Alternative Keyboard Layouts: Why are You Still Using QWERTY?

It was on May 12, 1936 that August Dvorak, then a professor at the University of Washington, received a patent for his unique keyboard layout named after himself. The Dvorak layout was designed to address the many problems August identified with QWERTY and to spread out typing duties more evenly to both hands. Dr. Dvorak felt that QWERTY relied too much on the left hand to do the bulk of the typing, made even worse by the fact that the majority of people are right-handed to begin with. But that wasn't the only problem he set out to address. According to Dr. Dvorak, some 82 percent of typing takes place on the top and bottom rows rather than the "Home Row," and the QWERTY key layout doesn't evenly distribute the workload to all fingers. By contrast, the Dvorak layout was designed to encourage keystrokes in a back-and-forth motion for faster, more efficient typing, while also focusing on moving from the outer fingers to the inner digits, which is a more natural motion (try it yourself by drumming your fingers on your desk).

Not the real Dvorak layout :)

The Dvorak layout still remains today, as do many other QWERTY alternatives, including ones that eschew the typical 5-row keyboard design. Let's have a look at some of them.

QWERTZ

You'll find the QWERTZ layout employed mostly in German speaking countries, and with good reason. This layout swaps the "Z" and "Y" keys, which serves two purposes. First, the "Z" is more commonly used in the German language, and secondly, "T" and "Z" often appear next to each other. The QWERTZ layout varies by country, with each one adapting the design to include local umlauted vowels.

FITALY

Chorded Keyboard

Not so much a layout as it is an actual input device, the chorded keyboard is essentially a pocket-sized, wearable keyboard that you can operate with a single hand. Keystrokes are pressed in groups, or "chords," while keys are mapped to a number, which can then be mapped to a letter or command. The downsides here for frequent typing are obvious, including a steep learning curve and repetitive finger movements. The upshot? It's apparently best suited for mobility, such as walking and typing, as well as standing up to give a presentation.

FrogPad

ThinkGeek . The FrogPad was designed to give all the functionality of a full size keyboard in a much smaller form factor, and it comes available in both left-handed and right-handed flavors. One of the areas FrogPad's makers have been marketing the keyboard to is for those who suffer from limited use of their hand or arm, as well as anyone with neck, back, or wrist strain from typing on a regular keyboard. By the company's own admission, however, they've "struggled to find funding" for their design.

Fast Finger Keyboard

Let's face it, QWERTY isn't going anywhere, but not everyone knows how to type without looking at the keyboard. For these folks, their primitive method of typing is called "hunt and peck," which is exactly how most of you learned to type before being introduced to the Home Row and/or any formal training, either in grade school or college. Some hunt and peck typists prefer an alphabetical layout, even though it hampers their ability to learn how to type in the long run. The Fast Finger keyboard was designed for those of us who share a PC -- whether at home or at work -- with one of these typists. With a press of a button, the layout switches between alphabetical (ABC) and the standard QWERTY layout, but that's not all.