What is the most important ergonomic feature on your keyboard?

[kurplop]

After spending years considering different ways to reduce discomfort while using a keyboard I've found 2 non-negotiable features that I wouldn't do without and several other things which further improve ergonomics.. How does your experience compare?

Essential–   Negative tilt–   I have found that hyper extending my wrists is the fastest way to bring back that old pain. The funny thing is that this condition doesn't even require a special keyboard. A raised chair, spacer under the front of board, or an adjustable tray is all that is needed to get the wrist in a more neutral position.

Essential–   Split keyboard–   This could be either separating the 2 halves, having a keyboard that splays inward at the top, or both. Ulnar deviation is the other condition I cannot handle. I've seen people type with their hands skewed on a straight board to overcome this but a properly splayed board makes more sense to me. I personally like a 20º angle when the halves are together. The best angle would reduce as the distance apart increases.

Important–   Chair–  While not part of your keyboard, when you have the right one you forget about it. Having a chair that can be raised to the proper height, offers comfortable back support, and has adjustable armrests can make all the difference.

Important–  Tenting–  Even a little bit goes a long way. My current board is only 9º but that is to make it travel friendly. I find 12–18º works best for me. The idea is to bring the amount of pronation within a comfortable range without overdoing it. As the angle approaches vertical, gravity could play a negative role and the keyboards bulk can become obtrusive in the desktop landscape.

Important–   Layout–  Reassigning character location is important for me. I find that minimizing the amount I need to use outside keys by relocating the often used keys like 'shift' to the inside, I use thumb clusters, takes a lot of the burden from my pinkies.

Nice to have–  Vertical columns–  I'm not so much a believer in vertical columns in themselves but rather the ability to staggers rows with them. By making the row positions line up with finger length, it naturally places the hands at rest.

Nice to have–  Switch type and cap style– The switch type is not critical for me because I can barely feel them anyways but I can imagine people with certain conditions may be affected by the amount of force required to activate the switch and bottoming out shock. The right shaped cap can reduce reach and make keys more accessable.


How does your experience compare? Rate the following features:

Negative tilt

Split keyboard

Chair

Tenting

Layout

Vertical columns

Switch/ Keycap

contoured– either with keycaps or Maltron/Advantage style contoured plates

Other

[davkol]

I've found several keyboards reasonably comfortable: LiteOn SK-6000, TypeMatrix 2030 and basically any keyboard with the right hand-resting position shifted one column to the right. The key shared features appear to be (1) [large] modifiers under thumbs, and (2) some hand separation (at least one column).

I'm fine with nearly any key mechanism, as long as its somewhat smooth and snappy. OTOH sticky keycaps can totally turn me off at times.

Whenever I'm seriously typing though, I need

• a good text editor,
• a properly adjusted keyboard tray, and
• lots of well-placed modifiers (mirrored on both sides of the keyboard) to access text-editing functions and custom layers with symbols.

The symbol arrangement definitely matters too, but I have no direct comparison anymore.

[vvp]

Negative tilt: Not needed for me. Flat horizontal position is OK. Positive tilt is bad.

Split keyboard: Important.

Chair: Important.

Tenting: Some tenting is good but not enough for me to really bother.

Layout: Important. Especially all the modifiers need to be very easy to reach. Preferably by thumbs. Modifiers on both sides. That means that standard keyboard modifiers at the bottom row do not pass.

Vertical columns: Important. And there should be column stagger.

Switch: Does not matter. But I prefer switches with about the same travel as Cherry MX.

Keycap: General shape does matter (e.g. DCS better than DSA on a flat keyboard). Keycap material or keycap being double shot do not matter at all.

Other: Contoured keyboards are so much more comfortable. Get a Kinessis Advantage or Maltron or build yourself a contoured keyboard.

[Findecanor]

I would rather rank the features, because I think that makes more sense.

