geekhack Community > Ergonomics
Keyboard Layout Analyzer - new forked version
stevep:
Thanks for taking a look and giving feedback.
--- Quote from: Gorbon on Mon, 04 May 2020, 05:01:55 ---
* The scores of "QWERTY" and "QWERTY Wide-Mod" are consistently very close, I would expect there to be a more clear advantage for the wide mod.
--- End quote ---
Well, the calculation is largely based on the fingers used and distance moved relative to home, so because the Wide mod moves the home position, the relative movements will be the same. Obviously the greater separation has some ergonomic benefit but this is not modelled explicitly. The main difference will be down to the things like easier access to keys like Return or less load on pinky.
--- Quote from: Gorbon on Mon, 04 May 2020, 05:01:55 ---
* On the matrix keyboard the keys don’t align with the hand approach angle, forcing both hands to twist outwards while typing. So I would expect the “Colemak-DHm Matrix” to score lower than both "Ergodox Colemak-DHm (Mod-DH)" and "Colemak-DH (Mod-DH) split-space", but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The matrix, scores very close to the Ergodox and very often higher than the ISO board with the Angle Mod.
--- End quote ---
Dealing with hand approach angle is an outstanding problem for split keyboards like the Ergodox. Because obviously, the user can rotate each half to their preferred angle, but the algorithm currently only assumes the board is straight. I was planning to add a boolean to indicate a split board, so that the angle of approach effect can be cancelled out in such cases, but I haven't done this yet. I'm not sure why Colemak-DHm Matrix scores so well, but maybe the grid-geometry with no staggering at all helps with the distance calculation. It'll be interesting to see what happens when I've fixed the split board issue.
Edit: I have now added explicit support for split keyboards to the algorithm. As a result of this change, split boards like the Ergodox should now do a bit better.
--- Quote from: Gorbon on Mon, 04 May 2020, 05:01:55 ---
* Also on number input (Pi 1000), "Colemak-DH (Mod-DH) split-space" scores markedly lower than "Colemak-DH (Mod-DH)". I would expect these to be identical.
--- End quote ---
Can't reproduce this, I do get the same score for both.
--- Quote from: Gorbon on Mon, 04 May 2020, 05:01:55 ---I’ve also added Maltron and RSTHD layouts for the Ergodox (attached). In most tests they seem to score close to one another, but both lower than the "Ergodox Colemak-DHm (Mod-DH)"
Finally, the "QWERTY split-space" preset doesn’t seem to load.
--- End quote ---
Thanks, I have added these and also fixed QWERTY split-space.
Gorbon:
--- Quote from: stevep on Mon, 04 May 2020, 07:43:11 ---
--- Quote from: Gorbon on Mon, 04 May 2020, 05:01:55 ---
* Also on number input (Pi 1000), "Colemak-DH (Mod-DH) split-space" scores markedly lower than "Colemak-DH (Mod-DH)". I would expect these to be identical.
--- End quote ---
Can't reproduce this, I do get the same score for both.
--- End quote ---
Yes, I should've been more specific. The problem seems to surface when comparing ISO and ANSI layouts, which shouldn't make a difference on number input. For instance the scores below for the "Pi 1000" test, are different.
stevep:
--- Quote from: Gorbon on Tue, 05 May 2020, 16:11:58 ---Yes, I should've been more specific. The problem seems to surface when comparing ISO and ANSI layouts, which shouldn't make a difference on number input. For instance the scores below for the "Pi 1000" test, are different.
--- End quote ---
Ah, OK, so I think with the layouts you've selected there, the difference is in finger definitions. The DH layouts especially have angle-mod style fingering which applies to the top row also. Colemak-DH ANSI seems to be missing that though.
Looks like Dvorak may be slightly different because of the single "." character.
Snarfangel:
I'm not sure if you are still accepting layouts, but here is the one I've used on my Kinesis for the past couple of years:
iandoug:
--- Quote from: Gorbon on Mon, 04 May 2020, 05:01:55 ---
* On the matrix keyboard the keys don’t align with the hand approach angle, forcing both hands to twist outwards while typing. So I would expect the “Colemak-DHm Matrix” to score lower than both "Ergodox Colemak-DHm (Mod-DH)" and "Colemak-DH (Mod-DH) split-space", but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The matrix, scores very close to the Ergodox and very often higher than the ISO board with the Angle Mod.
--- End quote ---
The representation in KLA is not how the keyboard looks in real life. For matrix designs, they might even be split in two, but for calculation purposes, we only need to worry about how each hand moves, not how the hands relate to each other or the keyboard. So for example, Ergodox layout is shown with most keys vertical, but in reality the boards are normally twisted in ergonomic fashion.
Matrix layouts score well because all keys are 1U, unlike Ergodox. And distance travelled is usually major component of scoring system.
Cheers, Ian
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