Author Topic: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?  (Read 44277 times)

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Offline bocahgundul

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Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« on: Mon, 25 January 2016, 21:41:01 »
Hello guys What do you guys think? I'm a dvorak typer but I don't know if changing to dvorak makes an improvement on me. And because of dvorak I can't seem to play games again cause of dvorak. Are dvorak or Colemak is better than qwerty?

Offline deductivemonkee

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #1 on: Mon, 25 January 2016, 21:42:11 »
I'm trying to type w/ Dvorak. I have a toggle layer on my keyboards for qwerty for games, too lazy to remap every key for every game.
oh yeah I saw that crazy **** if that doesn't win I'm deleting my account

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Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #2 on: Mon, 25 January 2016, 21:45:23 »
I'm trying to type w/ Dvorak. I have a toggle layer on my keyboards for qwerty for games, too lazy to remap every key for every game.
Can someone convince me that dvorak doesn't make any diffirince in typing. Cause everything is so hard when using dvorak!

Offline jd29

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #3 on: Mon, 25 January 2016, 22:07:06 »
Also look into Workman, that's what I use. It's similar to Colemak, which is better than Dvorak IMO.

Offline domsch1988

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #4 on: Mon, 25 January 2016, 23:52:14 »
I tried all the mentions layouts for a while. I gave them all a fair shot. Dvorak, Workman, Colemak... In the end none of them where worth it for me. This has been because of several reasons.
First, i type a lot. But i don't write as my main job. My job as an IT Professional involves quite some writing, but none of it is either time critical (like transcribing speech) nor long texts in a row. So, my need to improve my keyboard situation is more a personal quest than a necessity.
Second i largely disagree with the idea, that more Homerow usage is better. With all layouts optimised for homerow usage, i find my fingers get cramped really fast. The overall movement qwerty requires is something i do enjoy and my handy seem to do so to. But this is personal preference.
After all that, i use a mac, with a windows vm on it. Both productive with a microsoft keyboard. So any remappings need to be done through the os. Adding Layouts to mac is rather cumbersome and there aren't many readily available. And if you find the one you want, getting correct mappings in the VM is a gamble. Plus modifier remapping simply doesn't work, so no caps lock remap. On Top of that i use RDP most of the day on hundreds of Servers. So Mac to VM to RDP your almost guaranteed that your keyboard layout gets lost. It's the same with key combos. The "\" e.g. is cmd-shift-7 on the Mac, AltGr-ß in the VM. Parallels trys using mac combos in the VM, so technically both work (mostly). The RDP Session is all over the place and confused about all that. Same goes with keyboard layouts.
Adding to that, my job requires me to work on dozens of computers a day. All of them with qwerty. This makes transitioning harder and no one would be able to work on my machine anymore.

So yeah, i can see where the ideas for all these layouts come from. But i largely disagree with the premise that rearranging letters gets more ergonomic. Splitting, Tenting and not Staggering helps much more (for me). Plus the focus the layout should take is very personal. I just need some movement in my hands. It reduces errors and doesn't tier my hands so much.
In the end, it's mostly a convenience thing for me.  ;)

Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #5 on: Mon, 25 January 2016, 23:53:30 »
Thank you now goin to learn qwerty and colemak again  :thumb:

Offline jacobolus

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 26 January 2016, 00:02:41 »
Are dvorak or Colemak is better than qwerty?
Better for what? I suspect top typing speed after mastery is probably at most 10–15% different. But they require a whole lot less finger/hand movement, and avoid a lot of awkward combinations which are common in QWERTY.

Offline cogito_ergo_sum

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #7 on: Tue, 26 January 2016, 13:48:01 »

But i largely disagree with the premise that rearranging letters gets more ergonomic. Splitting, Tenting and not Staggering helps much more (for me).

I think a lot of it depends on what shape your hands are in. Now, I can literally feel the difference between colemak and qwerty. Yet, when my hands were in better shape, qwerty did not cause any noticeable fatigue. However, a more ergonomic design of the board itself is a good thing.

As for the OP I'd encourage the use of colemak over qwerty. I found dvorak too different.

Offline stevep

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #8 on: Tue, 26 January 2016, 14:33:07 »
I tried all the mentions layouts for a while. I gave them all a fair shot. Dvorak, Workman, Colemak... In the end none of them where worth it for me
...
Second i largely disagree with the idea, that more Homerow usage is better.
...
So yeah, i can see where the ideas for all these layouts come from. But i largely disagree with the premise that rearranging letters gets more ergonomic.

I wonder if you really did give them a fair shot, or whether you gave up too early before you had chance become fluent. Changing your layout takes time and if you keep chopping and changing I can't see how you would given yourself chance to become comfortable with a chosen one.

You make some valid points about the problems of switching layouts... RDP and the like. But your claim that having more frequent keys in the home positions isn't easier seems absurd to me.  If you think it's better to have such keys in *harder* to reach places, presumably you think A and S are badly positioned in Qwerty because you can actually type those two common letters rather easily, directly from the home position.