1. Split
2. Tenting
3. Tilt, although I would rather use a flat keyboard

[Tiramisuu]

I have tried many keyboards claiming to be ergonomic and in practice have found the claims  be mostly horse ****.  A good seating position in a chair that fits at a reasonable desk height.   Keep your damn wrists straight and you can pretty much type all day once you develop the stamina to do so.

I would guess that something like the data and might actually be ergonomic but no one bought them.    Learning how to steno type would also be effectively ergonomic as a proficient stenographer can real time type about 225 words per minute but there is a steep learning curve and steno types are expensive.    Plover makes it cheaper to learn but to be proficient you still need a proper keyboard.

I like the way my cherry brown poker with aluminum case feels but making a claim of ergonomic is usually just advertising fluff.

[kurplop]

Thanks for the responses so far. Hopefully we can get  a large enough number of comments to get an indication of what the dominant issues are.

I  am also glad to get comments from users who see no need for any special ergo designs. It is possible that the majority of heavy keyboard users will never have any ill effects from standard keyboard use and that should be noted.  To say that ergo boards are unnecessary however is a bit myopic. Not all people respond the same way to different stresses and those who have experienced comfort or relief from an ergo board would argue with such a statement. Also, some people don't start experiencing symptoms until later in life. It reminds me of a guy who use to make fun of my bald head 35 years ago. Little did he realize that he was sporting a pretty substantial egg in the back of his own nest.

[Zustiur]

I think I'm an odd case.
Switch type is number 1 for me. Rubber domes hurt my knuckles. Still identifying what is best but blues are good.
Next is layout to move enter and backspace to my thumbs. Which can't really be done unless you go to a really different design in order to have thumb clusters. I haven't relocated shift yet as I dread the relearning of that!
Split is becoming a requirement but isn't necessary just yet.
Tilt comes next.

[vvp]

I haven't relocated shift yet as I dread the relearning of that!

It will take about 2 weeks if you go cold turkey (without special training exercises). My experience when moving both shifts to thumb clusters.

[kurplop]

vvp brought up a good feature; contoured plates a la Maltron/Kinesis. I added it to the list in the opening entry.

[MajorMajor]

Any recommendation as to a keyboard that best hits on all of these points?

[kurplop]

Any recommendation as to a keyboard that best hits on all of these points?

That's a question that could instigate a fight.   If it were that simple, a manufacturer could make a fortune marketing it. Unfortunately, it seems that the only universal generalization with keyboard ergonomics is that the best keyboard for you can't be expected to work for everyone. Much like a well fitting pair of shoes.

The perfect universal ergo keyboard would have to be flexible enough to work not only with different size hands but also with any other unique physiological conditions of the user. The problem is, adjustable designs (separate halves, adjustable tenting angles, gimbaled thumb clusters, adjustable trays, etc) tend to have their own problems. Articulations tend to introduce issues with integrity, convenience, bulkiness, and aesthetics.

[nothing4me]

Most important would have to be programming. Even if I had a regular keyboard, programming it would let me make it a lot more comfortable to type on (moving shift away from the pink etc).

[Niomosy]

For me?

Make an MS Ergo 4000 with MX reds.  I'm done.

To break this down?

A split, tented keyboard within a single case (no split case ala Ergodox). 

A standard split keyboard. 

No matrix, no symmetric. 

6 on the left-hand side, where it's been for me since using the first MS Ergo boards (plus it would suck for gaming to have it on the right hand side as I use it heavily in certain games... with my right hand).

Fn key on the left-hand side.  The space bar can be shifted to the right.  Won't make any difference to me.  With the right hand on the mouse, it makes the Fn key on the right side rather worthless to me while gaming.  I'll also accept dedicated media keys above the function keys, either centered or on the left side of the keyboard.

Bonus: make a 122-key ergo in the layout of an MS Ergo 4000 just so I can have an ergo maximal keyboard to contrast all those ultra-minimalist keyboards out there.  Sure, the whole massive keyboard contradicts the idea of ergonomics but it would be entertaining to have one if only just because.

[Zustiur]

Niomosy, to play devil's advocate, do you use the keypad at all?

