dvorak

• introductie
• statistiekjes

variaties

• local

niet-dvorak

• Sholes
• Marsan
• Meier
• Arensito
• Qwerak

This page is currently under construction/redesign.

The Dvorak keyboard

The qwerty (Sholes) keyboard layout was developed in 1868 to prevent the keys from jamming in typewriters. On modern keyboards this obviously isn't needed anymore, and the layout now only offers disadvantages. We're still using it only because everybody else does use.

Dr. August Dvorak spent over ten years developing his keyboard, resulting in a far more superior layout:

  ~  !  @  #  $  %  ^  &  *  (  )  {  }  ____ 
  `  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  0  [  ]   BS
 ___  "  <  >                       ?  +  |
 Tab  '  ,  .  P  Y  F  G  C  R  L  /  =  \
 ____                                _  _____
 Caps  A  O  E  U  I  D  H  T  N  S  -  Enter
 _____  :                             _______
 Shift  ;  Q  J  K  X  B  M  W  V  Z   Shift

A quick overview of the pros:

• Learning: When learning a layout, you start with your home fingers. On dvorak these are the most commonly used letters in english - the ones you need to (and thus will) know best. People who can't type yet will be faster on dvorak.
• Comfort: The most significant advantage of using dvorak. The most important reasons for this are:
  • The vast majority of your keypresses with dvorak will occur on the home row. For just 20% you have to reach up, and reaching down only has to be done for less than 10% (see below for tests).
  • Each finger has to type about the same amount (the stronger fingers slightly more than the outer fingers), reducing stress on any particular finger.
  • Keys are usually typed by alternating left and right hand.
  • Keys that are typed with the same hand are usually done so from pinky to index finger, which is much easier (like drumming your fingers on a table).
• Accuracy: With your hands remaining at their home positions, instead of dancing around like with qwerty, the chance of missing a key is much much lower. (And even further reduced by features like using pinky-to-index.)
• Speed: Theoretically the reduced movement alone should result in a much higher typing rate. Some claim however, that your fingers are not the limiting factor, so improvement is minimal. This probably differs for every person.

Dvorak cons:

• Availability: While changing keyboard layout is not hard at all nowadays, it's still annoying when you're frequently changing from computer to computer.
• Compatibility: Although this is rare, some shoddy programs still exist which ignore the system keymap. (Note: until now I've only encountered two games which did so, and both weren't worth playing ;))
• Difference: It might be a problem when you're using keys by position, unix commands for example, or moving around in vi using hjkl. These shortkeys weren't made with dvorak in mind. Personally, I don't really mind. It takes a little getting used to new positions, but they usually don't seem that much worse.

Overall I think the pros by far outweigh the cons. The only reason people don't switch, or even switch back to qwerty, is because they're alone in a qwerty world. In most cases, you can still survive though. Every modern OS can be remapped to dvorak in just a couple of seconds. And usually you can rearrange the keys of your keyboard without too much trouble. Take a look at my keyboards for example:

Dvorak's disadvantages are only temporarily: as soon as more people start using it, they will disappear. Qwerty's problems on the other hand are not. It won't ever get any better. So if we'd just all convert, the world would be a better place ;)

• Most accomplished QWERTY typists don't want to retrain on a new keyboard layout. That's OK! The real tragedy is kids and new typists could easily benefit from the Dvorak layout, but learn QWERTY anyway. -- Marcus Brooks
• QWERTY on today's keyboards is like having a Maserati limited to a top speed of 40 because the early cars might break an axle over 40 on a bumpy road. -- Lee Merkel

The superiority of dvorak also shows in non-english languages, as you can read on my page on Dvorak variations. It shows a few layouts modified for other languages, and I discuss the (different) placement of special characters such as quotes, parenthesises and other signs. Also contains key location studies for german and spanish keyboard layouts.

For more information:

• The Dvorak keyboard! by Marcus Brooks.
• The Dvorak Keyboard by Jeff Bigler.
• The Dvorak Keyboard by Dylan McNamee.
• ABCD - A Basic Course in Dvorak by Dan Wood.
• The Keyboard Problem by William Grassie.
• DSK - The Dvorak Standard Keyboard by Roedy Green.

