You already fulfill the first criteria: Interest, and not being obsessed about speed (you'll likely match and possibly slightly surpass your QWERTY speed with Colemak but any major improvement people experience will in my opinion probably come from massive amounts of training and not the layout switch per se!).

Colemak is comfortable, it's cool and interesting, and it takes a little getting used to as well as just a little effort to use (carrying around a USB drive with PKL on it for strange Windows computers, for instance). I've loved it from the start, and lots of people seem to agree with that! But some get frustrated, or try to make their own instead, or lose interest. I can't promise you anything really - but I encourage you to act upon your interest and try out this fun ride!!! :)

If you want a soft start, you could try my Tarmak step-by-step approach whereby you'll learn one hand at a time. Search for it on this forum if you're interested.

Good luck Qnfauf! I see that you're enthusiastic about the layout. You can also keep us informed about your progress, so we can arrange some TypeRacer races when you reach my speed (or someone else's in the forum) ;).

It's been about a week since I switched to Colemak.

I was probably typing at about 15 WPM on the first day.

Right now, I can type roughly 35 WPM, but only if I am copying down what's on the screen. (It is, for some reason, harder to type what's in my mind.) My best single run was 45 WPM on a 2-minute test.

I had to use Qwerty only once so far when I needed to write an in-class essay on a computer. (I had to look at the keyboard while typing.)

I also tried programming, but it simply won't work yet. There is something I have to program within a few days, so I might be forced to use Qwerty again.

I will keep updating this post and tell you guys how it is going.

I would definitely say it's worth it. I typed close to that speed on QWERTY when I switched to Colemak. I was up to about 65 WPM within two months. It took awhile to get back up to my original speed (~85 WPM), but I got there eventually. It's worth it even at the slower speed because Colemak is so much more comfortable.

These are my qwerty, dvorak, and colemak stats.  Picked up about 12 wpm from qwerty to colemak, accuracy improved, and I don't get hand cramps after a lot of continuous typing like I did with qwerty.

QWERTY:
* 8 years
* 75-82 wpm avg
* Accuracy: 92-95%

Dvorak:
* 7 years
* 85-92 wpm avg
* Accuracy: 98%

Colemak:
* 1 year, 2 months
* 88-93 wpm avg
* Accuracy: 98%

I know it's been I while I posted here (and I even promised to keep this thread updated).

Here is what happened to me.

I basically gave up a few days after I last posted here, and it was due to Starcraft. (If you do not know what it is, it's a real-time strategy game made by Blizzard, which also made World of Warcraft.)

The hot-keys were horrible, and even worse in custom games where I could not change hotkeys. They were like Q,W,E,R for each skill, and I would have to keep switching back and forth between two layouts in order to chat while playing the game.

What made it worse overall is that I also use Korean layout as Korean is actually my primary language although I am very fluent in English too (you probably noticed :P).

But I am right now considering going back to Colemak again. Qwerty is a horrible layout, and I really want to stay away from it because I see a lot of typing in my future.

Qwerty is fine. It is a de facto standard, popular, and game-compatible.

You can always switch to Colemak later at the right time, when you care more of your typing than your SC gaming.

Okay, to make myself clear, I definitely value typing more than gaming.

My reasoning was this:

Colemak - Qwerty < Effort in learning/Getting used to it + Difficulties in gaming (especially SC).

And boli, I think the grid layout looks great!

I think it is a bug in Mac version that it sometimes goes to Qwerty. I will check it and let you know here if the same thing happens on my PC.

I am actually trying Colemak again right now, and it's going great.

My hand actually remembered Colemak layout from the last time, and it took me less than an hour to get back to where I was before.

Btw, I typed this in Colemak :)

Okay, this time, I'm definitely not going back to QWERTY at this point. The switch has been much easier than I expected to be, and the practice I had last time before giving up definitely helped this time.

After multiple consecutive practice games on type racer, it showed 54 WPM as my average. I can definitely type Colemak without feeling too awkward.

I also figured out how to manage that Korean/Colemak thing. Korean is different from Chines or Japanese because it has it's own system of typing instead of using Alphabets to type phonetically. As a result, simply changing the registry value does not do the trick. Luckily, I found an IME developed by a bunch of people in Korea that supports Colemak. (Btw, if anyone is interested in this I can guide you to this.)

So, I am now a part of a small group of people that use Colemak :)

To briefly update how I am doing, now multiple TypeRacer.com games show average of 70 WPM. Not bad for practicing for a little more than a week in May and for last two weeks, is it?

I didn't think my typing speed would increase this quickly, but it is somehow increasing a lot more quickly than I expected.

To see if I can still type QWERTY, I tried it, but I simply couldn't do it. My keyboard does not have key labels, and I can't type Qwerty at all because I have no idea where keys are.

One funny thing is that even though I cannot type on QWERTY at all now, my fingers sometimes press the keys where they were on QWERTY resulting in typos. I guess years of habit is not an easy thing to change. This happens especially more on certain words, so I am guessing that my muscle memory remembers some words in addition to individual letters.

Necro much? I'm trying to figure out whether Adam (comes on and blitz posts 10 posts with links for the most part – but different and seemingly cogent, and about typing and typing tests) is real or a bot. Jury's still out. Adam, care to verify your nature? ;)

Don't get me wrong: Ratatype looks nice and legit 'n all.