[Niomosy]

I use it semi-regularly for making voip phone calls for work (computer-based voip) and for any encryption keys needed for a few different things.  That plus bits of sysadmin math here and there.  So, yes, I do make decent use of it.  I can go without it as I'm looking at picking up a TKL.

Honestly, though, I'm used to it at work on my Ergo 4000 so it's not a huge deal.  I also mouse lefty at work so the ten-key doesn't bother me being there.  At home I'm using a 104 key board right now and was using an Ergo 4000 as well. 

[jacobolus]

Negative tilt–   I have found that hyper extending my wrists is the fastest way to bring back that old pain. The funny thing is that this condition doesn't even require a special keyboard. A raised chair, spacer under the front of board, or an adjustable tray is all that is needed to get the wrist in a more neutral position.

Wrists should be as neutral as possible. But the proper amount of tilt to achieve that depends on the rest of the setup. If the keyboard is on a low table relative to the chair, then the keyboard tilt should be flat or slightly negative. If the keyboard is on a high table relative to the chair, the keyboard tilt should be positive.

It’s just as bad to have a flexed wrist as an extended wrist, and I sometimes see people with approximately flat keyboards (e.g. on a laptop) typing on a high table (e.g. at a coffee shop) with wrists flexed. In that context, they’d be better off with a spacer under the back of the keyboard, increasing the tilt angle such that their wrists stay relatively neutral (or alternately, they could just put the keyboard/laptop on their lap).

The academic research promoting negative tilt per se as a keyboard feature is incredibly flawed, just like the rest of the keyboard ergonomics literature. The researchers (across the ~10 papers I’ve read on the subject) tested very limited setups, and often failed to account for differences in body shape between subjects, differences in distance between the torso and the keyboard, etc. Several studies examine only wrist angle, without looking at other joint angles or muscle loads. Typically the study timeframe is only a few minutes of typing for each subject. Etc.

Much better than any specific tilt is to have user-adjustable tilt (in airplane terms, pitch), combined with some education about how to adjust the setup to reduce wrist strain. Also, user-adjustable roll (tenting) and yaw of the two halves of the keyboard are a huge advantage.

[jacobolus]

Split keyboard– This could be either separating the 2 halves, having a keyboard that splays inward at the top, or both. Ulnar deviation is the other condition I cannot handle. [...] Tenting–  Even a little bit goes a long way. My current board is only 9º but that is to make it travel friendly. I find 12–18º works best for me. The idea is to bring the amount of pronation within a comfortable range without overdoing it.

I think wrist pronation is actually a bigger problem than ulnar deviation (or perhaps more to the point, the way the keyboard forces too much wrist pronation causes people to substitute some ulnar deviation as a way to compensate), but adjusting yaw/roll (splay/tenting) makes a big difference for every aspect of wrist/arm/shoulder/back comfort.

Many typists extend their arms out in front of them or raise their elbows out to the side with their forearms held up in the air. Both of these are attempts to reduce the amount of wrist pronation that standard one-piece keyboard without tenting forces on the typist. If the keyboard halves could be properly adjusted, it would be much better form to sit up with the back straight, shoulders relaxed and back, not hunched forward or shrugging upward, upper arms hanging relatively loosely down at the sides, with elbows perhaps slightly forward or outward from the shoulders, but not much. However, on a standard keyboard, especially if it’s placed high requiring a sharp elbow angle, this causes a huge amount of strain from wrist pronation, causing people to try to reduce those stresses by raising/rotating their arms. Because holding an arm up for a long time puts a lot of static load on the upper arms, shoulders, and back, the natural next step is to rest the elbows/forearms/wrists/palms on the table or on a palmrest, and to slouch or hunch over.

My personal preference is about 30–40° of tenting.

Chair–  While not part of your keyboard, when you have the right one you forget about it. Having a chair that can be raised to the proper height, offers comfortable back support, and has adjustable armrests can make all the difference.

