboard. And of course the mouse gets used a lot. Which means my right hand is always swinging back and forth from RH keyboard home and the mouse. Now it happens that I _never_ use the numeric keypad. Never have to enter large blocks of numeric data, and so am quite happy using the numeric top row. Used to it that way, and don't see anything wrong with it. So to reach the mouse I'm moving much further than I should have to, across the wasted space of the numeric keypad. Also if desk space is a bit tight I keep hitting the mouse on the RH side of the keyboard - again because of that extra length to the right. It's a workspace centering thing too - the main area of the keyboard should sit on the centerline of the screen, to avoid small but persistent twisting of the spine and neck. But then the keyboard R end sticks way out, and the mouse movement field gets pushed further to the right. It's been bugging me increasingly for years. I've found a few 'small' format keyboards without the numeric pad, but the designers always go overboard and think that 'small' means everything on the keyboard ought to be small - smaller keys, thin base therefore short key travel and terrible touch feedback, flat keytops (another pet hate - you get no tactile feeling of centering, and so have to keep watching your fingers type), compressed layouts of the existing keys (arrrgh!), and so on. What I really, really want, is something like an old klunky and reliable IBM (like I'm typing on now) but with no numeric pad. No other change. I'd long ago have simply taken a hacksaw to a standard keyboard and cut the numeric pad off, except guess where the controller IC _always_ is in keyboards? Right above the numeric keypad, of course. It's so annoying! Why does no one, that I've ever been able to find, make a full size, heavy, long-key-travel, concave key-tops, easy-typing, standard layout (or Workman layout!) keyboard without that stupid numeric keypad? In these days of USB it's especially dumb, since if someone really wanted a keypad as well they could just buy a separate keypad and plug it into a USB port. There's NO reason why it must be included in every damned keyboard in existence. If anyone knows of such a thing for sale, I'd very much like to hear it. I'd buy several.

xiaomai 13y ago
Many mechanical keyboards have a no number pad option. Two off the top of my head are: http://codekeyboards.com/ http://codekeyboards.com/ (currently sold out, so you would have to wait a bit), and the Happy Hacking Keyboard (http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Hacking-Keyboard-Professional2-Black/dp/B000EXZ0VC http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Hacking-Keyboard-Professional2-B...).

jarek-foksa 13y ago

If you are going to learn Workman layout, check my app Type Fu: http://type-fu.com http://type-fu.com. It has full support for Dvorak and Colemak layouts as well.

RWeaver 13y ago

It sounds like all of these layouts are just people taking guesses and reporting on their anecdotal experience. Has anyone ever tried determining a fitness function (travel distance, priority finger use, sequential characters on nearby fingers) and running random layouts through a genetic algorithm? For sample data use english, romance languages, open source code, etc, for a good general purpose layout. If you're going to relearn a layout it might as well be the optimum one.

PLejeck 13y ago
I think there were some people trying to apply machine learning and genetic algorithms to it.
deckiedan 13y ago
Did you actually read the OP? He actually did do quite a lot of research of exactly this. Also you should check out the carpalx project. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?
- RWeaver 13y ago
  Thanks for the link. He definitely did quite a good job with the fitness function (bigrams, finger priority, etc), I just didn't see quite how he came up with the workman layout specifically. If he manually evaluated a few layouts and made tweaks, then surely there is further optimisation to be done for any given body of text. For something as central as a keyboard layout it seems like even those small gains could have huge effects.
deekayen 13y ago
It's not just guessing. The Carpalx does have algorithms for scoring various characteristics like finger bigrams, finger travel, and outputs the optimal results based on scores for key presses and bigrams, etc.

raimue 13y ago

The QWERTY layout has been around for so long that it is difficult to just change to something else. People are used to the well-known keyboard interface to the computer/smartphone/tablet/... and actually expect it that way, no matter how inefficient it may be. Of course, you may switch personally to an alternative layout, but the overall design used by everyone else will not change. It's just a burden for yourself to be able to type two different layouts with comparable speed as you cannot change the layout everywhere you use computers.

rjzzleep 13y ago

as a dvorak user i find his measurements very interesting. has anyone noticed that while the distance traveled in dvorak is higher than both other alternatives, it alternates hands much more frequently (23% vs. 31%+ same hand frequency), and moves towards the top row more frequently than to the bottom one. I don't know about you but for me it's easier to extend my fingers top than it is to flex them towards the bottom row. there is also less time spent on the number row, but repetitions with the same finger are more likely. i still think there ought to be a better way to deal with special characters than shift keys

vanderZwan 13y ago
> i still think there ought to be a better way to deal with special characters than shift keys https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541910 (make the number keys hide under the shift keys, as they are used much less frequently)

reirob 13y ago

I am really happy and thankful for people working on improving the keyboard usage. I knew about Dvorak and Colemak but it's the first time I am discovering the workman layout. The author went to a length of analysis and effort to come up with this layout - including trying dvorak and colemak - the end of that page contains many comparisons between qwerty, dvorak, colemak and workman. As well by reading this article I learned about the TypeMatrix keyboards [1] - I must say I am very intrigued by this idea - I would definitely order one if it contained a good trackpoint. I myself learned touch typing first QWERTZ (German layout), then after moving to France had to learn AZERTY (the worst layout ever, especially for programmers). In the end because I had to travel and work on keyboards in different countries a lot - I decided to learn QWERTY US International, I configured it with AltGr Dead-Keys and now I am able to use the same layout where ever I go (even Russia and CIS countries) and on my computer I have all the accents for French, German and Turkish. So yes, I know it is not optimal for the Finger usage, but I need a keyboard layout that (a) is available on ALL stock computers, (b) on my computer can be enhanced to allow writing ALL the accents of European languages by using key-combinations. I think alternative keyboard layout researches should take into account international usage. But this is just my opinion. [1] http://www.typematrix.com/ http://www.typematrix.com/

