I type in Dvorak
When I type text on the computer, I don’t use the usual QWERTY keyboard layout that everybody else uses – I use the Dvorak simplified keyboard (DSK) layout. What is this? Why do I do it? And what is the experience like? Read on to find out.
Note: This article is written in a quasi-Q&A format, where the reader asks questions and Nayuki gives answers.
- The keyboard layouts
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Let’s make sure we’re on the same page. Here are the two keyboard layouts being compared:
Dvorak
QWERTY
- Is Dvorak better than QWERTY?
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Well, yes and no. The only real disadvantage of Dvorak is its lack of popularity, which means people are trained to type on QWERTY by default. The problem here is that switching to Dvorak costs a lot of downtime during retraining.
The advantages of Dvorak are many. Your fingers travel less because a far higher percentage of keys are typed on the home row. I find that typing feels smoother and more flowing because of the reduced finger movement. And you might type faster because of the reduced finger movement, although I wouldn’t guarantee it because there are other factors involved. All in all, using Dvorak is just is the right thing to do. If we didn’t have QWERTY well established already, then it would be best to train everyone on Dvorak from the very start.
- Why do you type in Dvorak?
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I consciously choose to type in Dvorak because I strongly believe that it’s a better designed keyboard layout than QWERTY. Having the most common English letters on the home row and reducing finger movement just makes sense. I do a lot of typing every day, and using Dvorak increases my productivity and comfort. And maybe I type in Dvorak to also prove how much of a geek I am. =P
- Do you type faster?
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Yes. I was a rather fast QWERTY typist to begin with, regularly reaching 80 WPM. After getting familiar with Dvorak, my typical typing speed went up to about 100 WPM.
But being able to type quickly is not simply the matter of a single number. You see, I (and certainly everyone else) type fastest when copying text directly – reading with my eyes and regurgitating with my fingers. I know I can copy text at a sustained speed of about 120 WPM on Dvorak. But I rarely type for the sake of copying text (being a human OCR is not my job); I have to type while thinking and reasoning. For example, I have to express my ideas and phrase grammatical sentences when I compose instant messaging or email messages. For example, I have to analyze, read, skip back and forth, etc. when I write program code. In these more complicated typing situations, the speed advantage I get from Dvorak compared to QWERTY is small to negligible.
Fair to say, Dvorak definitely does not harm my typing speed compared to QWERTY, and that’s good enough for me.
- What’s it like to switch from QWERTY to Dvorak?
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In short, it’s a long, tedious sacrifice. The cost of switching is really the only major downside of using Dvorak. It takes a lot of determination to overcome this barrier, but for my own case I know it was well worth it.
Personally, I am a heavy computer user, and I type a lot of stuff – instant messaging, email, documents, program code, keyboard commands, and more. When I started Dvoraking full time, my typing speed dropped significantly – it was like walking in mud versus running on roads. All the text that I had to type in my everyday work took an excruciatingly long time. On the other hand, I think because I had to type so much, my learning process was faster than if I had only typed sporadically.
Quantitatively speaking, my QWERTY typing speed was about 80 WPM when I started switching to Dvorak. I Dvoraked for about a month at slow speeds like 10 WPM. Then I Dvoraked for a month or two at modest speeds like 40 WPM. So if you switch to Dvorak, that’s how long you should expect to take to get up to speed.
- Do you need a special keyboard?
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Nope, for a number of very good reasons. I map the Dvorak layout onto ordinary QWERTY keyboards using a software approach, which is entirely satisfactory already. Hardware Dvorak keyboards are niche products, making them difficult to find and relatively expensive to buy. And I’m really satisfied with the main keyboard that I use – the Microsoft Internet Keyboard Pro, with its USB ports and multimedia hotkeys – and it’s hard to find any other keyboard that has these features.
- How do you type on other people’s computers?
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I would type using QWERTY. After all, I have been a decent QWERTY typist for about 7 years before switching to Dvoraking full-time. But with my muscle memory trained to type in Dvorak now, I feel very “tongue-tied” or “dancing with two left feet” when typing in QWERTY. To my surprise, when I actually measure my QWERTY typing speed, it’s about 70% of my Dvorak speed, despite my awkward feeling when typing.
