Comments on: Taking on QWERTY's illogic

Entrepreneur is latest in line of engineers who think 125-year-old keyboard layout should be junked.
Photos: The ABCs of keyboards

[pilaa]

A Novel Concept But....

I like the idea of making typing easier but QWERTY has been a standard for such a long time it would be extremely hard to unseat it in todays Internet dominated keyboard centric society. I think it may be easier and more valuable to explore and develop other input methods such as voice recognition and pen input. These technolgies have a much broader appeal and have more potential market acceptance than modifying an existing keyboard standard. Voice and Pen input also benefit those with handicaps and other disabilities at the sametime. I do wish him luck, but the market for such a device will be novel at best...

[designforever]

New design is much less efficient...

New design will never gain popularity. Reasons are:

1. Common keys like "A" and "I" are placed in hard to reach places.
2. Space key is way too small and NOBODY will hit it
3. Arrow keys are place in the middle and that will NEVER fly with gamers since they cant rest their hand anywhere near the arrow keys
4. The bottom set of keys will ALWAYS be hit by the wrist that is trying to take a rest

I think it's a crazy idea.

[thanhvn]

Doesn't look like a keyboard for touch-typists

IMHO, the layout looks like it was designed for the typists whose hands move over the keyboard (rather than resting on the keyboard with only the fingers moving).

If one has not managed to learn how to type with a QWERTY or Dvorak layout, I seriously doubt that this particular layout (or the alphabetical layout in general) is going to make one a better typist than a QWERTY or Dvorak typist.

This layout looks like it was designed for ease of use (for those who has difficulty with QWERTY layout) rather than for speed. As an analogy, a three-wheeled bike is indeed easier to learn than but doesn't belong in the same race with a two-wheeled bike.

[zaznet]

Keyboard with...

It is definitely a keyboard with training wheels. :)

Notice that a lot of the function keys are located where you would have the space bar. Nobody resting their hands on the keyboard would want so many keys below home row.

[semifor]

I'm betting against it

QWERTY might be inefficient. It might be stupidly ineficient. But it is so well established it may not be worth changing if we can.

I use a Dvorak keyboard, myself---an accident of history, really. Accident being the operative word.

I was involved in a nasty bike/car collision that left me without the use fo my left arm for many weeks. I leaned the Dvorak layout for right hand, only. When healed, I decided to learn the "more efficient" Dvorak 2-handed layout instead of going back to QWERTY.

The minor increase in speed wasn't really worth it, and there is likely a switch back to QWERTY in my future. Sitting down at any other keyboard is mentally painful. Many text editors and other programs make use of single key commands because of their position on the QWERTY keyboard, making them illogical on Dvorak or any other layout.

If we had it to do over again, something besides QWERTY would likely win. But now that we have it, we just need to suffer the learning curve until touch typing is second nature, then never worry about it again.

One might argue that the English language is an inefficient standard. But it isn't likely to be replaced by a more efficient standard any time soon. And I don't think QWERTY is, either.

[Mark_Smith]

Go to do something more useful, and go wash your pants....

I learnt typing since 1983. Now ill change it just because some smart ass thought it would be better?

Hey *******! I challenge you for a typing duel! Me with 20 years of quick typing. And you with your stupid keyboard.

Why in the hell these computer ********, is always trying to re-create the wheel just to make money?

[noldrin]

several problems with design

Several problems with this design.

One, their are more keys below the home row then above it. When you type you fingers spread out from the home row, thus putting more keys above home row makes sense. Some hunt and peck people still use more than one finger.

Space bar is turned into two small keys. This will never work. When Microsoft shrunk the space key to add in windows keys, it took me years to adjust.

It's too hard to access the number keys.

QWERTY works good enough, and thus will never be replaced. I personally like how it causes you to switch hands a lot. It's easier for me to get into a typing rhythm.

[Roman12]

QWERTY!

The qwerty standard seems efficient and ergonomic ehough to me, I do not see a good enough reason for this change? I don't think there should be any changes at all even if they had good reasons because people are already used to this layout.

I can't imagine learning to type all over again!
__________________________________
R.K.
http://www.Remove-All-Spyware.com/

[zaznet]

No such problem...

You have to remember that this keyboard is meant for people who do NOT USE the home row. Their hands are NOT on the keyboard, they are up near their chin striking down on the keyboard like they are stabbing their barbaric kill...

