Image based on "Persian keyboard layout, unshifted" by Behdad Esfahbod (CC BY) The standard "QWERTY" keyboard was

not designed with ease of typing in mind. Rat her, it was designed to keep early typewriters from jamming. 130 years later, in the age of computers, people are still using this awkward, inefficient keyboard layout. Few know that there is a much faster, easier, more efficient, and more comfortable alternative: the Dvorak (pronounced "duh VOR ak") keyboard. Unlike Q WERTY, the Dvorak keyboard was scientifically designed for increased speed and a ccuracy. It is estimated to be 12 to 20 times more efficient than QWERTY. Dvorak is great for beginning and experienced typists alike. It's the layout used by s ome of the world's fastest typists. This page will give you some information on the Dvorak layout and how to start using it. It's easy and free! Table of Contents Dvorak's Advantages Over QWERTY Personal Experiences Is Dvorak a Myth? If It's So Great, Why Doesn't Everybody Use It? Making the Switch Buying, Not Buying, or Forging a Dvorak Keyboard Very Minor No-Big-Deal Dvorak Variations Recommended Reading Promote Dvorak! Dvorak Links Contact Dvorak's Advantages Over QWERTY The typewriter was invented in 1866 by Carlos Glidden, Samuel Soul, and Christophe r Latham Sholes. The alphabetical layout of the keys was not a good one; the typ e bars that struck the paper jammed often. Sholes came up with a fix for this by placing the type bars for letters of common digraphs, two-letter sequences, as far from each other as possible. The end result was the awkward and confusing QW ERTY keyboard layout (named for the first six letters on the top row), which app eared on the first commercially produced typewriter in 1873. When touch-typing b ecame popular in the 1880s, QWERTY was the norm for many keyboards. Although new er keyboards did not jam as easily, it remained the most popular layout and othe r layouts gradually fell out of use. The Dvorak keyboard layout was created in the 1930s by Dr. August Dvorak, a prof essor at the University of Washington, and William L. Dealey, his brother-in-law . It was the result of much effort studying typing behavior and letter frequency . The layout was designed to make typing easier, faster, and more efficient and it works. The key to its success is the arrangement of the letters. Speed Some of the world's fastest typists use Dvorak. A woman named Barbara Blackburn failed her high school typing course, which, of course, taught QWERTY. Then she found out about the Dvorak keyboard. Now, Blackburn can type at a rate of 170 WP M (words per minute) and once peaked at 212 WPM! Here's more information about t he world's fastest typist and why she uses only Dvorak. Indeed, most typists who switch from QWERTY to Dvorak easily match their old speed, and usually surpass it. Some have seen a 200-300% increase in their speed. Your speed may not increa se that much, but you will notice a striking difference in accuracy and comfort. Alternating Hands Because it is e on one side . This allows RTY, the left more difficult to type an entire word with one hand, the vowels ar of the home row and the most used consonants are on the other side for more alternating between hands. You may have heard that on QWE hand does about 56% of the typing. On Dvorak, the typing is split

more equally between your hands, which means you can type faster. As a finger on one hand hits a key and comes back to the home row, a finger on the other hand can easily get to the key it needs to hit. Though typing long words with one han d is difficult, there are thousands of one-hand words that can be typed on QWERT Y. Try typing these 12-letter words: stewardesses, aftereffects, desegregated, r everberated. Only a handful of such words can be typed on Dvorak, and the longes t are only 6 letters long: papaya, Kikuyu, opaque, and upkeep. Easy to Learn The logical arrangement of the letters makes Dvorak easy to learn. It has been p roven that the Dvorak keyboard is easier to learn than QWERTY, and so speed can be accumulated more easily. In one study, only 52 hours of Dvorak practice had b rought a group of typists up to the speed to the speed it took them 3 years to a ccumulate on QWERTY! Accuracy Accuracy is another advantage of the Dvorak layout. Dvorak users tend to make fe wer mistakes when typing. Using Dvorak, your accuracy will