If you can get everything else set up properly, I’d recommend trying to sit up straight with your torso well supported by your spine, and not using the armrests or backrest while actually typing. But hey, everyone’s different. :-)

[Zustiur]

I use it semi-regularly for making voip phone calls for work (computer-based voip) and for any encryption keys needed for a few different things.  That plus bits of sysadmin math here and there.  So, yes, I do make decent use of it.  I can go without it as I'm looking at picking up a TKL.

Honestly, though, I'm used to it at work on my Ergo 4000 so it's not a huge deal.  I also mouse lefty at work so the ten-key doesn't bother me being there.  At home I'm using a 104 key board right now and was using an Ergo 4000 as well. 

Fair enough. Just thought I'd ask in case TKL had been skipped as a consideration. Left handed mouse = no problem.

[jacobolus]

Next is layout to move enter and backspace to my thumbs. [...] I haven't relocated shift yet as I dread the relearning of that!

As an easier alternative, try relocating shift to be directly adjacent to your pinky home positions (the “home” resting position for the pinky fingers is going to vary from person to person depending on keyboard layout and typing technique so I can’t tell you exactly which keys those are), so that to press shift only takes moving the pinky a small amount, instead of reaching several keys over.

[kurplop]

Thanks everyone for the sudden burst of responses. There has been almost as much activity here in the last 8 hours as the 2 weeks before. This can only mean one thing– jacobolus is back in town.
 

jacobolus– I remember reading somewhere that your primary keyboard isn't even an ergo design. This begs 2 questions. 

What is the most important ergo feature for you personally?

Why the acute interest in ergonomics? Is it primarily academic?

Next is layout to move enter and backspace to my thumbs. [...] I haven't relocated shift yet as I dread the relearning of that!

As an easier alternative, try relocating shift to be directly adjacent to your pinky home positions (the “home” resting position for the pinky fingers is going to vary from person to person depending on keyboard layout and typing technique so I can’t tell you exactly which keys those are), so that to press shift only takes moving the pinky a small amount, instead of reaching several keys over.

My temporary stint with the TECK revealed the benefit of raising the shift key up one row. I found that to be a huge improvement. Since then I have moved the shift to thumb keys which I prefer even more.

A split, tented keyboard within a single case (no split case ala Ergodox). 

When I locked the position of my ErgoDox in a tray I got a little criticism for removing some of the flexibility from the design. I think the primary benefit of the 2 halves design is to find and use the combination of options that works best for the individual. After that, multiple parts seem like more of a nuisance to me.

[nomaded]

For me, the most important thing is programmability. I want to be able to move keys around (Dvorak) and have that saved in the keyboard, so that no matter what OS that keyboard is connected to, or no matter what OS I've remotely connected to from the computer I'm directly connected, I can be using my preferred layout with no additional changes to any OS.

Next in importance are two that need to go together - split layout and staggered columns. I find needing to bend my wrists to correctly angle my hands to work with a standard row-staggered layout to be annoying at best and painful at worst. I know my touchtyping suffers, especially with the number row, on a standard layout keyboard. Unless it's built into the computer (e.g. laptop), I will never buy a standard row-staggered keyboard again.

Pretty much anything else are nice-to-haves, like mechanical keyswitches or tenting.

[kurplop]

Unless it's built into the computer (e.g. laptop), I will never buy a standard row-staggered keyboard again.

My sentiments exactly. If I use my laptop for anything more than surfing the web or checking mail, it's worth taking the Plop with me.

We might be able to go back to a standard keyboard, but why?

[vivalarevolución]

The mouse and seating setup.  I find those things affects my health more than the keyboard layout.  Although a layout better than QWERTY is nice, but I've been neglecting my second layout because I find that typing on QWERTY on a normal keyboard doesn't affect me that much.

[jacobolus]

jacobolus– I remember reading somewhere that your primary keyboard isn't even an ergo design. This begs 2 questions.  What is the most important ergo feature for you personally? Why the acute interest in ergonomics? Is it primarily academic?

Personally I type about 50% of the time on a laptop, and don’t yet have an adequate portable external keyboard.

