geekhack Community > Ergonomics

Smaller layout fullsize keyboard?

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HarkPtooie:
The non-standard layouts of the 1800/etc is what I want to avoid. I just want to condense the area without changing the locations.

I have average hands, but my wifes' fingertips reach about to the outermost joint of my fingers. That is 3 cm shorter than mine, and she says she has to hunt around to reach the far ends of the keyboard, plus its width means she has to angle her forearms outwards to reach the mouse, which is less than preferable. She would not be at a disadvantage with a keyboard that is a couple of centimeters narrower and more dense.

Further, my 9 year old daughter is learning to use a keyboard.

Both of them are already moving - or will extensively move - between other keyboards at school, workplaces, friends, et cetera. For this reason, better to stick to standard.

nevin:
the biggest problem would be finding or making smaller keycaps. pretty much everything is based on the 19mm key spacing.
again, look up the typewriter style keycaps and see if you can find measurements on them. it's about the only common but non standard caps that i can think of.

1391401:
The Tex Shinobi ships with two sized keycaps [1] which are 1u and approx 0.80u.  As a result things like the nav cluster are much closer together.  Presumably you could procure the same or similar keycap from a vendor and make a smaller / tighter keyboard.

I know it's not actually what you're asking for but as far as prebuilts go I loved my Vortex Tab 90 and Vibe for a full sized but "squished" layout.

[1] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0052/5814/9978/products/2020-05-16_122712_600x600.png?v=1592296598

Volny:

--- Quote from: HarkPtooie on Tue, 03 August 2021, 09:18:37 ---The non-standard layouts of the 1800/etc is what I want to avoid. I just want to condense the area without changing the locations.

I have average hands, but my wifes' fingertips reach about to the outermost joint of my fingers. That is 3 cm shorter than mine, and she says she has to hunt around to reach the far ends of the keyboard, plus its width means she has to angle her forearms outwards to reach the mouse, which is less than preferable. She would not be at a disadvantage with a keyboard that is a couple of centimeters narrower and more dense.

Further, my 9 year old daughter is learning to use a keyboard.

Both of them are already moving - or will extensively move - between other keyboards at school, workplaces, friends, et cetera. For this reason, better to stick to standard.

--- End quote ---
I hear you. And I hope you find what you're looking for. But keep in mind two things.

-As someone mentioned, a smaller-but-identically-laid-out keyboard would end up requiring different muscle-memory for most of the keys since they're at different distances from each other than usual. In which case it would probably be just as annoying to switch from this to a regular keyboard, if not more so.

-I'm guessing that many (most? all?) of the keyboards that your daughter will be moving between at school will be laptop keyboards, most of which barely resemble a standard full-size layout. They usually have weird miniature up/down arrow keys, truncated right-hand modifiers to make space for them, function keys that don't work without an extra keypress, a missing numpad, and awkwardly compromised nav cluster. I've owned my laptop for over 5 years, and I still want to smash the screen every time I need to hit pgdn or home. In fact, laptops have quite a lot in common with the non-standard layouts you're hoping to avoid.

nevin:
good point. and it's actually good practice to switch between different form factors. keeps you more fluent when you get presented with something different.

i'd also like to mention. everybody's tastes are different. my wife would have a fit if she had to use my keyboard (split ortho w/blank keycaps) and i feel the same pecking away at her laptop (know your pain @Volny)

take this opportunity to try a couple different keyboards. get one of the smaller ones for your wife and find one that you like. your daughter will probably be able to switch between boards/devices a lot easier than either of her parents. ....we get old & stuck in our ways.
- you may not like the smaller board
- your wife may love the smaller board
- your daughter will probably just want something that works
and all of this is ok. .....what makes us unique as individuals.

if you're like most people, you won't find your perfect board on your first try, and your tastes could change as you start really examining your input devices.

i started out on the strange layouts from the 80's, then to full size as the decades progressed, then to a condensed full size layout (original 333Mhz imac keyboard), found the mechanical keyboard community, used a 60% keyboard with a separate numberpad for a handful of years, then started trying some of the more "strange" keyboards, ortholinear, split, columnar stagger, etc. my current board that i've been using for years now is a split ortholinear and my current opinion is... you couldn't pay me to go back to a one piece standard staggered layout keyboard. did i ever think that i'd like or want to use this type of keyboard... not at all. do i love it now... yes.

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