Note how bright the keyboard is, and that the different types of keys have different colors. Again, for someone who has to look at the keyboard to type, someone who does NOT have his hands resting on any keys.

And speaking of shrinking keys, I still occasionally hit \ too often when wanting to hit enter...

[Herbal Ed]

QWERTY vs. Devorak

The QWERTY keyboard was specifically designed to be inefficient --
to purposely slow a typist down. It's ironic that we are today using
21st Century state-of-the-art computers with a 19th century-
designed keyboard. For many years Dvorak users were not allowed
to compete in the national typing competition, and, when they
finally were, the world speed typing record was smashed. To this
day a QWERTY user has not gotten even close to the Dvorak record.

[Bobbias]

Not to mention...

That dvorak is overall more efficient according to nearly study that was NOT funded to be against it. I've seen statistics where people took some of the most well known works of literature, and analyzed where the typist would mostly type on each key setting, and DVORAK was most efficient on almost everything they could think of. the most efficient layout uses the least used keys on the bottom, the most in the middle, and the middle used keys on the top, now, you don't want to keep this completely evenly distributed either, you want the stronger hand to be used more, since it would be faster, which means custom keyboards differentiating between left handed people, and right handed people, but with an arrangement that followed that, the most efficient keyboard would be only slightly better than the DVORAK (it is not the most efficient possible layout, but it IS very close).

There are a host of other layouts available for use, many fo which are specialized for a specific language, and this includes Icelandic, German, Dutch, and a few other prevalent ones. Of these, many are closey related to either DVORAK or QWERTY, but in every case of switching letters even in a minor way to allow for better placing for that language, they performed better than the standard QWERTY. I'm quite in favour of optimizing our keyboards, but we musrt research how to optimize the keyboard to the language it will be used for, and we should make multy-lingual keyboards and support for multi-lingual computing in general more widespread.

As an example, it's a pain in the ass to type in say, chinese, on a normal QWERTY keyboard, even with a IME (Input Method Editor, basically, a program that changes how the keyboard input is read, allowing the input of charactors such as those from east asian, or arab based languages, as well as many others.)

We need to completely overhaul our keyboards, but this is NOT the way to do it.

Do some more damned research and make the most ergonomically effective, optimised, multi-lingual keyboard for a decent price, and THEN you'll get some praise from me, untill then, go to hell, and use whatever keyboard layout you work better in.

[zaznet]

Pace of change...

You will be hard pressed to find a company willing or wanting to adopt this design due to the current acceptance of the qwerty design. A serious lack of demand will make this a very low volume seller and a hard option to find for enthusiasts who want to try it.

It would take a strong collaborative effort by many companies and even governments to force an adoption of such a significant change.

I am sure we will see changes come about to the design of the keyboard, but most will not require us to re-learn how we use it. The design pictured would require additional keystrokes to use some very standard functions that exist on the modern qwerty keyboard.

[rp.gen]

QWERTY is not to make the typing slower ...

... it's to ensure that both hands and all fingers are used evenly. It was created by analysing consecutive keystrokes and ensuring that as far as possible the keys for normal typing were on alternating hands and different fingers. The analysis was intended both to avoid the jams you would get on old fashioned typewriters when the arms were adjacent, and also to speed up typing by better ergonomic design.
In my view, changing a keyboard layout to assist people who *don't* use a keyboard in their profession is ill judged.

[bose7]

Fat chance

With a country still on FPS and farenheit the conservative class will
prevail.

[the liquid man]

I have no problem with QWERTY

I have no interest in learning a new layout. That would mean starting from square one...no thanks. I can type fast using QWERTY because I learned it in school. Take a class if you are a slow typer. You will thank yourself once you have mastered it.

[Bobbias]

Switch speeds...

It's been proven that someone who can type well on a QWERTY keyboard can switch to many other keyboard layouts QUITE easily compaired to learning from square one. I could adapt with a couple days to at least the same speed I'm at now on a DVORAK kayboard when it took me a LONG time to get to where I am now.

[booboo1243]

What's wrong with SHRDLU?

and hot lead type?

[Thomas, David]

Design Is Illogical

If you know how to type, the design of this keyboard is nothing
more than a pain in the ass.

If you don't know how to type, then I completely understand the
child-like layout.