I’ve spent a few months here or there typing on various ergonomic keyboards, including and Ergodox and a few of my own prototypes. At the moment none of them are actually in working order. Instead, the last few months I’ve been cycling through 3–4 other standard-ish keyboards on my desktop machine, though with some amount of customization to the logical layout.

Eventually I would like to build several keyboards that meet my own standards, including at least one for desk use and one for portable use, but it’s going to take a lot of work, and I’m easily distracted & have gotten sucked into several unrelated projects & haven’t really worked on keyboards in about 6 months.

Most important thing for my own comfort is frequent body position changes: sitting in different poses, standing, sometimes lying down on a couch, walking to the kitchen for another coffee, taking an occasional break to walk around outside, switching to do work with pen and paper some of the time, etc. Hardware to support that includes a flexible chair, a mobile arm supporting the computer display, a motorized adjustable-height desk, and a laptop that I can carry around to different places. As far as the keyboard position is concerned, I’ve found those foam palm rests are almost useless for their intended purpose, but make really great props under the front edge of a standard keyboard when trying to tilt it upward, or under the back edge of a laptop when at a coffee-shop with a too-high table.

On a proper self-built ergonomic keyboard, the useful features for me are, in rough descending order by importance: enough separation/tenting/turn between the sections for each hand to reduce static muscle load and avoid uncomfortable hand contortions; extensive logical layout customization; enough thumb keys (4+ per thumb); cutting the key count down to 50–70 in total, in particular removal of numpad, arrows, F keys, and excessive pinky keys; relocation of modifier keys; on-the-fly recordable macros; sufficient height step between rows to make further-row keys reachable; pointing device(s) and possibly other analog inputs within easy reach near the home hand position; column-based layout with some stagger between columns; slight height differences between columns intended for different fingers; keyswitches with nice stiffness and tactile response, sufficient post-actuation travel, a bit of bounce on the upstroke, and no signal chatter; nice keycap-top shape and sufficient space between keycap tops; smaller-than-standard keys, especially in the forward–backward direction; columns at angles which correspond to the directions of natural finger extension; near-row keys tilted forward to accept a “trigger”-like motion; heavy or sticky-bottomed keyboard that won’t slide around the table; some kind of built-in clicker for additional audio feedback when the in-switch click isn’t loud enough; a nice grippy texture on the keycap tops; ...

[kurplop]

On a proper self-built ergonomic keyboard, the useful features for me are, in rough descending order by importance: enough separation/tenting/turn between the sections for each hand to reduce static muscle load and avoid uncomfortable hand contortions; extensive logical layout customization; enough thumb keys (4+ per thumb); cutting the key count down to 50–70 in total, in particular removal of numpad, arrows, F keys, and excessive pinky keys; relocation of modifier keys; on-the-fly recordable macros; sufficient height step between rows to make further-row keys reachable; pointing device(s) and possibly other analog inputs within easy reach near the home hand position; column-based layout with some stagger between columns; slight height differences between columns intended for different fingers; keyswitches with nice stiffness and tactile response, sufficient post-actuation travel, a bit of bounce on the upstroke, and no signal chatter; nice keycap-top shape and sufficient space between keycap tops; smaller-than-standard keys, especially in the forward–backward direction; columns at angles which correspond to the directions of natural finger extension; near-row keys tilted forward to accept a “trigger”-like motion; heavy or sticky-bottomed keyboard that won’t slide around the table; some kind of built-in clicker for additional audio feedback when the in-switch click isn’t loud enough; a nice grippy texture on the keycap tops; ...

I think I saw one of those at Best Buy.

[Oobly]

I've spent some time thinking about this and I'd say that for me the features come as groups. For instance, I don't think a vertically staggered board that's not split / angled would be much benefit, but in combination with being split and tented it really helps. Some larger workstation ergonomics are of high importance (chair height / desk height, elbow angle, straight wrists, perhaps arm support, changing positions now and then), but they're not keyboard features.

1. Split and tented (straight wrists with the hands in a natural position) with all the fingers (including thumbs) in natural positions for the home row is the most important to me. This implies vertical stagger and angled thumb clusters.

