I just posted a post about Colemak. Please let me know what all you Colemak pros think. I have not pushed this article on social media yet as I'd like some experts to look at it first.
https://techie.design/type-50-percent-faster
Thanks guys.
It placed the most frequently used keys evenly throughout the keyboard. A prominent theory exists that Qwerty’s design functions to slow typing speed; unusually fast typing would jam a early 1900s typewriters, due to mechanical limitations. Qwerty forces the typist to input letters more evenly and rhythmically.
Misleading. See three papers by Neil Kay published in 2013.
August Dvorak was an educational psychologist at the University of Washington during the early 1900s.
August Dvorak was 6 years old in 1900.
August and, his brother-in-law, William Dealey set out to create a keyboard layout based on the science of motion. The basic premise of the Dvorak layout is that the most frequently used keys in the English language are the most accessible. In turn the least frequently used keys are the least accessible. Dvorak also heavily considers physiology and aimed to alleviate RSI–Repetitive strain injury. The layout was developed from 1914 to 1932.
Not the words I'd use to describe the research summarized in the 1932 patent and in the Typewriting Behavior book.
Colemak boasts a estimated 15% speed increase over Dvorak and a 50% speed increase over Qwerty.
Who estimates that? There's no experimental research to support anything about Colemak. None.
I think you you type slowly or incorrectly
wat.
Imagine all the time you spend typing, then imagine having 30 to 50 percent of that time back. So what do you think?
Nothing to do with Colemak.
Get yourself an ergonomic keyboard. Learn Maltron. Or stenography.
Thanks for the feedback. I will certainly edit my material.
It placed the most frequently used keys evenly throughout the keyboard. A prominent theory exists that Qwerty’s design functions to slow typing speed; unusually fast typing would jam a early 1900s typewriters, due to mechanical limitations. Qwerty forces the typist to input letters more evenly and rhythmically.
Misleading. See three papers by Neil Kay published in 2013.
August Dvorak was an educational psychologist at the University of Washington during the early 1900s.
August Dvorak was 6 years old in 1900.
August and, his brother-in-law, William Dealey set out to create a keyboard layout based on the science of motion. The basic premise of the Dvorak layout is that the most frequently used keys in the English language are the most accessible. In turn the least frequently used keys are the least accessible. Dvorak also heavily considers physiology and aimed to alleviate RSI–Repetitive strain injury. The layout was developed from 1914 to 1932.
Not the words I'd use to describe the research summarized in the 1932 patent and in the Typewriting Behavior book.
Colemak boasts a estimated 15% speed increase over Dvorak and a 50% speed increase over Qwerty.
Who estimates that? There's no experimental research to support anything about Colemak. None.
I think you you type slowly or incorrectly
wat.
Imagine all the time you spend typing, then imagine having 30 to 50 percent of that time back. So what do you think?
Nothing to do with Colemak.
I tried my best to fix it.
It's nice that you're asking for feedback and that you've fixed some of the smaller issues, such as the typo or decade, but there are fundamental problems with the article.
[QWERTY] placed the most frequently used keys evenly throughout the keyboard.
Nope.
A prominent theory exists that QWERTY’s design functions to slow typing speed
A myth.
QWERTY forces the typist to input letters more evenly and rhythmically.
Quite the opposite.
August Dvorak was an educational psychologist at the University of Washington during the early 1920s.
Not only then.
August and, his brother-in-law, William Dealey set out to create a keyboard layout based on the science of motion.
They studied typing and psychology of typing first and foremost.
The basic premise of the Dvorak layout is that the most frequently used keys in the English language are the most accessible.
Keys in language?
If you actually cared about premises of the layout, you'd read the patent.
Dvorak also aimed to alleviate RSI–repetitive strain injury.
[citation needed]
The layout was developed from 1914 to 1932.
Misleading.
In the aforementioned interview, Matt Mullenweg estimated a 15% speed increase over Dvorak and a 50% speed increase over QWERTY.
Matt Mullenweg is hardly an authority on typing, and it's still a fallacy: argument from authority.
Experimental science matters.
Colemak differs from Dvorak in the following three ways. First, It builds upon the QWERTY layout as a base, changing the positions of only 17 keys. Second, It allows easy access to modern keyboard shortcuts. Thirdly, Colemak favors the right hand less than QWERTY.
Incorrect. QWERTY supposedly favors the *left* hand, but that's a minor feature.
You completely leave out, that Colemak favors completely different hand motions from the Simplified keyboard or QWERTY. That's the fundamental difference.
The following is an example of letter frequencies in their given layout.
Eh, heatmaps without any legend.
Get yourself an ergonomic keyboard. Learn Maltron. Or stenography.
