From qwerty to Dvorak to qwerty

I was sold a lie. Dvorak isn’t superior. Sure, it relies on the same reasoning that keeps the U.S. on the old British measuring system instead of switching to the International System of Units (aka ‘metric’), but that’s a dang good reason. Even if it is unsatisfying.

I was a fast qwerty typist. 100 WPM was typical for me. But some were faster and I was interested both in getting faster and in improving the ergonomics to avoid things like carpal tunnel. Dvorak is sold as technically superior. It was scientifically engineered for speed and ergonomics, whereas qwerty was allegedly arranged deliberately to slow typists down to avoid old mechanical type writers from jamming up. Sure, it would mean I need to learn a new keyboard layout. But I’m a fast learner. How hard could it be?

Add to that the attraction of the Kinesis Advantage2 keyboard, with both unique and compelling ergonomics and sold with optional key caps for Dvorak. And a friend and coworker who swore by Dvorak and this keyboard. I decided to go all in.

Switching to and living with Dvorak

Rather than taking a month or two to transition as my friend suggested, it took many months before I could consider myself fluent in Dvorak. Knowing qwerty made it difficult to learn Dvorak until I immersed myself in it — not allowing myself to ever use Qwerty. I used EdClub to learn Dvorak as they have lessons specifically for that layout, which are easy and fun.

Dvorak is great. It is more ergonomic. The claim that the most commonly typed characters are on the home row makes a huge difference. Sometimes it feels like the whole alphabet is on the home row because I can type so much without moving my fingers far at all. And the Advantage2 keyboard magnifies this amazing experience.

My Dvorak typing speed is 117 WPM. At best, marginally faster than my speed with Qwerty.

Using Dvorak has several very real, practical problems:

When you learn a second human language, you may be able to speak it and your original language fluently. But with typing, at least in my experience your fingers only have muscle memory enough for one keyboard layout. My qwerty typing is almost non-existent at this point, which leads into the first real problem…

Every single keyboard around me is qwerty except one of mine. When my family want to use my computer, I have to plug in an alternate keyboard so they can actually type. Every computer in my house has dual keyboard layouts configured in the OS so that I can switch to Dvorak when using them and my family can use Qwerty. All my family members then have to learn how to switch layouts in the OS in case I used it last. When I’m using a friend’s computer, I have to type with their qwerty layout and it’s painfully slow, and to save embarrassment I have to explain that I am a good typist — on Dvorak.

Keyboard commands in games and keyboard shortcuts in apps are all based on character placement on a qwerty keyboard. Cut/Copy/Paste shortcuts are all neatly in a row as Ctrl+C, X and V — on qwerty. They can also be (and this is super useful) all executed with just the left hand, while my right hand is operating the mouse, busy selecting something to copy and pointing where to paste. But on Dvorak, two of these characters are on the right side of the keyboard, leaving only X (Cut) operable with the left hand. There are many other keystrokes that I had learned to do with one hand, or perhaps with two hands even with 3-4 keys at once, because of their qwerty placement, that on Dvorak are much less convenient.

I’m not a big gamer, but on the occasional time I play, games that use the keyboard (A-S-D-W anyone?), I have to fumble through game settings and redefine all the buttons so they are convenient on Dvorak. And unlike the OS which has convenient ways to swap between Dvorak and Qwerty, games I’ve played tend to only have one keyboard mapping, making it a major pain to switch between my own layout and one that works for literally everyone else I share a computer with.

Now, all my computers that I directly interface with are laptops. So this Advantage2 keyboard I use is only useful with my machine when my laptop is docked on my primary work desk. That means my laptop has to itself have the software keyboard layout switch ready to go too, since the Advantage2 masquerades as Qwerty to the OS, but the built-in keyboard doesn’t. If that’s confusing to you, that’s because it is. But compound that with the fact that most of my work isn’t on my laptop OS at all… I usually remote into another machine to get work done. So now all the remote machines I connect to also need 2 keyboard layouts configured. And the keyboard shortcut to switch between layouts (Alt-Ctrl or Ctrl+Shift) will affect both the remote machine and my local device. So if I have the local device set up, then remote into another machine and I have to switch the layout, guess what… now my local device has the wrong layout waiting for me when I close the remote window. Add to that the fact that these key combinations are frequently hit accidentally, switching my layout and making me type gibberish for a word or two before I realize my mistake and correct it.

Switching back to Qwerty

The transition to Dvorak was absolutely not worth it. I figured that out about a year in. Now I’m several years into it, and for the last year or so I’ve been asking myself whether switching back to qwerty would be worth it. After all, I’d have to re-teach myself to type again. And how will this Advantage2 keyboard feel with qwerty key caps put back on it anyway?

I’ve recently decided to take the plunge and switch back to qwerty. I started today by using a qwerty hardware keyboard with qwerty configured in the OS. Oh, it was painfully slow and error prone. I haven’t yet replaced the key caps on my Advantage2 keyboard, so I’m typing Dvorak now for this post. I hesitate… is this the month I want to take a huge productivity hit to switch back?

The grass is greener on the other side. I know, because I’ve been there. But just how big is this hill that I’ll have to climb to get there? Hopefully not as high as it was the last time I passed over it.