Ask HN: Is Dvorak worth it? I've been considering forcing myself to learn Dvorak for a while now, but I've been wondering about how much value there could be in switching. Has anyone here gone through with the switch? How was the learning process? How did your typing fare in the transitional period (i.e. did your QWERTY speed decrease as you learned Dvorak)? |
My speed dropped from 115wpm to probably 40 - I just checked and it's back up to 80-90 wpm after about 4 years but my hands hurt a lot less because of the reduction in speed.
I'd say you'd get bigger bang for your buck switching to a kinesis advantage but if you THRIVE ON LEARNING than nobody will stop you from picking up a new layout. The keyboard is our fork and spoon. It is the tool of our daily life. Doesn't that make it worth some time, effort and money learning to use better?
I've used QWERTY, Dvorak, and Colemak. Of the three - Colemak is the most comfortable. I type at 140-155 WPM in all but Dvorak, in which I am out of practice. When I was actively using Dvorak I typed in the same range.
The speed at which I type is not largely limited by any of the layouts, but the comfort of typing is. I found Colemak to be the most comfortable and Dvorak to only have a slight edge on QWERTY.
I now use mostly Colemak but still maintain QWERTY practice for the times I have to use other peoples' machines (which is more often than I'd like).
If you type a lot and comfort is your goal - I would sing praises for Colemak.
Around 10 years ago I made a complete switch and I've been using it ever since. Today I am still not faster with dvorak than I was with qwerty when I switched. I was at 60-70 wpm for the first few weeks, and that was maddening. But after a few weeks I think I got into the 80s and that was more tolerable. Speed increases much beyond that are more about typing whole words or sequences of letters as a whole, and that tends to take longer to learn. Now I type around 100 wpm. I switched hoping to be able to type faster, so if that's the measure of success, then dvorak failed. I do think it's possible for a better keyboard layout to speed you up, but dvorak isn't that layout. It is pretty clear that my fingers travel less distance on a dvorak keyboard than they did on qwerty. Because of this, typing on dvorak has an overall "calmer" feel to it than qwerty. I've heard some say that it helps their RSI problems. I've never really suffered from RSI, so I can't personally comment there.
In summary, I don't mind that I changed, and if I could do it over, I still might do it again--but not for the same reasons.
Xah Lee has written about it:
http://xahlee.info/comp/dvorak_keyboard_layout.html
http://xahlee.info/kbd/dvorak_and_all_keyboard_layouts.html
Tool to evaluate alternate layouts:
http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer/#/main
Other layouts:
https://viralintrospection.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/a-differ...
https://medium.com/@vojtajina/my-keyboard-layout-is-better-t...
You won't be using Dvorak on mobile devices, but this is no big deal. If you're proficient with qwerty, you'll always retain the ability to use the qwerty layouts in a non-touch-typing manner just as well as before.
Since switching, I've avoided doing touch-typing on a full qwerty keyboard because I'm worried that going both ways could dull my Dvorak edge. I can tell I'm even faster than before, and it does feel more natural.
On the rare times I need to use someone else's keyboard, I can do it--but I'm clumsy and observers will be entertained by the spectacle of a tech wiz who "can't type on a normal keyboard". However, If I use a full qwerty keyboard for more than about thirty seconds the old qwerty-fu starts returning. I have never used a qwerty keyboard much longer than that because I just don't want to go back. I don't know, but I'd bet you if I wanted to go back to qwerty I'd be programmer-level proficient again in a week or two. Maybe even less.
It would be interesting to see if I could get proficient on both keyboards like bilingual people can switch between languages. I'm not curious enough about it to risk slowing down my cruising speed, though.
One more thought: I learned Dvorak without the benefit of a keyboard overlay. The first few days would probably be much easier if you use one.
Oh, and one more one more thought: I switched while self-employed. There were no jeering coworkers or impatient bosses to contend with.
And a final one more thought: be prepared to be asked about it. Most muggles have never heard of Dvorak.
I switched in college, basically by forcing myself to write all my papers and AIM chats in Dvorak. It was painstaking at first, hunt-and-peck, particularly since I didn't have an actual labeled keyboard (I'd made a printout of the Dvorak layout instead). Took me about 2 weeks to get up to about 30 WPM (I'd been a 90 WPM Qwerty touch-typist before). It was another 6 months or so before I matched my Qwerty speed. Oh, and in the process I forgot how to type in Qwerty; I eventually re-learned it, so I'm now bi-keyboardal, but it was unnerving at the time. I'd say my typing speed now peaks at about 10% faster than it was then, but I'm usually thought-constrained and not typing-constrained.
I'd say it was worth it for a number of non-obvious reasons:
1. The process of switching is very illuminating about how our brain handles subconscious, autonomic tasks - much like how I imagine learning a new language is. I found that about a week and a half in, I had half the keyboard mentally mapped in Qwerty and half mapped in Dvorak, such that I'd often type out unintelligible polyglot sentences. And for several years later, I'd be triggered by whatever was up on the screen: if I had an IDE open, I'd automatically type in Qwerty, while if I had an AIM chat or word processor open it'd be Dvorak. This is useful information whenever you're trying to build a new habit.
2. It's a built-in security device. Even if someone gets ahold of your computer, they probably won't be able to use it.
3. It helps a bunch with RSI. You stay over home row much more with a Dvorak layout, there's much less finger contortion, and so it's correspondingly less strain on your hands. Given how much I use my computer (and how I'm occasionally prone to tendonitis), this has been a godsend.
Interestingly, A and M are the same spot in qwerty and Dvorak. There are typing tutors online, but I recommend printing out the layout or keeping it on screen and learning that way. Your hands will thank you.
