Arrow cluster shapes. Classical, and "T" shaped.

[Eszett]

I'd like to have Your opinion. I'm considering a different arrow cluster shape ("T" shaped, see picture). Some guy said to me that
this "T" shape feels uncomfortable for him, and he prefers the classical WASD shape. Do you think the same, and why?

[Lastpilot]

I'd agree with classical.

I find it more comfortable because I hit the vertical arrows with my middle finger. I think the T shape would need me to curl my middle finger too much, especially since most of the time I want to keep the adjacent fingers on the left and right arrows.

[fanpeople]

Just tried it, feels very wrong. I think it just defies the natural movement of the fingers.

[ideus]

I prefer them in this order:

Inverted T.
Plus sign (Old NCR PC4)
In a row (VIM like)
L shaped.

[Tactile]

Just tried it, feels very wrong. I think it just defies the natural movement of the fingers.

Yup, it's much more natural to move the middle finger up to hit the odd-man-out key than to move down. If anyone thought this was a good idea we'd be using Q-W-E-S for games instead of W-A-S-D.

[ideus]

Just tried it, feels very wrong. I think it just defies the natural movement of the fingers.

Yup, it's much more natural to move the middle finger up to hit the odd-man-out key than to move down. If anyone thought this was a good idea we'd be using Q-W-E-S for games instead of W-A-S-D.

What is that in your avi?

[Tactile]

What is that in your avi?

Just an old typewriter.

[ideus]

What is that in your avi?

Just an old typewriter.

Ah!, it should be the lens that makes the typewriter to look as if it was an sphere.

[hoggy]

I'd go with the classical, it's more comfortable to reach for the top row, than the bottom row.  In this case your home row contains the left, down, right keys.

[rowdy]

Based on my muscle memory, inverted T all the time!

Or, based on my vi experience, left/down/up/right arrows in that order, overlaid on hjkl keycaps

[Darkshado]

To this day, I generally use WERD as my movement keys in FPSs and other games with similar movement mechanics (e.g. third person stuff like the later GTAs).

(Background: Came up with this arrangement by placing my hand on the keyboard at a time when WASD wasn't the popular default it is today; heck, I probably hadn't even heard about it. Going from memory, I'd guess this happened while playing Quake II or Action Quake 2 with GameSpy to browse servers on a 56k dialup connection.)

However, I prefer the usual inverted T for typing. I won't pretend there was a lot of thinking involved in reaching WERD, but looking back it might have had to do with the "dominant" movement you do in either activity? Forwards in games, downwards when typing / reviewing some document or code.

If you're building something entirely custom, some ergo boards (e.g. TECK) use a "flattened cruciform" with the left and right keys flanking up and down in the middle, right between the inverted T and T positions you're describing. Some Microsoft Natural series boards have "narrow cruciform" with up, and and right underneath on the same line, then down.

[suicidal_orange]

My middle finger is noticeably longer than the other two arrow fingers so inverted makes sense to me, if it were shorter T would be better as I press up way more often than down so up needs to be more comfortable.

[ideus]

Touch Cursor

[Findecanor]

BTW, the History of the Inverse-T is a piece of interesting reading.

You can try the star-shape / down key being one row down on the numeric keypad.

[Eszett]

Wow, interesting article, Findecanor! Especially Jim Burrow's "Diamond" shape is very interesting. I gotta copy that idea :-) Yes, I guess I get the point. Most people will prefer the mainstream inverted "T". (For myself, I'm coming from the era, were numpads where the only option to use arrow keys, that is cross-shaped arrows.)

[Aricil]

I think it'd be really weird to go to the arrow cluster being that. I dunno if that's just muscle memory and being used to the traditional layout, however.