It's nice that you're asking for feedback and that you've fixed some of the smaller issues, such as the typo or decade, but there are fundamental problems with the article.
[QWERTY] placed the most frequently used keys evenly throughout the keyboard.
Nope.
A prominent theory exists that QWERTY’s design functions to slow typing speed
A myth.
QWERTY forces the typist to input letters more evenly and rhythmically.
Quite the opposite.
August Dvorak was an educational psychologist at the University of Washington during the early 1920s.
Not only then.
August and, his brother-in-law, William Dealey set out to create a keyboard layout based on the science of motion.
They studied typing and psychology of typing first and foremost.
The basic premise of the Dvorak layout is that the most frequently used keys in the English language are the most accessible.
Keys in language?
If you actually cared about premises of the layout, you'd read the patent.
Dvorak also aimed to alleviate RSI–repetitive strain injury.
[citation needed]
The layout was developed from 1914 to 1932.
Misleading.
In the aforementioned interview, Matt Mullenweg estimated a 15% speed increase over Dvorak and a 50% speed increase over QWERTY.
Matt Mullenweg is hardly an authority on typing, and it's still a fallacy: argument from authority.
Experimental science matters.
Colemak differs from Dvorak in the following three ways. First, It builds upon the QWERTY layout as a base, changing the positions of only 17 keys. Second, It allows easy access to modern keyboard shortcuts. Thirdly, Colemak favors the right hand less than QWERTY.
Incorrect. QWERTY supposedly favors the *left* hand, but that's a minor feature.
You completely leave out, that Colemak favors completely different hand motions from the Simplified keyboard or QWERTY. That's the fundamental difference.
The following is an example of letter frequencies in their given layout.
Eh, heatmaps without any legend.
I pretty much rewrote the whole article. I took out a lot of the contestable information. Feel free to keep the feedback coming. I appreciate it.
So, you've reduced the paragraph about history of QWERTY to a single sentence, that QWERTY is common? It doesn't quite explain, why QWERTY sucks for typing.
The primary obstacle of Dvorak is its difficulty to learn. (…) Converting from QWERTY to Colemak is far less difficult, than QWERTY to Dvorak.
That's the opinion of a few people around here.
Meanwhile, there have been many experimental studies, that traced the learning process with QWERTY and the Simplified keyboard; DSK is easy to learn.
Print out the Colemak layout below and put it on the wall. Reference it when you can’t remember where the commas are.
Commas? That shouldn't change from QWERTY. (How ironic.)
Get yourself an ergonomic keyboard. Learn Maltron. Or stenography.
If I were you I would focus more on the gain in comfort rather than speed.
Yes, many Colemak users experience faster typing in the long term. I used to type at about 55wpm in Qwerty and now I type at around 75wpm in Colemak, so there are certainly gains to be had, but often these gains may be from simply using better touch-type technique. Gains in speed after switching are often fairly marginal, and the disruption caused by the learning process would arguably make switching not worth while if speed were the *only* factor to be considered.
The big benefit though, is in comfort. The extra movement that Qwerty requires, especially for awkward yet frequent keys like T and N, is more likely to leads to errors, and perhaps even strained/tired fingers. Colemak on the other hand has well-positioned frequent keys, and also does a great job (mostly) of making comfortable bigrams. As a result, it is possible to achieve a natural, comfortable typing flow that is impossible in Qwerty. For anyone who spends a large part of their life at keyboard, this is a big deal.
In my opinion, the real selling point of Colemak is that it makes typing pleasant.
Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.
Thanks for both of your comments and suggestions.
Stevep99, I will try to integrate all the benefits you gave. I agree with them. I almost want to quote you.
Davkol. I appreciate all your feedback even more. I didn't realize how much I had left to learn on keyboard layouts. Do you you know where I could get ahold of those papers from Neil kay. I would really find them interesting. I have not promoted this post on my social media. I'm debating scrapping it all together. It's certainly not perfect. I don't think it would have very much use for the members of this community, but it might be a positive read for someone less informed.
The papers are The QWERTY Problem , Rerun the tape of history and QWERTY always wins and Lock-in, path dependence, and the internationalization of QWERTY. All three are/were publicly available for download, but I'd have to stfw just like you now.
Get yourself an ergonomic keyboard. Learn Maltron. Or stenography.
The papers are The QWERTY Problem , Rerun the tape of history and QWERTY always wins and Lock-in, path dependence, and the internationalization of QWERTY. All three are/were publicly available for download, but I'd have to stfw just like you now.
I found them. Having the names actually helped. Neil Kay is too common of a name to find anything with.
I had to look it up too. Just "neil kay qwerty 2013" in DuckDuckGo/Google did the job.
Get yourself an ergonomic keyboard. Learn Maltron. Or stenography.
