Is QWERTY Dead?

[Jazzz]

Last i heard that while DVORAK are supposed to allow you to type faster, tests show that it doesn't provide any advantage over QWERTY in speed (ie typists get retaught DVORAK compared to typists who spend the same time working on their QWERTY show negligible difference).

Short version, no or negligable improvement, massive cost to change over.

I don't believe that for a second. All the typing records are set on Dvorak keyboards: why might that be?

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Has any typists tried swapping to other keyboard designs? The french use another one and it drove me up the wall when in Morroco, even though only a few keys are different. Mates who didn't use computers as much had far less problems adapting. My satnav uses abc and that's a pain in the arse as well.

I'd hate to have to learn a new layout, no matter how much easier it's supposed to be.

When I was in France I used to have to type on the AZERTY keyboard. It didnt take long to get used to and then moving back to the UK I had refamiliarise myself with QWERTY.

I've also had a couple of stints in France, a few months at a time, and used the AZERTY keyboard. You do get used to it surprisingly quickly. And as Lea said, you get used to it and then you have to refamiliarise yourself with QWERTY.

My laptop has a dual QWERTY/Arabic keyboard, but I've never tried typing Arabic.

I have typed a teeny tiny bit of Mandarin Chinese though, yonks ago, and you type the pin yin, the transliteration, like you'd type "bei" and then it would come up with a list of characters for that word, and you select the right one, then you type "jing" and select the right character, I vaguely recall you just type the pinyin arrow up/down and enter. Or maybe with a very common word made up of two characters like that you'd type beijing and it would give you the character options, I can't recall, but it was fairly easy once you got used to it, but you had to be able to recognise the right character, if you didn't know what the character looked like you were stuffed.

And years ago I trained how to be a stenographer, using one of those stenograph machines, which is a two-handed 'typing' system.

You just get used to them.

I do find txt on a mobile irritatingly slow though.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I never got used to it enough for it be comfy, but enough that I'd make the odd mistake going back to qwerty.

Although nowhere near as fast as a real keyboard, a phone with a mini qwerty makes things a lot easier!

 

[chainsaw cat]

How many of the posters on this thread can actually touch type? I'm not looking at my hands as this appears - most of you (I guess) are, so why would it matter to you what your keyboard looks like?

Those of us who have taken the few days it takes to learn to type properly would be well fucked if qwerty did one. We'd be down at 15 wpm or whatever.

 

[berniedicters]

How many of the posters on this thread can actually touch type? I'm not looking at my hands as this appears - most of you (I guess) are, so why would it matter to you what your keyboard looks like?

Those of us who have taken the few days it takes to learn to type properly would be well fucked if qwerty did one. We'd be down at 15 wpm or whatever.

I usually touch-type, but sometimes need to check (usually if drink has been taken) where my hands are on the keyboard...

 

[_float_]

If you do any amount of typing then spending half an hour learning how to touch type is going to be worth it. You spend a half hour learning how, then every time you type afterwards you're practicing.

I did learn to touch type, but I just couldn't be bothered to carry on doing it: I don't have a massive need to type any faster and I don't need to copy from a text while I type. My 'two-finger' typing speed is quite fast.

What slows me down is thinking about what to say, how to phrase it and spell it, reading it back and changing it - but not so much the actual typing of it.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

I don't believe that for a second. All the typing records are set on Dvorak keyboards: why might that be?

You're part right, done more reading and the tests show about 4% difference in speed with experienced skilled typists, once training has been done that is, for novice users then it's less as they're already familiar with qwerty. Cost effectiveness estimates have been carried out and found DVORAK unfeasible.

http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~buzing/Articles/keyboards.pdf

 

[XR75]

Much like anything that has a whiff of being aimed at the disabled,that keyboard has a ridiculous price tag.

 

[berniedicters]

Much like anything that has a whiff of being aimed at the disabled,that keyboard has a ridiculous price tag.

I think it's less about being aimed at the disabled and rather more to do with the fact that the market for these, compared to the (also conveniently flat) standard QWERTY keyboard, is tiny. They're probably not even mass-producing them.

That is, of course, another bar to change.

 

[Mumbles274]

i touvj typw and never look at m,y hanfs, les==s so the svcreen

i'm stiol;; learmiomg

 

[bonjour]

Wait, is that apple wheel thing serious?

 

[Brainaddict]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns...y-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Wait, is that apple wheel thing serious?

It had me until the comment about the battery life being 19 minutes.

Scroll up to the top of the page. It's on The Onion.

And if you look closely at the email that bloke has typed to his friend "in 45 minutes" it's riddled with typos and stupid.

 

[jayeola]

so one would have to rearrange a kb to try out he DVORZAK?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

How many of the posters on this thread can actually touch type? I'm not looking at my hands as this appears - most of you (I guess) are, so why would it matter to you what your keyboard looks like?

Those of us who have taken the few days it takes to learn to type properly would be well fucked if qwerty did one. We'd be down at 15 wpm or whatever.

I'm quite dyslexic and my mother was very far sighted and sent me on a touch typing course when I was about 11 and its served me really well ever since, I think it should be taught at an early age as part of the national curriculum. I would also be well fucked if I had to change, not sure I could unlearn 16 years worth of habits.

I think a change would still confuse non touch typists, even if they don't know where every key is, I suspect they still have an idea which area the key they want is, so it would still slow them down, even if it did not confuse them as much as us.

 

[_float_]

Surely there must be a very cheap and easy way of changing a keyboard via software?

Obviously that still leaves the symbols on the physical keys, but I doubt proper 'pop-off/click-on' keys would be difficult or expensive to design, or some kind of decent stickers or changable facias.

It would be cool if any keyboard could be customised within five minutes or so.

Obviously the *expensive* version of this already exists:

Optimus Maximus keyboard with 113 separate customisable OLED displays in each of the keys.
Only $1500

 

[Malawi]

Surely there must be a very cheap and easy way of changing a keyboard via software?

Obviously that still leaves the symbols on the physical keys, but I doubt proper 'pop-off/click-on' keys would be difficult or expensive to design, or some kind of decent stickers or changable facias.

It would be cool if any keyboard could be customised within five minutes or so.

Obviously the *expensive* version of this already exists:

Optimus Maximus keyboard with 113 separate customisable OLED displays in each of the keys.
Only $1500

I think that's a brilliant idea!