Keyboard Layout: Dvorak vs Colemak: is it Worthwhile to Improve the Dvorak Layout?

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 11:45 AM, Gregory Ewing
<greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> And did any of the studies take into account the fact that a lot of
>> computer users - in all but the purest data entry tasks - will use a
>> mouse as well as a keyboard?
>
> What I think's really stupid is designing keyboards with two
> big blocks of keys between the alphabetic keys and the mouse.
>
> Nowadays I find myself perpetually prone to off-by-one errors
> when moving back to the keyboard. :-(

That's one of the reasons I like my laptop keyboard so much. Hands
don't have to leave to grab the mouse. Although if you lay out your
desk right (assuming you have one - the other advantage of the laptop
is the ability to type at the same speed on a bus) you can change that
"two big blocks of keys" issue. For instance, I have a computer at
work where the mouse is in front of the keyboard (between me and it).
It looks odd, but it works in practice. The actual distance my hand
moves to get from home keys to mouse is about the same as swinging to
the right past the numpad, but since I'm aiming in the opposite
direction, it's easier to not hit the off-by-one.

But as an old jester Pointed out, you can come in time to like
anything that you get used to.

ChrisA
PS. "Pointed" is not a mistake, but I doubt anyone on this list will
know why I did it.