This seems risky. Many years ago, I could happily type in QWERTY and Dvorak (Colemak and Workman didn't exist yet), 60wpm on each in consecutive minutes. But I was having trouble with my joints (genetic condition). Moving my hand over to the arrow keys was a problem, so I modified Dvorak slightly to put the arrow keys in the middle (QWERTY's Y, G, H, B), put some letters and other keys on the number row, and put the numbers up on the function keys. It was close enough to Dvorak that it only took a few days to learn, but it had the unexpected consequence of breaking my Dvorak typing ability. The two were too similar.
Nowadays I use Workman [1] and put the arrow keys on the home row on a different layer (same locations as Vim).
I write Dvorak every day and I have no problems using QWERTY. I still type it faster than most QWERTY only typists, and with Dvorak I am basically undefeated.
I thought about trying Dvorak over 30 years ago but quickly discovered it is a wasted effort since everywhere I go there are QWERTY keyboards. What am I suppose to do, carry a Dvorak keyboard around with me (with the right adapters as well)?
For quick things (<5 min) I can still type decently on QWERTY.
For longer I just set the OS to Colemak and then back again when I’m done. Win/Mac has Colemak and Dvorak built in. I hope most linux distros do as well.
Laptops often force you to, given there's no real standard among them. Much as I love mine, the placement of FN and other special keys in a reduced area trips up my touch typing when I switch among them, especially when coding (when I use ctrl sequences more).
I’ve typed Dvorak about 15 years. I just switch the keyboard layout on the other person’s computer if I’m going to do any significant typing and can’t use my laptop. (A rare need anymore.)
When you were considering learning in the 90s, this would’ve been harder to do, but that changed. It’s too bad you didn’t reconsider learning every decade or so!
I came to a similar conclusion about trying to learn popular layouts. I was always somewhat curious, but on a few occasions I had shooting pains down the back of my right hand, and I couldn't type or mouse with it for days.
I looked at Colemak (and the Tarmak training layouts) which seemed unnecessarily complicated, so I made my own transitional layout. First keeping most of the keys on the 'same fingers' but not necessarily same column as Qwerty (the P and R swap hands and O changes finger):
Q W D F {P} Y U K L ;
A S E T G H N I {R}[O]
Z X C V B J M , .
The transition was fairly painless, so I went down that rabbit-hole and ended up making what I call the Qwickly layout[0] (with QwickSteps training layouts)[1].
The final layout I'm using is:
Q W U D P Z H Y L ,
A S E T G F N I R O
K X C V J B M ; .
I can still type in Qwerty but I have to look at the keyboard for a while until the muscle memory kicks in again.
I went through the entire process of learning Colemak-DH last year, and made sure to maintain my ability to type QWERTY. I would bring my reprogrammed HHKB to work every day, and switching between layouts at home to keep the skill. Eventually I realized that all the new layout did was add an extra layer of cognitive friction when it came to keyboard shortcuts. Now a year later I am back to just using QWERTY.
Glad I tried it, now I know I could do it all over with only a little bit of discomfort, but I never saw any of the oft lauded benefits of switching keyboard layouts. Maybe at 60-70WPM I am just not fast enough to notice improved efficiency, or my youthful joints have yet to decay enough to have pain from typing. Who knows.
I looked into the Dvorak stuff about 20 years ago and apparently there weren't any real good studies showing Dvorak was that much better.
The studies showing Dvorak superiority apparently were never compared with qwerty users going through similar training, and when they did, the advantage disappeared.
There was a big Libertarian propaganda effort against Dvorak around that time.
They hate it for the same reason they hate recycling and climate change. It's a very visible and popular example of markets not being perfect and needing regulation to perform better.
It's highly likely that your source was in economics rather than ergonomics.
Just yesterday I was thinking about making a switch. I was concinced that I was gonna switch to Dvorak. Today I'm very confused. Maybe workman as someone said here. But does it benefit other language typing or just english? If qwerty was made to slow down the typers, what about other languages like German, Russian. Did they do that too? I'm not gonna switch if I have to type with same layout in other languages.
If you have doubts, don't switch. It saves you a lot of trouble when you have to work on someone else's system.