2. Then I'd say the actual thumb cluster position and number of keys (4 per thumb) with mods on thumb keys.

3. Small total number of keys (possibly with closer vertical spacing) so it's easy to reach all of them without large finger movements and it's easy to use without looking at the board, combined with a good keycap profile or curved plate that provides a curve for the finger when switching rows, with home row caps being lowest and "flattest". This implies using layers to provide all the keycodes, with layer keys on the thumbs. I use 2 on the left thumb in combination (Shift, Fn and Shift+Fn). This also implies a good character layout, with efficient positioning for the user. This will likely vary per person, but I like "alternating" layouts more than "rolling" layouts.

4. Thumb cluster mod positions: Held keys (Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Fn) vs struck keys (Space, Backspace, Tab, Enter). Positioning held keys on the upper, steeper angled part of the thumb cluster allows you to use an inwards gripping motion with the thumb, whereas positioning the struck keys on the lower, flatter angled part of the thumb cluster allows these to be hit with a downwards striking motion of the thumb, like the usual spacebar.

5. Tactile switches with some form of shock reduction to reduce finger shock when bottoming out. Only important when switching from rubber domes, though, as you learn to reduce bottoming out force with tactile mechanical switches fairly quickly.

[Eszett]

I miss the explicit declaration of the criteria "rotation". You imply it with "split", but "split" doesn't mean necessarily "rotated". Except the "sitting position" (chair, desk) and "tilt", which depends from the sitting position, I would rate the important criteria, in no particular order ...
— ... split halves
— ... inward rotation of both split halves, OR, deflecting the cols according to an arc, as jacobolus came up with.
— ... column staggering (index about 0.5u higher than the middle finger, and the pinky about 1u lower than the middle finger)
— ... tenting

[jacobolus]

I miss the explicit declaration of the criteria "rotation".

I think the clearest is to use airplane terms “pitch”, “roll”, and “yaw”, with the direction your eyes are looking corresponding to the axis of a plane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_principal_axes

Thus “tenting” = adjusting the roll of each half, inward rotation = adjusting the yaw, and tilting the keyboard front-to-back = adjusting the pitch. These three types of rotation relieve the wrists’ pronation, ulnar deviation, and extension or flexion, respectively.

There are then also 3 dimensions of translational movement for each keyboard half, which determine how far the keyboard is from your body, how high it is, and how separated the two halves are. Words like “up”/“down” and “forward”/”back” are ambiguous/confusing, because people also tend to refer to keyboard directions as if looking at a keyboard from above, such that “bottom row” means proximal (near to the body) row, etc. The terms “length”, “width”, and “depth” are also unfortunately often ambiguous when describing key dimensions, etc.

[Oobly]

If you keep the aircraft terms going, then fore / aft, up / down, port / starboard fit. All with reference to the pilot's (and keyboard user's) orientation. Then length refers to the measurement along the longitudinal axis (fore/aft), width refers to the measurement along the lateral / horizontal axis (port/starboard), depth refers to the measurement along the vertical axis (up/down).

Alles klar?

Usually, split refers to separate halves that can be oriented independently however the user likes in fore/aft, port/starboard positioning and yaw axis rotations.

[jacobolus]

If you keep the aircraft terms going, then fore / aft, up / down, port / starboard fit.

The problem is that if I say e.g. “move the shift keys fore one unit, and shift all the right hand alpha keys one unit to starboard”, nobody is going to have any clue WTF I’m talking about unless I put a little disclaimer at the bottom of every post. I think length/width is going to be impossible for anyone to keep straight regardless.

Anatomy has lots of direction terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomical_terms_of_location but it’s not too obvious which ones work well for a keyboard.

[Zustiur]

So as a brief side topic, what degree of roll/tent are people using? I've set mine up for 15 degrees but I'm beginning to feel that 10-12 might be more comfortable.