If you like, you may use some of my images (see my sig topics for examples). Just mention me in the text, as per the CC-BY-NC 4.0 licence. :-)
*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***
QWERTY was developed in 1893 following the brief use of alphabetically ordered keyboard layouts.
I have no idea, where you got that year. Maybe 1873? 1878?
Get yourself an ergonomic keyboard. Learn Maltron. Or stenography.
While a bit of background is interesting, most of the gory details are already out there on the interwebs. It's good to clarify what a layout is, with a couple of examples, because some people aren't aware there are others out there in the wild.
Dvorak encourages hand alternation. It does this by putting vowels and punctuation on the left hand. I'd say the layout was more suitable for someone that is right handed, as the right hand has to do more. My left doesn't do much by comparison. Note that Qwerty oddly is heavily geared towards the left hand.
Dvorak is also supposedly easier to learn (than Qwerty) for touch typing beginners.
Colemak is in part designed as a less radical shift from Qwerty.
Ending with 'you should immediately transition' is a little forthright! Persuade me.
--
Physicians deafen our ears with the Honorificabilitudinitatibus of their heavenly Panacaea, their sovereign Guiacum.
QWERTY was developed in 1893 following the brief use of alphabetically ordered keyboard layouts.
I have no idea, where you got that year. Maybe 1873? 1878?
Indeed. I'd say 1874, which is when the first QWERTY typewriter, the Glidden-Sholes, came out. Maybe the layout development was done in 1873, I don't know. Earlier I've heard 1879, but it seems that the only real layout-related improvement at that time was the Shift key. The QWERTY layout itself already existed at that time.
*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***
Note that Qwerty oddly is heavily geared towards the left hand.
That's a bad idea indeed – except that people use computer mice nowadays which gives QWERTY an undeserved break in that respect! I've heard about Dvorak users switching the mouse to the left hand which is a bit inconvenient I think. (Well, that puts it clear of the NumPad of oversized keyboards, which is nice.)
*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***
The shift key an improvement! CRASH BANG WALLOP!
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Physicians deafen our ears with the Honorificabilitudinitatibus of their heavenly Panacaea, their sovereign Guiacum.
Not sure what you mean by that, Pinky. Before the Remington 2, there were some typewriters with an unwieldy twice as many keys but the Glidden-Sholes could only type uppercase. So yeah, improvement. But no real change to the basic layout, which was my point.
The Kyrillic crowd and others seem to do just fine with single-case letters, so maybe we're all on a fool's errand here. ;-)
*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***
Not sure what you mean by that, Pinky. Before the Remington 2, there were some typewriters with an unwieldy twice as many keys but the Glidden-Sholes could only type uppercase. So yeah, improvement. But no real change to the basic layout, which was my point.
The Kyrillic crowd and others seem to do just fine with single-case letters, so maybe we're all on a fool's errand here. ;-)
Exactly, it's quite an ingenious hack, but used to require a heavy prod, resulting in much clack.
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Physicians deafen our ears with the Honorificabilitudinitatibus of their heavenly Panacaea, their sovereign Guiacum.
The Sholes' typewriter was initially patented in 1868 (US 79265 & 79868). The change from QW,RTY to QWERTY (along with a few others) was made by Remington staff after the rights were transferred to them in 1873.
The "final" QWERTY layout is shown in the patent US 207559 (1878). The Shift key (or rather its predecessor and the respective mechanism) was patented by Byron Alden Brooks in 1878 (US 202 923), and Remington bought the rights to use it in their typewriter. There were hardly any serious competitors in the 1870s.
It wasn't until 1880s, that the typewriter market started to grow. A prime example of a typewriter with a dual keyboard and Remington's major competitor was Caligraph No. 2, introduced in 1882. Dual-keyboard typewriters were actually still quite popular even after 1900.
Get yourself an ergonomic keyboard. Learn Maltron. Or stenography.
Ending with 'you should immediately transition' is a little forthright! Persuade me.
I agree to that, there is no need to be pushy here. Posting at other forums, so far I see that qwerty majority treat colemak proponents as a fanatics trying to convert others into their belief, even though I'm not trying to do that. :)
Davkol: It's interesting that Sholes didn't put E in that position! Where did he put it originally?
So it seems that 1878 is as good a number as any. If one wishes to be informative, maybe "developed 1873–1878" is best?
*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***
More like 1867-1878, and the later half was only Remington's tuning + the Brooks' patent. Sholes was doing his own thing at the time (see US 568630).
The pre-Remington layout looked like this (from Wikimedia):
Get yourself an ergonomic keyboard. Learn Maltron. Or stenography.
Yikes, as well as the weird R, look at that A - it's kind of in the ISO key position! The final Qwerty we ended up with is actually an improvement over this!
Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.