Dvorak has the advantage of being supported on most operating systems, now, and possibly some decades into the future.
Note also that if you grew comfortable with asdf, hjkl, or Emacs key bindings (C-n, C-p, C-f, C-b), you'd have to unlearn some muscle memory there as well.
Source: am very happy Dvorak typist for more than 20 years. The initial two weeks, starting from the Beavis-and-Butthead lessons, gave me terrible headaches.
Tried a couple of times to switch to Dvorak, the biggest blocker are the shortcuts. I'm also an avid vi user and I feel it's closer to impossible to use it with a different layout.
I tried to learn dvorak, and colemak, and both ended up requiring too much investment to be worth it. This is very tempting, even though I promised myself I'd stop messing with keyboard layouts
I’m not here to convince anyone as I could care less what layout you type in, but are you really saying a few days or weeks of typing slightly slower isn’t worth a lifetime of increased ergonomics and comfort?
I've never felt any discomfort from qwerty, so, no, this business about increased ergonomics and comfort is a false promise to me.
I have, however, helped multiple people who thought they had problems in their hands and wrists who actually had problems in their necks and shoulders, and showing them diagrams of the brachial plexus nerves helped them eliminate their pain through posture changes.
I just gave the layout a quick spin, and it's indeed very easy to learn when coming from regular QWERTY, and it's almost eerie how much finger travel it saves. I may just go and switch to it. Thanks to the author!
(Apologies for not referencing Dvorak or Colemak in this comment)
Readit News
Nowadays I use Workman [1] and put the arrow keys on the home row on a different layer (same locations as Vim).
[1] https://workmanlayout.org/
For quick things (<5 min) I can still type decently on QWERTY.
For longer I just set the OS to Colemak and then back again when I’m done. Win/Mac has Colemak and Dvorak built in. I hope most linux distros do as well.
Assuming you don’t need to look at the keys.
When you were considering learning in the 90s, this would’ve been harder to do, but that changed. It’s too bad you didn’t reconsider learning every decade or so!
Anyway. I generally agree. Switching it extremely difficult. And logging in to a Dvorak Remote Desktop is insanely annoying.
I looked at Colemak (and the Tarmak training layouts) which seemed unnecessarily complicated, so I made my own transitional layout. First keeping most of the keys on the 'same fingers' but not necessarily same column as Qwerty (the P and R swap hands and O changes finger):
The transition was fairly painless, so I went down that rabbit-hole and ended up making what I call the Qwickly layout[0] (with QwickSteps training layouts)[1].The final layout I'm using is:
I can still type in Qwerty but I have to look at the keyboard for a while until the muscle memory kicks in again.[0] https://github.com/qwickly-org/Qwickly [1] https://github.com/qwickly-org/QwickSteps
Glad I tried it, now I know I could do it all over with only a little bit of discomfort, but I never saw any of the oft lauded benefits of switching keyboard layouts. Maybe at 60-70WPM I am just not fast enough to notice improved efficiency, or my youthful joints have yet to decay enough to have pain from typing. Who knows.
The studies showing Dvorak superiority apparently were never compared with qwerty users going through similar training, and when they did, the advantage disappeared.
Apparently, we do better if we train.
They hate it for the same reason they hate recycling and climate change. It's a very visible and popular example of markets not being perfect and needing regulation to perform better.
It's highly likely that your source was in economics rather than ergonomics.
It's a big decision
Dvorak has the advantage of being supported on most operating systems, now, and possibly some decades into the future.
Note also that if you grew comfortable with asdf, hjkl, or Emacs key bindings (C-n, C-p, C-f, C-b), you'd have to unlearn some muscle memory there as well.
Source: am very happy Dvorak typist for more than 20 years. The initial two weeks, starting from the Beavis-and-Butthead lessons, gave me terrible headaches.
I've never felt any discomfort from qwerty, so, no, this business about increased ergonomics and comfort is a false promise to me.
I have, however, helped multiple people who thought they had problems in their hands and wrists who actually had problems in their necks and shoulders, and showing them diagrams of the brachial plexus nerves helped them eliminate their pain through posture changes.
(Apologies for not referencing Dvorak or Colemak in this comment)