by Joyce Arthur
Typewriter inventor Christopher Shoales designed the QWERTY arrangement in the 1870s because his early typewriters could not handle rapid typing speeds without jamming. Shoales' layout fixed this problem by separating the most commonly struck key pairs. This arrangement intentionally slowed down typists to maximize the time between their keystrokes. 130 years later, the typewriter is gone, but the mechanical layout of the letters on the computer keyboard remains. The standard keyboard layout is immortalized with the name QWERTY, for the six letters on top row of the left hand.
The Dvorak keyboard, named for its inventor, Dr. August Dvorak, was designed to maximize typing efficiency. Invented in 1936, his new layout has been slow to catch on, because unfortunately, QWERTY was already too well-entrenched. Dvorak (pronounced Duh-VOR-zhok) was a cousin to the Czech composer.
The Dvorak keyboard is very simple: the five vowels AOEUI are under the home fingers of the left hand and the five most common consonants DHTNS are under the home fingers of the right hand. With this layout, 70 percent of typing occurs on the home keys, compared with only 32 percent for QWERTY. Keystrokes are evenly distributed between right and left hands, plus the layout reduces overall finger travel and time between strokes. During an eight hour day of typing, the Dvorak typist moves her fingers one mile for every sixteen miles that a QWERTY typist travels. That's because Dvorak designed his keyboard so that the most common digraphs (two-letter combinations, such as "ed") in English would occur with a minimum of "hurdling" (having to jump over a key as if it were a hurdle), and would use stronger fingers rather than weaker ones.
Because of the more efficient layout and less travel time for the fingers, there are significant increases to both speed and accuracy, compared to QWERTY. No study has proven that long-term Dvorak use contributes to lower rates of repetitive-motion disorders or carpal-tunnel syndrome. However, many Dvorak users report greater accuracy and less hand and wrist fatigue. And for typists who are limited to using only one hand, Dvorak offers layouts for left- and right-hand-only use that concentrate the most frequently used letters on the appropriate side.
Most people learn to type on a QWERTY keyboard, so they're reluctant to switch to Dvorak because they're afraid of the learning curve. However, most people who make the effort to switch can do so within a few days. If you previously typed 40 or 50 words per minute on QWERTY, you should be back up to that speed within a few weeks. Long-time QWERTY typists with very high typing speeds (like me) may find it more difficult and time-consuming to make the switch. After about two months, I was up to about 50 words per minute, and within another month or two, had achieved my previous speed of about 100 wpm. That's probably the natural upper limit for most people anyway, but if you're not that quick on QWERTY to begin with, Dvorak should noticeably increase your speed . Be aware, however, that once you successfully switch over, typing QWERTY will probably become a lost art for you; your brain will have difficulty retaining the use of both keyboards (mine couldn't do it, anyway).
The biggest advantage is reserved for those just learning typing for the first time. The learning curve for touch-typing on Dvorak is 50 percent faster than QWERTY. Even if all you aspire to is hunt-and-peck typing, Dvorak will serve you far better.
It's easy to try out the Dvorak keyboard. Just remap your keyboard software by choosing the U.S.-Dvorak option from the Keyboard window in the Windows Control Panel. Macintosh remappers can use MacQwerty from Nisus Software.
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