[jacobolus]

I like a tent angle of about 35–40°. Depends a lot on how far apart the two halves are and how you’re holding your arms. The steeper the tent the less pronated your wrists, making it more comfortable to relax your shoulders and pull your elbows in close to your body instead of sticking them out to the side or forward. But set things up however is most comfortable for you.

[kurplop]

For me 10-20º is a good range but as mentioned above, whatever is comfortable is right for you.

[SamirD]

Neat topic, so I'll play.

Negative tilt - I'm assuming this is the tilt with the extended feet, and most of the time I have these on the highest setting.

Split keyboard - Not required.  In fact, it may even hurt as a lot of my typing style uses both hands on both areas of the keyboard for various repetitive keystrokes.

Chair - This is very important as my upper back and neck start burning without a good chair and seating position.

Tenting - not required, might be a drawback.

Layout - Must be standard 101--no funny keys in between ctrl and alt, no windows keys, no volume, coffee maker, or fart keys.  Need to have easily seen num, caps, scroll lock leds in one place.

Vertical columns - Only necessary as on the original 101 layout in the numeric keypad, arrow, and home/end/pgup/down/ins/del keys

Switch/ Keycap - IBM buckling spring for anything over 30 minutes is a MUST.  I don't know why, but my hands type faster, are less fatigued (if fatigued at all), and don't hurt when on IBM buckling springs.  My brother and I switched to a Keytronic with a clear keyboard cover over it for a few years and it resulted in my brother getting carpel tunnel in both hands.  Contouring like the IBM keys is important, and I welcome even more contouring.

Other - My hands started touch typing on the IBM F on some original IBM ATs running Wordperfect and at home we had an IBM M.  At first the sound and feel was a bit odd, but has always been second nature to my hands.  After using a few other keyboards (including laptops), my hands hurt, my neck hurts, my wrists hurt.  Put me back on an IBM and I'm fine.  30 minutes on a regular keyboard will kill my hands.  I've been on the IBM today since 7am and I'm just now starting to feel some fatigue, but that's probably more related to me needing to eat than keyboard fatigue.

I place the keyboard far enough away from the edge of the desk that I can almost rest my elbows on the desk/table.  And I keep my documents/papers/etc. in front of the keyboard so I almost serves as a bit of a wrist rest when I'm behind on work.  The result is an almost completely flat wrist and 135 degree inside angle from my forearm to my upper arm (upper arms 45 degrees with my body).  I've never actually examined my ergonomics in such detail since it just works, but it's been a good exercise.

[ideus]

Essential
        Negative tilt.
        Layout.
        60% size to keep mouse closer.

Important
        Caps material.
        Caps profile.
        Switch type.

Nice to have.
        Caps design, color, legends.

Not required
        Split design.

[jacobolus]

Negative tilt - I'm assuming this is the tilt with the extended feet, and most of the time I have these on the highest setting.

“Negative tilt” means the feet are at the near side of the keyboard, i.e. the back of the keyboard is lower than the front.

Do whatever works for you, but in general your setup sounds to me like exactly the way most people who get severe RSI use their keyboards. Be careful out there.

[noisyturtle]

Ugh, negative tilt is the worst. Like poison on my fingers.

[jacobolus]

The proper tilt depends 100% on the height of the keyboard relative to your torso, and the way you hold your arms. If you have a high table / low chair  (for example, at most coffeeshops and corporate cubicles), you need steep “positive” tilt. If you have a low table / high chair (for example, in a home office where you control the furniture), you need a keyboard which is flat or “negatively” tilted.

To figure out what the proper tilt should be, look at the slope of your forearms while typing in a comfortable position. Hold your palms/wrists up off the table (not resting on a palmrest, not resting on the table, not resting on the chin of your laptop) with your wrists straight, and your shoulders relaxed, and place your fingers on the home row. Now tilt the keyboard such that the plate holding the switches is parallel to your forearms.

My personal recommendation is to try to have your upper arms hanging down loosely at your sides, your elbows bent ≥90°, and your keyboard held fairly close to your torso, on a platform approximately the same height as your hips/waist. In that case, a keyboard tilt of somewhere in the -10° to +10° range works best, with the precise angle to use depending on your precise setup.