Another category of “other people’s computers” is computers that are not owned by me, but are given to me for long-term use – for example, a workplace computer. In a case like this, I simply set the Dvorak keyboard layout on the computer and continue my business as usual, which is allowed because the computer is usually for my exclusive use.
- How do other people use your computers?
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It’s not that bad, but relatively this is perhaps the worst point about being a Dvoraker. So, I would have to explain to them that I use a different keyboard layout and show them where the language bar or layout switcher is. On Microsoft Windows it’s especially annoying because the keyboard layout setting is per-application-instance instead of global, so different application windows can have different layouts – like having one window in QWERTY and the rest in Dvorak.
- How can I try typing in Dvorak?
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To get introduced to the Dvorak keyboard, I highly recommend reading this entertaining and informative web comic: The Dvorak Zine
You don’t need to go out and buy a Dvorak keyboard (in fact I recommend against this even for Dvorakers). What you do need to do is to add the Dvorak keyboard layout in software. Look in your operating system’s configuration, in the regional/language/keyboard settings section.
After the software setup, you should either learn and memorize the keyboard layout as-is, or follow a tutorial. I recommend A Basic Course in Dvorak (ABCD).
- There are a bunch of layouts named Dvorak. Which specific one do you use?
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I use and only use ANSI Dvorak for English. I have not learned the layout of the mostly similar classic Dvorak layout, which has the number row and punctuation rearranged. And I completely untrained in the left-handed Dvorak and right-handed Dvorak layouts.
Aside: I’m very thankful that ANSI Dvorak retains the QWERTY order of the numbers and punctuation in the number row. These symbols are so rarely used that even reordering them to the optimal order, whatever that may be, would have negligible benefit in practice.
- How do you handle keyboard shortcuts?
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I type all keyboard shortcuts natively in Dvorak. I heard that some people don’t want to relearn keyboard shortcuts and want to keep using them in their QWERTY positions, but I think this is a bad idea because it introduces a conceptual inconsistency. One thing that might be jarring at first is the fact that Ctrl+X/C/V (cut/copy/paste) is no longer in a row, but from experience I can firmly say that it is not a problem in practice. So other than the changed hand positions, I find that typing keyboard shortcuts on Dvorak has no ergonomic or learning problems at all.
Interestingly because many keyboard shortcuts have the letter on the right side of the Dvorak keyboard, I find that I usually press Right Ctrl with my left thumb, press the letter key (e.g. C/S/T/V/W/Z) with my left pinky, and have my right hand on the mouse. Contrast this with QWERTY, where the most useful keyboard shortcuts are invoked with the left pinky on Left Ctrl and the left index finger on A/C/S/V/W/X/Z.
- Separate retraining
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I found that when I switched from QWERTY to Dvorak, I had to retrain separately for each “classes” of typing activity. By separate retraining, I mean that training in one class did not make me better in another class. The classes that I discovered are the following: English text, punctuation-heavy programming code (e.g. Java), keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Ctrl+X/C/V), and random letter sequences (e.g. manually copying Base64 text).
- Hunt-and-peck Dvoraking
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There are times when I have to look at the keyboard while typing Dvorak – for example, if I just need to type one key (for an application command) but my hands are not already resting on the home row. I’ve memorized the mapping of QWERTY key labels to Dvorak keys at an intuitive level, so I can look at QWERTY key labels (“hunt”) and use them as a guide to type in Dvorak (“peck”).
So it should go without saying that I don’t bother to label my QWERTY keyboards as Dvorak. (This can be done by putting stickers on the keys, by rearranging the keycaps (possible on some keyboards), or otherwise.) Furthermore, I don’t advocate relabelling the keyboard even during the process of learning Dvorak. Instead I advocate memorizing the layout or showing the layout beside the keyboard or on the screen.
- Fixing weird fingering
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I noticed that many people don’t use all four fingers on each hand to type. For example, I have seen people who type with three fingers on each hand and not use the pinky. I think this happens because they improvised their own typing method, or during typing lessons they ignored the recommended key-finger mapping.
Excluding actual physical disabilities, I don’t think anything prevents these people from using the standard typing technique. So for them, retraining to the Dvorak layout provides an excellent opportunity to learn the proper, efficient fingering method (while using Dvorak).