Key location study

I basically stole the idea from Marcus Brooks's site. It's just a test counting the words using only specified keys (for example, available words when only using keys on the home row.) However, instead of using an anagram program (which will only use each letter once), I ran the test correctly by simply using some regexps.

For my tests I used the following principles:

• Typing words on the home row, especially without moving your fingers, is good.
• Typing on the top two rows is pretty easy.
• Dvorak is based on the assumption that alternating hands is better. Whether this is always the case can be argued though.
• Words with characters using the same finger to type as the previous character are much harder to type.
• Typing whole words that never touch the home row is ridiculous.
• Reaching out for keys is harder.
• Typing whole words with one hand is difficult. However this is not the case when the keys are next to each other. Therefor this test doesn't make a lot of sense (I'll try to modify it sometime soon).

I tested several files: one containing the 1000 most frequently used english words, a basic american english dictionary (wenglish 1.0-12), and a list with over 350000 english words (including abbreviations!). I also tested it on the words of a english text, including duplicates, which will probably give the best reflection of normal usage.
I used the basic (us) keyboard layouts of Dvorak and Sholes, as well as an alphabetic one (consider it a "random" layout, to prove qwerty has no meaning at all), and even the arensito layout by Hallingstad.
Here are my findings:

Compared to the qwerty and alphabetic layout, Dvorak simply rules. It's remarkable that qwerty and alphabetic are very much alike in results, which kinda proves qwerty is just as bad as any random layout.

Now, for the fun of it, I also threw in another alternative layout. The keys on an Arensito board are even more based on letter frequency than dvorak, so the results seemed a little disappointing to me. However, both layouts go much further than what I tested here. For example, with Arensito there's a much bigger chance of hitting neighbouring fingers in succession compared to dvorak. For further details check this page about the Arensito Layout.

A problem with the above testing method is that some words are more common than others. That's why I'm now just going to look at the letters of some random text. Note this is by no means a perfect test either: I just took text and comments out of two Slashdot articles (don't worry, I removed headers and footers: stuff like by and re.) However, this kind of test can never be flawless since everybody uses different words. Still, this will be more or less reprisentative for us. If you don't like it, you can always send me more official data.

The data on the right shows the letter occurrence for each letter (in %). Already we can recognise the letters of the dvorak home row at the top, and the dvorak bottom row at the bottom. Not very surprising of course, since Dr. Dvorak made his keyboard studying english texts much like this.

For better overview I also calculated the total occurrence of every row and column in the dvorak and qwerty layouts:

Once again it's clear dvorak has been well thought out. Two thirds of all keypresses are on the home row, while one only has to reach down once every ten keyspresses! Qwerty on the other hand, has half its keypresses on the top row, and still nearly 20% on the bottom row. This alone explains the dancing way of typing on qwerty (since you have to go from the top to bottom row all the time); compared to the steady typing on dvorak, where your hands can stay on the home row most of the time, and rarely have to venture down.

Looking at which fingers are used also turns out to be better with dvorak. The stronger fingers are used more often, but not too often so individual fingers don't get exhausted too quickly. With qwerty otoh, you use your first fingers 42% of the time, while your right pinky is hardly used at all (quite a waste, even if it isn't as strong). Overall, dvorak is much more balanced.

Another test I found online shows similar results: 22% - 70% - 8% versus 52% - 32% - 16% for qwerty. Also in Spanish and Dutch results are very much alike.

For comparison, the other layouts:

Of course letter frequency isn't the only concern for a good keyboard layout. Dvorak has though about other things as well. Most of which I won't even know (afterall, he did years of studies, I didn't.)

One thing I noticed was the fact that common english letter sequences are typed from the outer to inner fingers (pinky to index). A few examples:

• th in the, with, they, this...
• nd in and, under, find, and lots more
• wh in what, who, where, why...
• ng: -ing, length, range..
• sch which is used a lot in german and dutch (i don't know whether this is on purpose, but it's certainly nice), but also (at least partially) in english: she, should, such, each, which..
• au and ou: cause, you, could...
  In dutch all of the common vowel combinations - oe, ui, ei, au, ou and eu - are perfectly aligned in dvorak. I often wonder whether he thought of this, but it sure is nice.
• ay...
• etc.

Now for the best part: these advantages should not only be good, they actually are. While typing you clearly notice how much better it is. Just try it. Dvorak Rules! =)