increase noticeably. A Dvorak typist typically makes half as many mistakes as a QWERTY typist. It has been shown in studies that while a QWERTY typist's accuracy stops increasing, a Dvorak's typist's accuracy will continue to improve. This means you can fix mis takes less and create, compose, and chat more. Comfort Many people switch to Dvorak because it's more comfortable. The Dvorak layout wa s carefully adapted to fit the English language. QWERTY, on the other hand, is a bout as efficient as a random layout. Because it makes typing easier and more na tural, Dvorak may actually decrease the risk of carpal-tunnel syndrome and other forms of repetitive-stress injury (RSI). You can type longer on Dvorak without making your fingers sore. In fact, most RSI sufferers no longer feel pain in the ir fingers after switching to Dvorak. If you experience pain from using the QWER TY keyboard, the Dvorak layout is for you. Less Finger Travel Because of the arrangement of the keys, the Dvorak keyboard requires less finger travel. It has been estimated that a QWERTY typist's fingers travel 16-20 miles a day, while a Dvorak typist's fingers will only travel about 1 mile. This is a major benefit to the health of your fingers. The Home Row Advantage Unlike the QWERTY keyboard, the Dvorak keyboard includes the most common letters on the home row (the row of keys your hands rest on when you are touch-typing). The next most common letters are on the top row, and the least-used letters are on the bottom row. 60-70% of the typing is done on the home row of Dvorak, comp ared with 30-35% on QWERTY's home row. On Dvorak, you can type thousands of word s on the home row (aoeuidhtns). How many words can you make out of QWERTY's home row, "asdfghjkl;"? To see exactly how pronounced the difference is between QWERTY and Dvorak, check out my QWERTY/Dvorak Comparison. Personal Experiences I hated learning to type on QWERTY in school. I could only do about 30 WPM. At h ome I prefered to hunt-and-peck because I was faster that way. But in August 200 2, I read about the Dvorak keyboard. I figured someday I was going to have to to uch-type, so why not try learning the scientifically designed Dvorak keyboard in stead of the sluggish, 19th-century hack known as QWERTY? I got up to a decent s peed after a few weeks' practice. Now I'm typing over 60 WPM and I rarely have t o think about where the letters are. Here are some other stories from members of the altkeyboards mailing list.

Paul writes: I took a summer [typing] course and hated it so much. I remember that the ke ys were all placed in the most awkward order I could imagine. I went the next 20 + years without ever being able to type. I read the story [of Dvorak] and decide d that it was of no use for me to learn QWERTY. Why bother? Any computer could b e switched over to Dvorak. As I progressed I was able to touch type large docume nts making very few mistakes. The layout is very smooth so the fingers move with out resistance. Switch, don't doubt. You'll never regret. Thomas says: My first impression was the comfort of use, even during the first weeks, whe re I was typing very slowly. Switching to Dvorak was an almost seamless way of l earning touch-typing, which is a must for anybody who spends a lot of time using keyboards. KC writes: I read about that QWERTY was designed to slow the typists down because the k eys kept jamming. I'm like, "That's not right." Then it mentions Dvorak. I click the link that sends me to a page where I can compare QWERTY and Dvorak. I'm lik e, I have GOT to try this. So, I went into the language settings in Windows XP a nd change it to Dvorak. So, after a day or so, my brain memorizes the key layout just a little bit. After 2 weeks, I got the hang of it and was starting to get back up to my original speed. After a month, I've mastered it. I'm now a Dvorak typist and I enjoy it. Here are some words from the subjects in a 1944 study conducted by the U.S. Navy (see the next section for more information about that study). The Dvorak keyboa rd was known as the Simplified Keyboard back then. I am definitely in favor of le that after only six weeks of rison to typing 45 to 50 WPM on ourse. I would certainly advise the Simplified Keyboard. It does not seem possib training I would be typing 57 to 62 WPM in compa the standard keyboard after a four year typing c other typists to retrain.

