QWERTY - Alternative keyboard layouts

Because modern keyboards do not suffer from the problems of older mechanical keyboards, the QWERTY layout's separation of frequently used letter pairs is no longer strictly necessary. Several alternative keyboard layouts, such as Dvorak Simplified Keyboard arrangement (designed by Drs. August Dvorak and William Dealey and patented in 1936), have been designed to increase a typist's speed and comfort, largely by moving the most common letters to the home row and maximizing hand alternation. The effectiveness of these layouts is disputed, but it is often claimed that world records for typing speed are usually set on Dvorak layout keyboards. Some studies [1] have shown that alternative methods are more efficient, but Dvorak and other alternative typists most often cite comfort as the greatest advantage. QWERTY's inventor, Christopher Sholes himself, patented a key arrangement similar to Dvorak's, but it never became popular.

Some researchers claim that QWERTY is really no less efficient than other layouts, such as economists Stan Liebowitz at the University of Texas at Dallas, Texas, and Stephen E. Margolis of North Carolina State University. Other opponents claim that August Dvorak stood to gain from the success of his layout, and that he perpetuated his "efficiency myth" to increase his financial gains. Other QWERTY advocates claim that for a QWERTY typist to switch to Dvorak or another layout requires more effort than initially learning to touch-type, because of having to retrain the fingers' muscle memory. Computer users also need to unlearn the habit of pressing key-shortcuts (for example: ctrl-c for copy, ctrl-x for cut), though some programs and operating systems allow the use of alternate layouts combined with QWERTY shortcuts.

However, opponents of alternative keyboard designs most often point to QWERTY's ubiquity as a deciding factor, because the costs incurred by using the supposedly inefficient layout are much less than those of retraining typists. It is not unusual to find Dvorak typists who also touch type the QWERTY layout for convenience since QWERTY dominates the keyboard market. The tension between the Dvorak efficiency and the QWERTY ubiquity illustrates the problem of collective switching costs, assuming QWERTY's relative ineffeciency.

The XPeRT Keyboard alternative was designed to try to overcome the problem of resistance to change, by minimizing change from Qwerty. It moves only two common letters, A+N, and adds a second E key (13% of all letters); Dvorak moves 24 letters. Dvorak has five frequently used letters at outer finger locations (A,S,O,R,N); XPeRT has only one (S) and others are central. XPeRT increases opposing hand key sequences (digraphs) from 50% on Qwerty, to 83% on XPeRT, to increase typing speed. Dvorak was designed this way too, and scores 80% for opposing hand digraphs. The Dvorak keyboard focuses on the home row, reducing finger reach and travel; the XPeRT keyboard does not take this approach, choosing to minimize change from Qwerty instead. Digraph statistics listed here are derived from the Dvorak keyboard US patent of 1936.

QWERTY - Trivia

• The longest common English word that can be typed using only the left hand (using conventional hand placement) is stewardesses. The words sweaterdresses and aftercataracts are longer and can also be typed with only the left hand, but they are not in all dictionaries.
• The longest English word that can be typed with the right hand only (using conventional hand placement) is johnny-jump-up, or alternatively polyphony.
• Typewriter is the longest word that can be typed on only one row, which might be no coincidence as some believe that Christopher Sholes deliberately placed all its letters in the top row when designing the layout in order to ease demonstrations. Proprietory, protereotype, and rupturewort are sometimes conjectured as the longest words but these are not available in most dictionaries.

See also

• Ergonomics
• Fitts' law
• Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
• Maltron keyboard
• Path dependence
• DHIATENSOR
• XPeRT Keyboard
• Asdf
• WASD
• QWERTZ