Just how ergonomic is it (Ergodox)?

[jchan94]

As of last year, I started noticing horrible habits with sitting, and the way that my arms are during typing. As a result of this, I started getting into tenkeyless keyboards, and then also bought a 60% pok3r keyboard.

I'm wondering just HOW ergonomic are ergodox keyboards. I currently have a horrible typing methodology where my left hand types about 60-65% of the board, and my right hand is mainly used for modifiers. It's just a habit that I acquire from always having my fingers on the WASD and my right hand on the mouse.



[Mod Edit: Added Ergodox to the title.  Hope that's okay - Hoggy]

[steve.v]

It will be subjective; it would be more effective to learn a different typing layout than qwerty for ergonomic reasons.

[iLLucionist]

Indeed, it is subjective. but I must say that the most ergonomic I personally ever typed on, must've been the Microsoft Natural 4000.

[profet]

It takes about two weeks to get used to.

And you'll hate it and curse at it all through those two weeks.

But after the adjustment period you'll find out that you type faster and have no shoulder or wrist pain.

The completely separate halves make it so that you can keep your arms at shoulder width apart and your shoulders aren't always flexed to keep your hands at keyboard position.

Your wrists are no longed cocked at a weird angle for keyboard position since you can adjust the angle of each half independently.

And one of the big benefits is that two of your most useful fingers (thumbs) aren't both assigned to one gigantic key. You actually use them for useful interactions without having to move the rest of your hand away from the home row.


I've been making ergodox to order for a while now. Here are some builds I did for customers:
Purple Dox: http://imgur.com/a/wucaU
Cherry Wood Dox: http://imgur.com/a/41oqb
Floating Keys Dox: http://imgur.com/a/GTBKg
Storm Trooper Dox: http://imgur.com/a/unKrA

If you're interested in a custom build, PM me and we can talk pricing.

[jacobolus]

Personally I think it’s a great project, and a definite improvement over a standard keyboard especially for people with large hands.

(As profet says, independent adjustability of the two halves and plenty of thumb keys are great features, as is a column-oriented finger-key layout.)

But I think it would really benefit from some tweaks to really be comfortable and efficient for a wide range of people. I started a thread about that here https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=62848 but I’ve stalled on working on that for the past year.

One recommendation: if you get an Ergodox or similar, put DCS or another properly sculpted keycap set on it, NOT SA, DSA, or the like. It makes a dramatic improvement to usability. Personally I think MassDrop should stop providing DSA keycaps as a standard option, as it sets people up for a bad experience.

[berserkfan]

how is DCS properly sculpted compared with SA? It's just row profile tilts, rather than being sculpted to fit the fingers as with SA.

As a guy who uses many different profiles on the same keyboard I think it is a question of how you use the board. EG my thumbs and little fingers love the SA keycaps.

[steve.v]

Personally I think it’s a great project, and a definite improvement over a standard keyboard especially for people with large hands.

(As profet says, independent adjustability of the two halves and plenty of thumb keys are great features, as is a column-oriented finger-key layout.)

But I think it would really benefit from some tweaks to really be comfortable and efficient for a wide range of people. I started a thread about that here https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=62848 but I’ve stalled on working on that for the past year.

One recommendation: if you get an Ergodox or similar, put DCS or another properly sculpted keycap set on it, NOT SA, DSA, or the like. It makes a dramatic improvement to usability. Personally I think MassDrop should stop providing DSA keycaps as a standard option, as it sets people up for a bad experience.

Strictly preference; I prefer DSA on an ergodox. The flat plane I think is a feature.

[jacobolus]

Strictly preference; I prefer DSA on an ergodox. The flat plane I think is a feature.

Use whatever you like; nobody here is going to force you to set your keyboard up any particular way.

But seriously, having the further-away keys be taller is a real functional advantage, and on a column-staggered layout in particular makes a pretty noticeable difference. I’ve polled maybe a dozen people who tried DCS and DSA keycaps on Ergodoxes back-to-back, and nearly all of them preferred the DCS version (the others were indifferent and didn’t like the Ergodox at all). [Admittedly, this was a short test, only maybe 5–10 minutes typing on each version. Also, these weren’t keyboard “enthusiasts,” just a random group of people in a coffeeshop one day. Definitely not the most rigorously scientific study ever.] If you haven’t tried a set of sculpted keycaps on an Ergodox or similar keyboard, I strongly recommend trying it for a day or two before dismissing the idea.

Beyond that, the Ergodox has IMO somewhat poorly designed thumb sections (at least for small to medium sized hands), and 2–3 of the keys in each thumb section are basically unusable without extra-tall keycaps on them.

DSA does have one big advantage, of course, which is that you interchange the keycaps between rows, which is very convenient if you have a non-QWERTY layout you need legends for, or want to get the right legends on all the modifier keys, etc. Also, some of the DSA keycap sets are very nice looking.

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Edit: Reading it again, I think this post sounds more negative than I intended. I have strong opinions about which is better in the abstract, but I really don’t have any problem with people using DSA keycaps if they want to. If something works for you, that’s great. Someone getting a new Ergodox might want to try both types of keycaps for themselves.