I do not regret that I have converted, although I was very competent on the standard keyboard. I do not regret converting to the Simplified Keyboard, as typing on the old keyboard had me on the point of resigning from typing. I would advise other typi sts to convert to this easy method, and not be a mere typist but a champion or a n expert. As you can see, the Dvorak layout has gotten rave reviews for as long as it has been around. Is Dvorak a Myth? Some people say that Dvorak is no better than QWERTY. They say that the layout m ust be no good, because a 1944 U.S. Navy study that showed very positive results of Dvorak was supposedly conducted by Dr. Dvorak himself. This is NOT true. Dvo rak was a Commander in the Navy reserve at the time but did not organize, conduc t, or participate in the study in any way. The results of the Navy study showed that Dvorak was superior to QWERTY in every way. It proved that Dvorak typists' skills could continue to improve while QWER TY typists reached a plateau. In addition, Dvorak was found to be so efficent th at the cost of converting the typewriters and training the typists was recovered

in 10.3 days! All of the Dvorak typists agreed that the keyboard was faster, mo re comfortable, and easier to type on. However, the anti-Dvorak people don't seem to acknowledge this key study. And, b ecause there are no studies that prove that QWERTY is better than Dvorak, Dvorak 's opponents point to a study that shows that QWERTY is just as good as Dvorak. The study they cite was conducted in 1956 by Dr. Earl Strong for the U.S. Genera l Services Administration (GSA). However, the anti-Dvorak folks don't tell us th at Dr. Strong was biased toward QWERTY! In 1949, Strong wrote: I strongly feel that the present keyboard has not been fully exploited, and I am out to exploit it to its very utmost in opposition to the change to new key boards. That's not all. Shortly after the GSA "study" was finished, other researchers as ked to see Strong's data to verify his results. However, on completion of his st udy, Strong destroyed nearly all of the data, leaving only the hard results! We do know that he gathered up 10 QWERTY typists and trained them in Dvorak four ho urs a day for 25 days. Typing experts agree that training for more than two hour s a day is counterproductive. In spite of this, the Dvorak typists performed bet ter than the QWERTY typists by the end of the study. Their speed increased by 27 % and their error rate was reduced by 54% in a five minute test. In the same tes t, the QWERTY group increased their speed by 32%, but their error rate increased by 12%. Although the numbers clearly showed that Dvorak was superior, Dr. Strong (who wa s known to dislike Dr. Dvorak) turned the result of his study in the opposite di rection, saying that converting to Dvorak was not worth it. What anti-Dvorak for ces don't see is that the hard statistics beg to differ. In 1990, an article titled "The Fable of the Keys" was published in the Journal of Law and Economics. It supposedly proved that Dvorak must be no good because i t's not the standard today. But its authors fail to realize that two of the toug hest times in American history (that is, the Great Depression and World War II) were what stood in Dvorak's way and assured that QWERTY was the standard. Admitt ing that Dvorak is better than QWERTY would blow a hole in their economic theori es. If you've ever read "The Fable of the Keys," I highly recommend you follow i t up with The Fable of the Fable and Response to the Anti-Dvorak Crusaders. Clearly, people who say that Dvorak is no good have never tried it. If It's So Great, Why Doesn't Everybody Use It? Good question. The Dvorak keyboard did get some press when it was invented, and it gradually began to gain momentum from people who wanted a better keyboard. Ho wever, it was introduced during the Great Depression, and people weren't about t o spend what little money they had on new typewriters when their old ones were b uilt to last. Some companies started making Dvorak typewriters as early as the 1 940s. Dr. Dvorak invested heavily in a Remington Dvorak model that didn't sell w ell because typists didn't like its sound. The U.S. Navy, having finished its st udy on the Dvorak keyboard, ordered 2,000 Dvorak typewriters, but the Treasury d epartment vetoed the purchase. By the end of the World War II, QWERTY was the st andard keyboard and nothing could get in its way. In addition, the poorly conduc ted 1956 GSA study that was extremely biased toward QWERTY managed to keep peopl e from adopting Dvorak. But in the 1970s and 80s, Dvorak made a comeback of sorts. Smith-Corona started offering all its typewriters in QWERTY and Dvorak a switchable model was even made . The public's awareness of Dvorak was increasing. Still, the Dvorak typewriter was not popular compared to Smith-Corona's other models, and so they discontinue d their Dvorak line. Dr. August Dvorak, who worked hard to promote his keyboard