[ideus]

On keyboard tilt.

[SamirD]

“Negative tilt” means the feet are at the near side of the keyboard, i.e. the back of the keyboard is lower than the front.

So then I stand corrected.  I meant positive tilt.  Thank you for the explanation!

On keyboard tilt.

So my setup is very much like the third one except that to keep the keyboard on the desk, I sit higher.  The top of the monitor is at eye level, which is ideal, so all that is good.

I think I've got my setup dialed in for me since I've been at it for 12+ hours a day for 2 years now and haven't developed any rsi or issues like back pain, muscle pain, etc.

[jacobolus]

On keyboard tilt. [...]

Personally I think this is a dramatically oversimplified picture, and I’m not convinced there is a single “ideal” position.

You definitely don’t need to lean backward or extend your legs forward to type safely, that backrest and general back posture looks terrible, they’ve tilted the keyboard too far down for the posture,  I’m not convinced about the display position/orientation (though for their tiny display maybe it works), and my personal preference is to use a much taller chair than those, with a saddle-shaped seat.

Both of the first two pictures have the keyboard at the wrong tilt for its position, but the first picture isn’t showing the wrist angle a typist would actually use from that position.

The top of the monitor is at eye level, which is ideal, so all that is good.

It’s definitely not “ideal” to have the display at eye level. Or at the very least, that is not an uncontroversial statement.

I think I've got my setup dialed in for me since I've been at it for 12+ hours a day for 2 years now and haven't developed any rsi or issues like back pain, muscle pain, etc.

I recommend spending less time at your desk. Sitting and typing for 12+ hours per day is incredibly unhealthy, regardless of posture.

[kurplop]

The recommendation that the top of the monitor be at eye level may have made sense when screens were 15 inches, but with today's larger monitors it probably doesn't apply.

[Oobly]

The recommendation that the top of the monitor be at eye level may have made sense when screens were 15 inches, but with today's larger monitors it probably doesn't apply.

Agreed, should probably be more like the centre being x degrees downward.

And I agree with jacobolus about the picture being oversimplified, but the core issue to take from it is the straight wrists, IMO. Also, arms angled too far up can reduce the bloodflow to the fingers, angled slightly down helps. IF you do that, then the keyboard tilt will feel more natural if it's a bit negative, but this can actually be quite a personal thing. With a positive tilt you're not just pressing down, but also away from you a bit. It can reduce the forwards / backwards movements of the hands while typing, but increases the up / down slightly. All depends what feels more comfortable to you and what the rest of your setup is like.

For me, the most important ergonomic factor is: straight wrists in all axes. Then desk / chair height, posture and elbow rests to reduce neck / upper back fatigue. IMO, wrist rests promote poor technique.

You can type in an ergonomic and healthy way on any keyboard. The keyboard design is less important than your overall setup and technique (says the guy who designed and built his own ergo board...)

[SamirD]

It’s definitely not “ideal” to have the display at eye level. Or at the very least, that is not an uncontroversial statement.

I recommend spending less time at your desk. Sitting and typing for 12+ hours per day is incredibly unhealthy, regardless of posture.

From what I read and have tried over the last few decades, it still applies for the most part.  With large displays in my face, not so much, but otherwise a 16:9 aspect ratio hasn't changed anything.

My work demands these type of hours.  You think that's bad--I went outside and took a shower for the first time in 3 days yesterday.    Lately, gh has been my only relaxation.

The recommendation that the top of the monitor be at eye level may have made sense when screens were 15 inches, but with today's larger monitors it probably doesn't apply.

I still find that it works well, although I think the 'degrees x' ideology works better in terms of 'getting it right'.

As always, to each their own.  Everyone's bodies are different and even what seems ergo to one is a literal pain to another.  I'm just glad I've found what works for me.

[Zustiur]

I think of it as the top of the working area should line up with your eyes. I keep a couple of inches above that for MS's stupid oversized 'ribbon'.