Author Topic: What labeled keycaps to include in a sculpted Ortho kit? An Ergodox kit?  (Read 4820 times)

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Offline NoPunIn10Did

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When designing a keycap set, what keycaps should be in the kit to cover the typical Ortho or Ergodox users?

In particular, what do you include for sculpted sets, where the row a key lands in actually matters?

Right now, I have only one example from PMK to go off of, but I don't know how well that provides coverage to the average Ergo/Ortho GB participant.
« Last Edit: Wed, 21 August 2019, 19:43:31 by NoPunIn10Did »

Offline NoPunIn10Did

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Re: What keycaps to include in a sculpted Ortho kit? An Ergodox kit?
« Reply #1 on: Wed, 21 August 2019, 19:43:07 »
Sorry, I should’ve clarified. I’m trying to figure out what labels users would like on a typical Ergodox or Ortho keyboard’s modifiers.

Like which R1, R2, R3, and R4 options should an Ergodox kit include (in addition to the default blanks).

Offline harlekein

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Re: What labeled keycaps to include in a sculpted Ortho kit? An Ergodox kit?
« Reply #2 on: Thu, 29 August 2019, 02:40:21 »
When it comes to ortho, there are two people who do an excellent job and it's Mito and biip.

Look no further:



I also want to take this opportunity to say I really loathe the recent trend of putting ortho and 40s kits together. This started because of the high MOQ on GMK and somehow became the new norm. Please don't do that. It hikes up the price and leaves both 40 and ortho users with flawed layouts.

Offline NoPunIn10Did

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Re: What labeled keycaps to include in a sculpted Ortho kit? An Ergodox kit?
« Reply #3 on: Thu, 29 August 2019, 11:03:04 »
That does look like a pretty solid Ortho arrangement for labeled keys.  I posted a survey here and over on Reddit to collect data for this topic, since this thread wasn't getting much in the way of activity.

One of the running themes of the survey seems to be that some key labels are easily-agreed upon, while others aren't.  There's definitely interest in either having blank keys or some other non-distracting label on the modifiers.

Both of those approaches have their downsides, though.  Having too many blanks means that you miss out on some of the aesthetics of the colorway.  Having generic labels potentially means having to fund lots of new novelties.  And sometimes, you just want your keyboard labels to be right.

There's got to be a better way to satisfy a wider span of Ortho / Ergo users without letting the price point get too high.