SKIKK ™ has since today added more keyboard options on many laptops while configuring a new laptop. Including a Dvorak keyboard layout. But what is a Dvorak keyboard?
Best keyboard layout for programmers
The well-known keyboard layouts are QWERTZ, AZERTY and QWERTY. And these both prove to be far from efficient and even put extra strain on our fingers and wrists.
So what are good keyboard layouts that we programmers and web developers should use? To avoid overload, it is best to use a DVORAK keyboard. That is a lesser-known layout where the most used letters are in the middle of the keyboard. For example, they let their fingers dance over the keyboard as little as possible and put less strain on their wrists.
Dvorak; the ergonomic alternative keyboard
Sixty years after the introduction of the QWERTY layout, Dr. August Dvorak there. Dvorak, an American educational psychologist and professor of education at the University of Washington in Seattle, along with his brother-in-law, William Dealey, patented Dvorak's layout.
In 1930, Dr. August Dvorak the QWERTY keyboard and decided it was not efficient at all. After studying the movement of hands and the frequency of letters, Dvorak came up with some principles for a better layout:
- Switching between hands should be optimized.
- The most commonly used letters should be easy to type.
- The least used letters should be in the corners of the bottom row.
- The right hand has to do most of the typing because most people are right handed (now you can type the majority of English words with just the left hand).
About 70% of typing in English is done on the home row with Dvorak. That's only 32% for QWERTY. Dvorak's layout also aims to reduce common letter combinations that are typed with the same finger and jump across the starting row.
In addition, the Dvorak layout shifts most of the typing to the right hand, as most people are right-handed. That's in contrast to QWERTY's dominance on the left. For example, the three most commonly used letters in the English alphabet are E, T, and A. They are all left-hand typed in a QWERTY format, and two are not in the starting row. Compare this to the Dvorak layout, where E.T and A all live in the home row, with T moved to the right.
Although this layout is much easier to use, Dvorak never caught on. A big advantage is that this layout is already built-in by default on the major operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android.
Cons
The biggest disadvantage is that the layout is so different from the layout that we know that it takes a while before you are completely adjusted. Another disadvantage is that well-known shortcuts such as Ctrl+C and Ctrl+Z have been moved and are no longer comfortable to perform with one hand.
Programmers have also criticized the placement of the semi-colon often used in C-based languages.
Final verdict
While the typical keyboard has the QWERTY key layout, consider using a Dvorak keyboard layout. It reduces finger movements to the most commonly used letters in English and can reduce hand and wrist strain and improve typing efficiency. However, most people will see improvements in typing speed and reductions in typing-related pain simply by touch typing and using proper posture while working.
Would you like to configure a laptop with a Dvorak keyboard? https://www.skikk.eu/laptops/iso-ansi/
