This might seems a stupid question, but every typing tutorial teaches you to not rest your hand on the keyboard but instead keep your hand floating in the air.
Does anyone actually do that ? Is it worth it ?
I find it really uncomfortable to keep my hand floating (maybe my hands are to heavy :-)).
Good question! :-)
You need a "sometimes" option. That's what I do: For normal, relaxed typing my hands rest comfortably. Sometimes when I type faster, they float.
I don't think think that comfort or the lack thereof is about hand weight. Rather, shoulder height is important. If it feels very heavy to keep your hands floating, maybe your desk is too high or your chair too low? Or it could be the posture.
I play the piano, so I'm quite used to floating my hands as such.
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I edited the poll ...
In fact my hands my hand are pretty small so probably not too heavy ;-)). I'm probably too low as I tend to slouch (lots in fact).
I wonder if the "float" advice comes about because, with Qwerty, your hands have to travel all over the place, and so floating is the only viable option if you want to type effectively.
If you are using an optimised layout, especially one that doesn't require much action outside the comfortable reach of the home position, the need to float is drastically reduced. This is even more the case if you use Mod-DH as you don't need to do the lateral movement for the centre column so much.
I think I float more when using my laptop. With my usual keyboard, with its cosy palm rests, I tend to float a lot less.
Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.
My usage was changed from "I rest my hands on the palm rests" to "I keep my hands floating in the air" after I've installed keyboard tray at work. It works really great for touch typing while it is not so useful for hunt-and-pecking. Floating hands when the keyboard is on the table requires much more efforts. But I believe that floating is for good for any layout. For hunt-and-peck floating happens naturally. After I started to learn touch typing about a year ago, I kept my hands on the table or on some improvised palm rests. After three months of such practice I started to notice some sore in my hands. Which is completely gone after I started to use keyboard tray and hover my hands.
Some side note. Modern practice of using laptops everywhere in my opinion prevents user from learning proper typing technique, because hunt-and-pecking is much easier when the keyboard is right below the screen, so user can keep them both in sight.
I have never really considered a tray but that sound a good idea. I tried using my keyboard on my lap (sitting at a desk). It's sort of comfortable but it's really annoying when you have to move.
Both of my neighbor colleagues are using keyboard trays for years now. I never considered it before as well, although had an example in front of my eyes all the time. But for hunt-and-peck it really does not make any difference or may be even doing worse. My colleagues are not a true touch typists, but some kind of self-taught semi-autonomous typists (how it is happened in qwerty world quite often) who may not stare to the keyboard all the time. No one of other two-index-fingers-and-a-thumb kind of typists are using a keyboard tray.
How do you do with the mouse (and the tray ) ? It is one of the other reason I didn't like keyboard on the lap ...
How do you do with the mouse (and the tray ) ? It is one of the other reason I didn't like keyboard on the lap ...
Well, I am talking about configurable trays here, not just a drawer type ones. Those trays have mouse platform, which you can mount on left or right side and also change its tilt relatively to the main keyboard platform and adjust its relative height in some range. This is in addition to adjustable height and tilt of the keyboard platform.
I actually keep my mouse at the same level as a keyboard. I found this more comfortable than rising it higher. This way I can kind of hover my arm on the mouse as well, do not put it on the tray. This is not the same as for keyboard, but I rest my elbow on the chair rest when I'm using mouse. This way it is the same freedom of move, no getting tired of floating hand, and no forearm laying on the table.
I also experimented with vertical mouse and trackball (finger trackball, not the thumb operated one), and the trackball works with the tray just great, while vertical mouse is not usable, it needs higher level like table surface.
I see. Thanks.
