Dvorak or Qwerty?

Probably everyone looking at the title of this post is going to say... "What the ...?" The only people who might not are professional typists or someone who has had to do a report on the typerwriter. So to enlighten all of you about what those two words are here is a clue. Dvorak was the name of a guy who designed a keyboard; and now try and type the second word. (recognize it?) That's right it is the first 6 letters on your standard keyboard. So why Qwerty and Dvorak? Well for that you have to go back a few years to when computers were not around and the only way to get type on a page of paper without writing it by had was to use a typerwriter. (and you say a type..What?) If you don't know what one is google it.

QWERTY (standard) Keyboard Layout

So when the typerwiter was at its birth the only people who used them were receptionists and Legal personel and they found that the keys that would hit the ribbon of ink were getting jammed together because people were typing so fast that the hammers of the keys didn't have time to move out of the way of each other and would get stuck. So to fix this problem they invented the qwerty keyboard so that the person typing whould have to move their fingers farther apart between normal words and also so the hammers on the keyboard were farther apart. Thus they would type slightly slower and the hammers wouldn't get stuck and less jams on the keyboard.



So where does this Dvorak guy come in? Well he invented a keyboard that would allow the maximum typing speed by letting your fingers stay put in the home row keys for the maximum amount of time. On a Qwerty keyboard you can only type up to 300 words with just the 8 home-row keys. On a Dvorak Keyboard you can type over 3000 words without moving your fingers from the home row keys. That is a significant difference. in typing test done by dvorak he trained several secretaries in both of the keyboards and then had them take a typing test. The Qwerty keyboard maxed out at about 250 words per minute. On the Dvorak they were able to max out at 315 words per minute. That is an extra 60 words every minute.



A Dvorak Keyboard layout minimizes finger movement to type faster.



So why am I talking about this? I am actually trying to learn the Dvorak keyboard. and I think it is pretty cool as well. Go look it up. Wikipedia: Dvorak You can actually change your settings in the computer to type the Dvorak keyboard. So go take a look and maybbe you might be a Dvorak fan as well. Because there really is not point to the qwerty keyboard now other than it is the standard that is use around the world. No more jams no more point in slowing people down just a dumb layout of keys that make your hands move way too much.