Typing speed is not really any different from qwerty. Having all the vowels adjacent is sometimes a slowdown because you're utilizing one hand more than the other. I'd probably look at Workman or one of the Q?MLW? layouts if I were to learn again - since they're based on more modern attempts to measurably optimise the layout. The problem with those though, is having them supported by the OS and applications.
Which is perhaps the biggest reason not to bother with Dvorak. It's a PITA to configure most operating systems and the apps you use to have consistent keyboard shortcuts/chords/sequences etc, without having to stretch your hands around the keyboard for operations like cut/copy/paste - which are probably already hard-wired into your neural network. You'll find yourself reconfiguring the controls for any game you play - reconfiguring application's keybindings, if they let you do so easily - and every one of them will have a different means of configuring them anyway.
As for switching between Dvorak and Qwerty, I've never had an issue doing it. I sometimes make a mistake for perhaps the first minute after the context switch, but I can easily type in either layout as good as ever. Perhaps because I still used Qwerty regularly while learning Dvorak and still use it frequently still (can't change keyboard on work computers because people complain, etc).
For the time investment it'll take to learn Dvorak, I'd say it's not worth it. Start by getting a better keyboard (or for pleasure, make your own and adapt it to your hand shape). Play around with some other layouts like Workman and see if they feel comfortable. It should take only a few hours to learn any one layout and you'll forget it pretty quickly if you don't carry it on - so it's not really an issue trying out several layouts to see what you like - then committing to one with spaced repetition or just hard grinding.
About a year ago I switched cold turkey to Dvorak. Aware of Qwerty's obvious design flaws and the improvements Dvorak had made, I had been toying with the idea of learning Dvorak for quite some time. That summer I found myself with a few weeks of nothing to do, so I learned Dvorak. My regimen was to do the exercises on http://learn.dvorak.nl everyday for as long as I could. Using a computer during that time was extraordinarily painful. I had to consciously think about the placement of every single keystroke, and simple things like googling "hockey scores" became a monumental task. I even started to avoid using a computer because typing was so difficult. If that sounds terrible, it was. However, with more practice things got better, and within a few weeks I could confidently type Dvorak at a reasonable speed.
A few months later, at school, two of my friends noticed I was using a different keyboard layout. I explained to them how I switched to Dvorak, and they decided to learn it too (which decision they made completely on their own; I hadn't even suggested they try it). Apparently their learning experiences were a lot more pleasant than mine, but it makes sense that it varies from person to person.
About a year later, I am a regular Dvorak user. However, would I recommend switching? No, not really. Dvorak is better than Qwerty, that much is obvious. But, did my typing speed increase? No, not really. I hadn't done any WPM measurements before I switched, but I'm roughly the same speed as before. Is Dvorak easier on your hands? Perhaps, but not by much in my opinion. If you do have hand pains, it is much easier and likely more effective to switch to a keyboard that is more ergonomic, rather than a layout. There are loads of these keyboards out there, such as TypeMatrix, ErgoDox, Truly Ergonomic, Kinesis, knock your self out. Switching to an ergonomic keyboard is something I absolutely do recommend (your pinkies will thank you).
Do I regret switching to Dvorak? No, I don't. I'm no worse off than before, and maybe even slightly better. However, is learning Dvorak worth it? For its ergonomic benefits, no, and my two friends that learned Dvorak share this opinion. If you want to learn Dvorak, by all means go ahead, but don't do so with the wrong expectations.
It is slightly more comfortable to type. And if you control your typing environments, it's better to stay with Dvorak than to switch back to Qwerty. But the cost of learning is still greater than the amount of comfort you would get.
And your typing speed will NOT increase with Dvorak. Typing speed is mostly due to alternating hands when you type; Qwerty is perfectly fine for that use case.
1) it was not supported on Linux/Unix back then 2) Switching to my wife's laptop (which had Qwerty) was uncomfortable 3) my wife couldn't use my laptop (which i had re-arranged the keys to match Dvorak) 4) remote desktop becomes a pain. If you connect to your computer from another computer/keyboard, your computer will expect you to type Dvorak, but your keyboard will be in Qwerty. 5) No proven reports that Qwerty causes CTS (until computers came along, everyone was using Qwerty) 6) some of the laptop-keyboards don't have all keys of the same size. Also the holders beneath might not be at the same alignment. So re-arranging the keys might be a problem. This is more of an issue, if you use rented laptops, like in my company. On the next laptop-upgrade, they will replace your laptop and you will have to deal with the "re-arrangement of keys" issue again.
As a side note, i can say that typing English in Dvorak was more comfortable and natural, than Qwerty. But for the above reasons, i finally gave up.
First few weeks was hell, but I've been using it for 6+ years, and couldn't be happier.
The switch was largely a wake up call in how adaptable the human mind is. The learning process was slow and comical until I started having Dvorak reflexes on a Qwerty keyboard.
I finally also learned to type properly. I type faster in Dvorak than I used to type in Qwerty.
What's not to like from a clean slate?
2 :)
3 Didn't learning new finger patterns also rewire the way you "handle" position and movement too ?
ps: about switching layouts, I realized that my brain associates layouts to certain machines. Typing in Qwerty on my laptop is easy, in Azerty on my parents machine is easy, but not the other way around. Doesn't help that they're both so close to each other I guess.
4. I found my typing speed DID increase when moving to Dvorak, most likely for the fact that it enforced proper touch-typing discipline, since I _have_ to memorize the key locations now.
1) A kinesis advantage
2) Colemak layout
3) No mouse (tablet)
Nobody can cheese me in the time it takes me to pee.