[Joe Blow]

Please, Please, Please, Let This Become a Publicly-Traded Company ...

so that I can short the hell out of the stock on the first day of issue! This "former aerospace engineer" must have been working on one of the spacecraft missions that smacked into Mars at the speed of heat, or went careening off into deep space, never to be heard from again. There's no way that something with such an arbitrary design is going to be adopted (even ignoring the lack of compelling improvement), with hundreds of millions QWERTY keyboards in existence, and over a hundred million more being made every year (it would take several years to alter the production, given that there are probably entire oil tankers plowing through the oceans just delivering the petroleum that goes into the manufacturing of QWERTY keyboards). It still amazes me how many people don't understand Newton's laws, one of them being about inertia - i.e., "A body in motion tends to remain in motion until acted upon by a force". You would think that, of all people, an "aerospace engineer" would understand that principle, and maybe it is a stretch for him to figure out that inertia also applies to people's habits, despite the evidence of that throughout all of human history, much less the history of computing.

If I were going to introduce a new keyboard layout, I sure wouldn't bother designing one for an entrenched Indo-European language writing population. I would target a market poised for growth that uses an alphabetic indigenous language like, um, hmmm ... Well, never mind, I'm sure the vulture capitalists will have some marketing executive they're going to want me to hire who's going to tell me that answer, which will be developed through a complex process only MBAs know about that probably involves throwing darts.

Don't even get me started on voice input replacing keyboards. Cubicles are bad enough, but having a room full of computer users jabbering away at their computers, mostly making corrections. Even a 99% accuracy rate means that, at a typical speaking pace of 105 words per minute, you're going to have to correct at least one word a minute. However, current speech recognition technology averages only about 25 correct words per minute - so about 75 percent of your input will be wrong today.

So, what's next, yet-another "improved" input device, like a five-button WiFi-connected mouse that can toast four bagels at once, and automagically order some cream cheese for delivery from the closest grocery store?

All the Best,
Joe Blow

[206538395198018178908092208948]

I like you

You make very good points, because lets face it , after all of the talking and thinking, the simple question remains... "Is there any need to go to the trouble of changing the standard English speaking keyboard layout"?
Now lets not go into the French "AZERTY" or German "QWERTZ" layouts.

Nice post, better than any of mine and someone finally making the only valid point in some sort of intelligent way.

Take care sir

[Mountain.Dude]

After all these years as QWERTY speed daemon, it would be hard to change.

Good idea, little to late, except for teaching children to type. But
why not learn to type. Get a online typing class and after you learn
it then you'll see hunt and peck is for the birds.

[mahurshi]

General public is not interested in improving typing speed

Like someone already said here.. general public is not interested in typing speed. If you have a profession that requires you to type a lot and type it fast, you might want to consider this. I think windows already has this keyboard layout software preinstalled, but I am not sure.

Changing the keyboards entirely is only going to cause a lot of confusion.

I think we're better off letting those people who need it, use it. No need to start a revolution here.

[nightveil]

Keyboards and Operating Systems

In general, Operating Systems only need to know what the layout
of the keyboard is and what language it uses. The English
version of Windows defaults to a 101/102-key format in English,
though you can choose other types and languages at any point.

The Mac OS is similar, as is Linux as far as I know.

The problem for most hunt-and-peck typists is that they don't
or can't memorize the positions of the keys, probably because
they never took a typing or keyboarding class.

Personally, I have a difficult time with touch-typing but I'm
pretty fast if I can look at the screen and see what it is I'm doing.
I learned to type at a very early age, though, as a hand-eye
coordination exercise.

The keyboard mentioned here might help hunt-and-peck types,
but a few solid hours of touch-typing practice would probably
be more effective and less expensive overall.

QWERTY is fast enough

I can type the alphabet from A to Z in 3.7 seconds on a QWERTY keyboard - that's plenty fast enough for me..

Try it yourself: http://www.alldumb.com/item/19518/

[X-C3PO]

QWERTY is only for the trained people

For my personal experience, the QWERTY is not suit for the people who did not get train for the typing.

I need to looking for the A to Z when I typing.

It's very slow typing speed for me, and it's pain for.

QWERTY only good to the people who have pass basic typing training. Which they have remember all keypad position on the keyboard.