layout, died on October 10, 1975. And though Dvorak was officially recognized by ANSI in November 1982 and the number of Dvorak users rocketed from 5,000 in 198 2 to 100,000 in 1984, the furor died down. Then the personal computer emerged as an essential tool in homes and offices. Na turally, most computer keyboards adopted the QWERTY layout. However, the Dvorak layout was just popular enough that most operating systems made it an option. Th e Internet has also become a great tool for promoting Dvorak awareness. More and more people are learning about the Dvorak keyboard, and some of them are even m aking the switch. Making the Switch You can buy a Dvorak keyboard (see the next section for more details on buying), but it's not necessary. Nearly every operating system will allow you to change the keyboard layout in use. That means you can still use the keyboard you have n ow; it will just work like a Dvorak. Most people who are familiar with QWERTY do not want to make the switch to Dvora k, and that's okay. If you've never switched keyboard layouts before, you should know that if you quit QWERTY for good, you may end up completely forgetting it. (It happened to me!) If you wish to retain your QWERTY skills while learning Dv orak, be careful. Try to keep your typing even between layouts, and don't do too much on one keyboard at one time. If you want to quit QWERTY for good, go ahead . You might have to re-learn it later if you need to. But unless you die next mo nth, switching to Dvorak will be worth it in the long run, whether you decide to abandon QWERTY completely or not. Make sure you have a lot of time to make the switch. It usually takes about a mo nth or so. During the process of learning Dvorak, there may be a time in which y ou aren't yet up to speed on Dvorak and have pretty much forgotten QWERTY; you w ouldn't be able to type very well on either layout. For this reason, it's good t o start learning Dvorak during a long vacation. But after a few weeks, you'll se e your speed increase. With that said, you should now be ready take the big step. Here are instructions on switching to Dvorak for the most popular operating systems and desktop envir onments. Windows XP: Go to Start -> Control Panel. (If you're viewing by categories, click "Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options.") Go to Regional and Language Options -> Languages -> Details and click "Add." Select "United States-Dvorak" and then press OK. To make it the default, choose "United States-Dvorak" in the Default Input Language drop-down menu. Windows Vista: Go to Start -> Control Panel. In the default view, the option is "Change keyboards or other input methods;" If you're using the "Classic View ," go to Regional Language Options and select the "Keyboards and Languages" tab. Click the "Change Keyboards" button, and click the "Add" button. Select "United States-Dvorak" and then press OK. To make it the default, choose "United States -Dvorak" in the Default Input Language drop-down menu. GNOME: Go to System -> Preferences -> Keyboard -> Layouts and click "Add." F or Layouts, select your country, and for Variants, select Dvorak. If a Dvorak la yout doesn't appear for your country, then select "USA," "United Kingdom," or an other country that has one. To make Dvorak the default layout, click the button under "Default" in the Keyboard Layouts window. To change the key combination us ed to switch between layouts, go to Layout Options -> Layout Switching and choos e one or multiple options. KDE: YaST -> Hardware -> Keyboard Layout -> Variant:Dvorak. Mac OS X: Open System Preferences (Apple Menu -> System Preferences), choose the "International" tab, choose the "Input Menu" tab from there, and check the box next to "Dvorak." To change between the two at any time, click on the flag o

