Is there a benefit to plan layout with paper ?

[cendrounet]

Hello, I have ni experience in mechanical keyboards and I am planning to build (and handwire) my own.
But this requires prototyping, and those require switches and keycaps (which I dont have yet) or eg 3d printed material (which is useless without the keys, and is relatively expensive, compared to paper).
Hence my question : Is there any value to design a layout considering the position of my hand on paper ? (Like in the photo)

Will bad real layout feel incomfortable in a paper plan ? Will good paper plan feel good as a layout ?

For instance, I have quite big hands, and after printing the ergodox's svg from keyboard-layout-editor, I couldn't even place my hands such as 1 finger => 1 row, though it could be because of a bad scale (It would be strange, considering the total size of each row).

[ErgoMacros]

Hi,
I haven't built my own keyboard from scratch yet, so can't help you there, but the standard size for a key is 0.75" long by 0.75" wide. You can check your ErgoDox scale against that.
Best of luck!!

[Findecanor]

I think that for an ergo layout, a paper layout reveals key positions that don't work more than they show what does work. That goes especially for thumb keys. Printing a paper prototype is obviously much less costly than having to redo a PCB and/or plate later on.

Then you could use transparent double-sided tape to mount keycaps to the paper prototype and test that out.
I have also harvested keycaps from Cherry G81-series keyboards and saved the Cherry MY switch modules, I cut the legs off those and taped (double-sided) those to the paper layout and tested key presses.

Getting a drawing to be printed in perfect 1:1 scale can be tricky but should be possible.
If you are using a vector-drawing program (Inkscape, Illustrator etc.) then it should be 1:1 by default. However, if you are printing a pixel-based image (JPEG, PNG, etc.) then the program might want to scale it down to make it fit on the page: then you might have to divide it onto multiple pages and/or crop off the white space around your drawing so that the image is smaller than the page (minus margins!).

[cendrounet]

For some reason when I get the svf file it isn't at the right size, and required a 39% augmentation (to be .75 inches)
Does anyone know if the websites associated ( keyboardcad.com ) generate CAD in appropriate size ?
With appropriate size, the papergodox feels good, but Im tempted to do some funky experiments with layout.

Have you some experience with designing layouts ? are there ideas that seem good but definitely aren't ? Or some mandatory things ?

[jdcarpe]

For printing 1:1 layouts, I recommend exporting your design to PDF.

It's definitely cheaper to prototype on paper than having a plate cut or making a PCB which you are uncertain of.