[jasonemanuelson1]

Whatever

Look at the keys to either keyboard. This new keyboard is going
to cause serious long-term injuries (carpal tunnel). There is
good research and reasoning behind the qwerty keyboard. The
placements of the characters in in positions of importance. As
much as the A key is used, it is going to make people's smallest
finger stretch on a very regular basis. The same will go for other
keys on the keyboard like this. You do not use the Q key very
much, nor the Z, which is why they are at positions where more
effort is needed to push them. The keys of most use are at the
center of the keyboard.

And as far as training goes, I had no typing training. It is
experience. It is working with the keyboard for a little while.
Hand-eye coordination has to be taught or learned with either of
these keyboards. That aside, if you give a person one of these
keyboards to learn on and then expect them to use a keyboard
that is a different layout later, it will be a far more daunting
challenge than giving them the right keyboard from the start.
This is why the DVORAK keyboard is not popular, and that has
had many, many more years than this new keyboard.

[True Falcon]

Dvorak is better than Qwerty

firstly, it's not about the keyboard - it's about the layout ... use whatever keyboard you like - the layout is independent and is set by the software.

hunt & peck is foolish - touch typing is the only way to go.

if you touch type, you don't need to look at the keyboard so it doesn't matter what the keytops say.

i typed qwerty for 25 years at a max of 60 wpm. i switched to dvorak in 1990 and within a month regained my old speed. today my speed is about 90 with much greater comfort. 'relearning' is a bunch of hype - once your fingers are trained to operate a keyboard it takes very little effort to learn a new layout.

typing on the home row in dvorak rather than the top row with painful hurdles to the lowest row makes much more sense. dvorak lets you type 75% of the time on the middle row - qwerty makes you spend most time on the top row.

since any computer can be set to toggle (left alt-shift in windows) in under one second and since touch typists don't need relabeled keyboards there need not be any hassle with mixed dv & qw typists in the same office.

in my experience, when co-workers see my speed and ease of typing, they are motivated to try dvorak for themselves. to date i've had 79 friends and clients switch over the years. there's likely more that i don't know about. only 4 have told me they went back to qw. most swear they will never touch qw again.

Friends don't let friends type qwerty!

[Paul jj Alix]

Best post on subject

Falcon's post is the best one in this block.

I never learned how to type until later in life when I bought my
first computer in 1997. After purchase the salesman advised me
to learn how to type. He suggested that I go to a software store
and buy a typing tutor. I took his suggestion to heart and went
shopping. I found two programs and opted for the $30 vs the
$15 because it looked more interesting. After I inserted the CD
into the computer a folder called "Dvorak" popped up on the
desktop. Curious I opened it.

To this day I realize how fortunate I am for that mere chance of
fate. After reading the facts I decided that I would become a
Dvorak typist and never learn Qwerty. I had to oppose nearly
everyone I encountered. Seems most everyone likes to do what
everyone else is doing. I don't follow the sheep, in fact I usually
turn the other way.

I learned to touch type within a few days and so never
experience problems using other computers as long as they
have all the software in the system. Since OS 9 setting up Dvorak
on any Mac is very easy. Microsoft has had it in there system
since Windows 98 or so but it's not always so easy to set up as
it's deeper in the system and sometimes not installed. If
everyone, or if the designers themselves would just see to it that
it installs in with the operating system and is a simple switch
then we Dvorak touch typists would never have the slightest
difficulty using any computer, and I do recommend touch typing.

It was not too surprising to read all the negativity about the
Dvorak system because I lived in this world all my life and I
know how people would rather die, kill and suffer than to make
and changes in their day to day activities. But life moves on and
eventually our children show us a better way. For those of us
who cannot change it still would be nice of you to teach your
children a better way than you yourself know. All children should
learn Dvorak so that we can bury Qwerty with this generation.

The big difference is that I feel like I'm moving through butter
when I type whereas my Qwerty friends seem to jam their fingers
around on the board in some frantic resemblance of violence. No
wonder Qwerty typists suffer many wrist and finger injuries.

I agree with one of the earlier posts where someone said that
Qwerty was made for "typewriters." The difference is that Dvorak
was made for "typists." And that is something deserving
contemplation.

[bob5ack]

The Fable of the Keys

Lots of heat, little light in this dustup. A little data never hurt. Read The Fable of the Keys. Note that the US Navy Lt. Cmdr who conducted the comparative tests of the Dvorak and QWERTY keyboards was one August Dvorak. One is led to wonder if that might be the selfsame August Dvorak who developed the Dvorak keyboard.