Codas 13y ago
You might also want to take a look at the ergodox: http://ergodox.org/ http://ergodox.org/ It's not so easy to buy as its just a DIY project. Massdrop organizes some group buys [1], next one should be due anytime this year. [1] https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ergodox https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ergodox unfortunately, requires an account even to see the offers
- lake99 13y ago
  Thanks for the pointer for ergodox. For those who did not want to sign up for Massdrop just to check the prices, this is what it says at the moment: This group buy is no longer available! We can remind you when the group buys is back on: Requested! 1027 users requested this product
eru 13y ago

kybernetyk 13y ago

The statistics comparisons of classical texts (Moby Dick, etc) typed with each layout are pretty interesting. Though they are much irrelevant to me. Could you please run the linux kernel sources through that statistics application?

infinity0 13y ago

As well as the "typing out a novel" tests, he should also do a "typing out the Linux kernel" test.

mlu 13y ago

I don't get the point why someone would learn a new keyboard layout. - It is very hard to learn since muscle memory is very difficult to change. - I think it would take me a while to be as fast as on my current layout QWERT[ZY]. - I see no real advantage for learning a new keyboard layout. None of my friends and coworkers ever complained about keyboard layout and the urge to change it. - When you want to get things done, learning a new layout would be the last thing you want. - You may not have your new keyboard layout available at different workplaces. So I think this is just a hipster thing. Prove me wrong :)

stinos 13y ago
I'm not convinced either, but your arguments basically are: I don't get it, it's hard, and I don't know anybody doing it. If you read it like this, you should see such arguments don't make much sense :]
to3m 13y ago
The most serious problem with learning a different keyboard layout for hipstering purposes is not only that it requires a certain degree of effort, but that nobody can tell you've done it unless you tell them. Which you absolutely never must. Because you'll never hear the end of it. As this thread is demonstrating amply.
joemccall86 13y ago
I don't get the point why someone would learn to ride a motorcycle. - It is very hard to learn since your muscles are trained for driving a car - I think it would take me a while to be as confident as in my current Monte Carlo LS - I see no real advantage for learning a new automobile. None of my friends and coworkers ever complained about driving a car and the urge to change it. - When you want to get from point A to point B, learning a new vehicle would be the last thing you want. - You may not have a motorcycle available at different car rental places when you travel Didn't really prove you wrong, and maybe I am a hipster :-) I found it enjoyable learning a new layout. Maybe it was just for the sake of trying something new. My productivity didn't suffer since I never really abandoned QWERTY. I didn't utilize colemak in my work until I was relatively fluent. Learning workman might be an interesting weekend excursion, but I have no plans to use it for work until I'm fluent, if it is as fun to type on as colemak.

dontmakemelaugh 13y ago

I switched to Dvorak a few months ago. It's much better than I expected. The switch was painful and it took like 3 months to get fast enough. Compared to Qwerty writing Dvorak is so much easier on the hands. I would say the strain is reduced by 50% at least and it's potentially faster to type (less movement, less way). I will never switch back to Qwerty unless someone forces me to do so.

NAFV_P 13y ago

Would a multi-layout keyboard be possible?

gkya 13y ago

Just started using this and can say that it is awesome. I used to use Turkish Q keyboard previously, because it is the layout of my laptop; albeit I write in English primarily, and have already reached ~5 wpm, in fifteen minutes. I strongly suggest giving it a try.

programminggeek 13y ago

Keyboard layouts are a fun topic to be sure, and retraining your brain to use a different one is an awesome adventure. Where it always falls down for me is the whole experience of switching machines. It is just a massive fail when I need to remap my brain back and forth like that. I enjoyed learing Colemak and I would probably enjoy Workman, but it isn't the most practical thing for me to do long term. Also, a lot of the keybinds in vim or emacs are designed around certain ergonomics and being efficient in an editor is often a more useful thing for me than being efficient when I am typing.

DavidWanjiru 13y ago

Maybe what really needs to happen is for someone to make a "software keys" keyboard, where the characters are not imprinted on the keyboard, but are displayed on the keys instead. That way when you change stuff around, as is variously suggested here, WYS remains WYG, as it were. Rad or dud?

hrktb 13y ago

I like the research that went into all this before deciding on the layout. I don't think it would fit many people's use pattern, instead anyone seriously typing for a living could take the same approach and come out with a personalized layout. Now, if only it could be easier to remap a set of devices keyboard with an arbitrary layout. That's a kind of pet peeve, but if you are a programmer, depending of the language you use the most at a given time, the most used keywords and special characters won't be the same (i.e optimizing for lisp or perl would make wildly different layouts). For people also speaking non english languages, the most used letters won't be the same depending of the language as well. To try to come out with a new layout supposed to be efficient for everyone is a fool's errand.

jgillman 13y ago

The Workman layout sounds interesting, though I don't have the brain-cycles to try switching. The Shift + Capslock = Escape seemed interesting though (especially for a vim user). If you want to use it with KeyRemap4MacBook this should save you a bit of time: <item> <name>Change Shift + Capslock to Esc</name> <identifier>private.shift_and_capslock_to_esc</identifier> <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::CONTROL_L, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::ESCAPE</autogen> <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L, KeyCode::ESCAPE</autogen> </item>

latraveler 13y ago

Thats an interesting idea. I'm sure the QWERTY could be improved but it would be tough trying to switch back and forth until it was fully adopted.