n the right of the menu bar, and on the drop-down, click on "Dvorak." Okay, I don't have all the most popular ones covered. For other and older operat ing systems, see Marcus Brooks's page. The next thing you're going to have to do is learn how to type on the Dvorak key board layout. ABCD: A Basic Course in Dvorak is a good on-line tutorial. This, a long with some plain old self-composed sentences every now and then, is how I le arned Dvorak. Like learning anything, practice makes perfect. Enough practice an d you should be typing well in a few weeks. If you move from computer to computer a lot and you can't switch the computers t o Dvorak, I would recommend trying Dvorak Anywhere. Just log on to the page and type Dvorak-style in the box you don't have to switch the software on the computer as described above! You could also save the page to a disk and take it with you wherever you need it. Buying, Not Buying, or Forging a Dvorak Keyboard Converting your computer using one of the methods described on the Switch Your C omputer to Dvorak page will make your keyboard work and type like a Dvorak, but the keys will still have their original QWERTY letters printed on them. This sho uldn't be much of a problem, because a touch-typist never looks at the keyboard. Still, you may want to print a diagram of the Dvorak keyboard (such as the one at the top of this page) to keep near your computer monitor. If you would have the Dvorak letters on the keys, you have three options: you ca n either relabel your keys, buy a Dvorak keyboard, or make a Dvorak keyboard. Relabeling Relabeling the keys can be done inexpensively. You can buy some reasonably-price d Dvorak labels from Hooleon Corporation or Fentek Industries. If your unenlight ened friends/family members also use your computer, you can get labels with both Dvorak and QWERTY letters on them. It's also possible to print a Dvorak layout such as the one on this page onto adhesive paper. Buying If you have some extra money to throw around, you may be interested in buying a hard-wired Dvorak keyboard that is, one that works like a Dvorak when you plug it in. I'm not aware of any place that currently sells regular-shaped, true Dvorak keyboards, but there are some weird and wonderful ergonomic types that come in D vorak. TypeMatrix gets rave reviews for its ergonomic keyboards, all of which ha ve a QWERTY/Dvorak switching button. The keys are available in QWERTY, Dvorak, a nd dual-labeled configurations. Fentek offers Dvorak keyboards that are not hard-wired. They will work like a QW ERTY when you plug them in, so these keyboards require you to switch the softwar e using one of the methods above. Apparently, they are simply regular QWERTY key boards with the keycaps rearranged. In any case, Dvorak keyboards, when they can be found, are not as cheap as QWERTYs, and you'd be hard pressed to find one in a store. Making If you are really short on cash, you could always pop the keys off your QWERTY ( using a screwdriver) and rearrange them to match the Dvorak layout. I tried this on an old keyboard just for the heck of it, and the results were not that prett y. On most keyboards, the keys on each row are slightly angled toward the home r ow. Rearranging these keys makes for a lumpy keyboard, and there are no notches on the keys where your index fingers rest ("u" and "h" on Dvorak; "f" and "j" on QWERTY). Note also that not all keyboards can stand to have their keys popped o ff. Make sure you know what you're doing.

Very Minor No-Big-Deal Dvorak Variations Not all Dvorak layouts are the same. Don't freak out; not all QWERTY layouts are the same either. Over the years, there have been different placings of some of the lesser-used punctuation marks, most notably the [brackets] and {braces}. The American National Standards Institute (commonly known as ANSI) has its own vers ion, but most operating systems use the one pictured on this page. The latter ve rsion is pretty much the de facto standard. Don't worry if the brackets on your computer's layout do not match the ones in the picture; with enough playing arou nd you should figure out where they are. The letters and most of the punctuation marks are always in the same places. Recommended Reading 'The Dvorak Keyboard' by R.C. CassinghamIf you're interested in the Dvorak keybo ard, I highly recommend you read The Dvorak Keyboard: The Ergonomically Designed Typewriter Keyboard, Now an American Standard by R.C. Cassingham, Freelance Com munications, 1986. Although the resources in the back of the book are outdated, the The Dvorak Keyboard contains more information about Dvorak than you could ev er possibly get from a web site. Inside its pages are diagrams of various Dvorak and QWERTY variations, in-depth information about the Navy and GSA studies, lot s of helpful tips for learning and practicing the layout, and more. It's the sou rce for most of the facts and information you've seen on this page. You can orde r The Dvorak Keyboard and other Dvorak literature through the author's online or der form. Promote Dvorak! Now that you know the benefits of Dvorak, it's time to spread the word. Here are some things you can do: