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    AU Dvorak, A Colemak like optimization for Dvorak

    • Started by sorenk
    • 8 Replies:
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 07-Jan-2007
    • Posts: 47

    I've been working on layouts that put more weight on the index and middle fingers to relieve the little fingers. And I Came up with a layout that should be easy for Dvorak users to learn.

    It only moves four keys across hands (two pairs) and rearranges 19 total (Colemak rearranges 17). And it places the copy-paste-undo keys (zcvx) together near the right hand control key. It also cuts down on the same finger rate (except for German where Dvorak has a remarkably low rate of 1.8%, though AU Dvorak's 2.8% for German isn't too shabby).

    AU Dvorak also holds to Dvorak's low use of the same finger for every other key (about 5.9% to Colemak's 7.3% and QWERTY's 8.7%).

    For same finger use average over a 10MB Sample of English text, AU Dvorak was the lowest at 1.6% followed by Colemak at 2.0% and Dvorak at 2.3%.

    Here's the layout for AU Dvorak:

    myou; fpgrl
    wiea, dhtsn
    kjq'. bvcxz

    And Dvorak:

    ',.py fgcrl
    aoeui dhtns
    ;qjkx bmwvz

    The main advantage of AU Dvorak is that A end O (the third and forth most used letters in English) are on the Index and Middle fingers instead of on the pinky and ring fingers. I think this more than compensates for moving 'O' off the home row. But I'd like to hear your comments.

    The sample I used for comparison of English same finger rate and every-other-key same finger rate was compiled by Aditya Bhargava from the following list:
    Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir
    Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The
    His Last Bow
    Hound of the Baskervilles, The
    Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
    Return of Sherlock Holmes, The
    Sign of the Four, The
    Study in Scarlet, A
    Valley of Fear, The

    Hume, David
    An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
    An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
    Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
    Treatise of Human Nature, A

    Melville, Herman
    Moby Dick

    Myerson, Abraham
    Foundations of Personality, The

    Russell, Bertrand
    Analysis of Mind, The

    Wells, H.G.
    First Men In The Moon, The
    Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, The
    God the Invisible King
    Invisible Man, The
    Island of Doctor Moireau, The
    Sleeper Awakes, The
    Time Machine, The
    War of the Worlds, The

    Wilde, Oscar
    Picture of Dorian Gray, The

    Last edited by sorenk (09-Apr-2007 09:18:27)

    "Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them" - Will Rogers
    "...even the dog doesn't think I'm a monster." - Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny (1954)

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    • Shai
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    • Registered: 11-Dec-2005
    • Posts: 423

    Some of the issues I've noticed with this layout:
    *Not easy to learn for existing QWERTY typist, and not compelling for Dvorak typists to switch
    *It's not very good on finger distance
    *ZXCV aren't kept in place (yes, they are mirrored, but it's not the same)
    *Common letters such as O and R aren't on the home row
    *The little finger has to do a lot of corner reaches (M, L)
    *It puts rather frequent letters (. and F) on the long reach positions (B and Y positions on QWERTY)

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    • From: Houston, Texas
    • Registered: 03-Jan-2007
    • Posts: 358

    one of the problems for Dvorak for me was the position of L,
    and that hasn't changed.   Looks like the load on my right pinky it just as much as
    with Dvorak.

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    • Registered: 07-Jan-2007
    • Posts: 47

    Your response is very thoughtful and thorough, thank you. I will attempt to address each of the points you raised.

    Shai said:

    *Not easy to learn for existing QWERTY typist, and not compelling for Dvorak typists to switch

    While it's not aimed at QWERTY typists, I think you have a strong case about it not being compelling for Dvorak typists. Since Dvorak is a good layout to begin with, it's not reasonable to shift as many keys around as with a redesign of qwerty. Do you think it would be better to move only seven keys 7 keys?

    This still cuts the same finger rate a bit for English and keeps it about even in German...I wonder if Dvorak was optimized for German and just happens to work well for English too.

    ',ouy fgcrl
    kaeip dhtns
    ;.qjx bmwvz
    Shai said:

    *It's not very good on finger distance

    It's about 6% worse than Dvorak but I wouldn't say it's bad. Especially considering the work (travel and effort of pushing the key itself) is not factored into the distance.

    Shai said:

    *ZXCV aren't kept in place (yes, they are mirrored, but it's not the same)

    Since I'm not targeting QWERTY users, I figured proximity trumped placement, though leaving them in place might well be better.

    Shai said:

    *Common letters such as O and R aren't on the home row

    I thought the ideal home row for letter frequency was hsao  etin, so to include R I'd have to type with my thumbs☺
    But I moved O because my index and middle fingers are about 33% faster than my little fingers (440 vs 330 cpm for my right hand and 350 vs 250 for my left---My index and middle fingers are about equal, as are my pinky and ring fingers).

    Unfortunately, I forgot QWERTY three layouts and four months ago and I don't know where to find key delay data for typists, but I'd guess that most QWERTY typists can type 'ie' faster than they can type 'a;'. And if you have a link to such data, please share.

    Shai said:

    *The little finger has to do a lot of corner reaches (M, L)

    The only reach that really bothered me was QWERTY 'Z' and '[]-=/' (but it hasn't bothered me since I moved 'z' to the left shift and '[]-=/' to alt-gr keys).

    I left the 'L' as is because it didn't bother me when I typed in Dvorak some years ago¹. I think that may be because 'L' isn't frequently used with 'R' or 'N'. And I think I prefer using my pinkie on the top row to using my little fingers in sequence as with QWERTY 'as'.

    ¹(I reverted to QWERTY because I used public terminals a lot and I didn't know how to translate between layouts at the time.)

    Still, I prefer to AVOID using the little fingers as much as possible. And the layout I'm learning now only has 'gcz' on the left pinky and 'bpk' on the right. But it has to be learned from scratch. And I'm tyring to come up with something that would be easy for a Dvorak user to learn.

    For QWERTY and Colemak users, I think something like

    qfuwg jloyb
    rsatd hneip;
    zx,cv km'./

    might work better.

    Shai said:

    *It puts rather frequent letters (. and F) on the long reach positions (B and Y positions on QWERTY)

    I put the period in the corner because²...dohh...because my QWERTY B is on V...heheh and that left half is the mirror of the right half of the layout I'm using so umm. Good catch.
    It should should have been:

    myou. fpgrl
    wiea, dhtsn
    kjq'; bvcxz

    ²(coronors are a good place for periods because that is where a sentence ends).

    But going back to your first point, it's probably best to minimize the number of keys moved.

    I left 'F' where it was because it never bothered me when I used Dvorak and it would be one more key to relearn.


    Again, thank you for your consideration.

    "Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them" - Will Rogers
    "...even the dog doesn't think I'm a monster." - Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny (1954)

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    keyboard samurai said:

    one of the problems for Dvorak for me was the position of L,
    and that hasn't changed.   Looks like the load on my right pinky it just as much as
    with Dvorak.

    If you didn't like Dvorak then that's definitely not a good layout. My goal is to offer people who like Dvorak an even better board. So I figured it best to leave the 'L' where it was. But I think I moved too many keys.

    But if you like Colemak and want to spare your pinkies you should should consider tyring Colemak EO☺

    qwfpg jloy;
    arstd hneiu
    zxcvb km,./

    Just load an autohotkey script with:
    o::u
    u::o

    Last edited by sorenk (12-Apr-2007 10:11:16)

    "Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them" - Will Rogers
    "...even the dog doesn't think I'm a monster." - Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny (1954)

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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,363

    As a former Dvorak user myself, I really think that the best option once I realized its shortcomings was scrapping the whole thing and going Colemak all the way. Your board doesn't really improve on Dvorak enough to make it worth the while and if you're moving from Dvorak why not do better? I don't miss my Dvorak the least bit.

    When I switched Dvorak->Colemak the period of confusion wasn't long. After that, I felt the benefit of my old QWERTY training assisting the Colemak learning. A purebred Dvorak typist is a rare beast indeed I think? Thus, most typists would be better off either sticking with Dvorak or if they're enthusiastic about going a step further, switching to Colemak.

    The advantage of using Colemak over Dvorakoid layouts in conjunction with the inevitable QWERTY sessions (since I'm not allowed to use my USB stick everywhere, hehe) is real and should not be underplayed I think.

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    • Registered: 07-Jan-2007
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    Come now, there must be some people who really like Dvorak?!?

    I don't remember exactly how long I used Dvorak, but it was at lest a year, maybe two or three...I'm not much of a historian. But long enough that I still remember some passwords.

    And I've noticed that it still, along with qwerty helps and hinders learning various aspects of a layout (my x is in Dvorak position and my th and e are mirrored to Dvorak and that helps, and having my U and S in the Qwerty positions seems to help too, so I know what you mean). I think Dvorak helped me most, though, by teaching me to learn control keys by letter position rather than absolute position. But I'm chasing rabbits...<back to the path>.

    I'm seeking a layout for people who really and truly like Dvorak. So I did make a mistake in moving so many keys. But I think the seven keys version:

    ',ouy fgcrl
    kaeip dhtns
    ;.qjx bmwvz

    Might very much please a Dvorakphile even more than Dvorak. And before you knock it, I think you should try typing with the vowels on stronger fingers.

    For example type:
    "aaa eaeaea ououou iii"
    then type
    "nnn enenen ululul iii"

    Alternate a few times and see which feels better.

    A percentage point here or there on travel distance and same fingering is difficult to perceive (at least for me) but a ¹/₃ increase in the speed and ease of typing a common letter really bites the nose.

    The first layout (first one that appealed to me enough to bother learning) was like Dvorak and Colemak regarding same fingering and travel distance (I have yet to come across another layout that has as low a travel distance...not even Klausler matched it.), with a home set of SNTH  EOAI.

    The first time I tried stacking O (placing off the home set), it was just an experiment in finger weight. I didn't expect it to work well. But it did.

    "Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them" - Will Rogers
    "...even the dog doesn't think I'm a monster." - Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny (1954)

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    • Registered: 05-Oct-2006
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    I think you should try typing with the vowels on stronger fingers.

    Absolutely! If you look at the layout that you just posted, and compare it to colemak, you'll see that the majority of the vowels are on the right hand, on the home row, or both!

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    NeoMenlo said:

    I think you should try typing with the vowels on stronger fingers.

    Absolutely! If you look at the layout that you just posted, and compare it to colemak, you'll see that the majority of the vowels are on the right hand, on the home row, or both!

    A and O are the third and fourth most commonly used letters in written English. Dvorak puts them on the pinky and ring. And Colemak puts them both on the pinkies.  It's true that in both cases they're on the home row. But my experience is that I can hit a key faster if it's adjacent to the middle or index finger's home row key than I can if it's on the home row position for the ring or pinky of the same hand.

    Again, I really do think you'll notice an improvement if you type with u and o swapped.

    "Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them" - Will Rogers
    "...even the dog doesn't think I'm a monster." - Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny (1954)

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