It's fair enough if you think changing layout isn't worth the effort overall, but I think claiming there is no advantage to be gained from using optimized layouts Colemak, Dvorak, etc, is really just playing a psychological trick on yourself to trying to justify your decision to stick with Qwerty.

« Last Edit: Tue, 26 January 2016, 14:40:38 by stevep »

Offline mstechfreak

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #9 on: Wed, 27 January 2016, 00:12:25 »
I'm currently asking myself the same questions... Right now I do the touch typing course for dvorak in TypingStudy.com, meanwhile I am afraid I could lose some elasticity with this. Has anyone used a typing tutor to switch from one layout to another?

Offline domsch1988

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #10 on: Wed, 27 January 2016, 04:01:09 »
I wonder if you really did give them a fair shot, or whether you gave up too early before you had chance become fluent. Changing your layout takes time and if you keep chopping and changing I can't see how you would given yourself chance to become comfortable with a chosen one.

You make some valid points about the problems of switching layouts... RDP and the like. But your claim that having more frequent keys in the home positions isn't easier seems absurd to me.  If you think it's better to have such keys in *harder* to reach places, presumably you think A and S are badly positioned in Qwerty because you can actually type those two common letters rather easily, directly from the home position.

It's fair enough if you think changing layout isn't worth the effort overall, but I think claiming there is no advantage to be gained from using optimized layouts Colemak, Dvorak, etc, is really just playing a psychological trick on yourself to trying to justify your decision to stick with Qwerty.

Fair enough. I sure didn't spend as much time with alternate Layouts as i did with qwerty. But, the ergonomically benefits off most other layouts have not been proven to me in a way that would make me really understand the benefits. Most studies that have been done where either to short or measured making assumptions what should be better ergonomically (such as more home row is better, or alternating hands is preferred).
I don't say that making it harder to reach most used letters is a good thing. I just find that, for myself, the homerow is not always the single best place for letters on a "standard" keyboard. For example, in qwerty, i think the position of "e" is really good. It's one up for the middle finger (the longest finger) and positioned in a way the homerow would be on a horizontally staggered keyboard. I find that more relaxing to use than "e" at the homerow.

Thats not to say that i find qwerty perfect. If I's have the possibility to go all out on layout with having everything passed on properly, i'd change some bits up. Punctuation in the bottom right is not ideal. I'd put that to a Shift Layer near homerow. Since i'm on a European qwertz layout, id move the bottom row, left half one two the left. The "b" is harder to reach, and i never use "<" in regular typing.
These are just two examples, but really, none of these bother me enough to make all the effort to change these things.

I hope to get a split ergonomic keyboard (like an ergodox or so) soon. If that happens, i'll reevaluate the layout, as the key positions change rather drastically from a standard layout. So "e" on homerow might be the better option than.
In the end, it's all personal preference. I can see why people choose alternate layouts, and am happy i don't have to  :D

Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #11 on: Wed, 27 January 2016, 04:05:45 »

But i largely disagree with the premise that rearranging letters gets more ergonomic. Splitting, Tenting and not Staggering helps much more (for me).

I think a lot of it depends on what shape your hands are in. Now, I can literally feel the difference between colemak and qwerty. Yet, when my hands were in better shape, qwerty did not cause any noticeable fatigue. However, a more ergonomic design of the board itself is a good thing.

As for the OP I'd encourage the use of colemak over qwerty. I found dvorak too different.
I already touch typing dvorak with an average of 70-90 WPM but the one thing that I didn't like is that the dvorak uses too much of right finger. How about the colemak?

Offline stevep

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #12 on: Wed, 27 January 2016, 10:07:13 »
Fair enough. I sure didn't spend as much time with alternate Layouts as i did with qwerty. But, the ergonomically benefits off most other layouts have not been proven to me in a way that would make me really understand the benefits. Most studies that have been done where either to short or measured making assumptions what should be better ergonomically (such as more home row is better, or alternating hands is preferred).
I don't say that making it harder to reach most used letters is a good thing. I just find that, for myself, the homerow is not always the single best place for letters on a "standard" keyboard. For example, in qwerty, i think the position of "e" is really good. It's one up for the middle finger (the longest finger) and positioned in a way the homerow would be on a horizontally staggered keyboard. I find that more relaxing to use than "e" at the homerow.
....
In the end, it's all personal preference. I can see why people choose alternate layouts, and am happy i don't have to  :D
Actually I largely agree that Qwerty E isn't terrible, although I'd still say home row is to be preferred. The worse culprit I think is T. It's the 2nd most common letter, but in an awkward diagonal position from the home row. And the fact that J and K are in the of two best keys on the keyboard seems like a crime against ergonomics!

Another thing to bear in mind with alternative layouts, is not just that the keys are in easier-to-reach positions, but also most layouts make an effort to have easier common bigrams. Bigrams like LO and ED are common but awkward in Qwerty. Colemak in particular is very good in this respect.

My personal experience is that learning a better layout is easily worth it overall, although I do recognize the real barriers and problems that stand in the way for some. For me, it was several weeks of pain during the learning stage, but I see it as a big gain for the rest of my life. It's an investment. The end result is, instead of feeling like the keyboard is working against you, it is pleasurable and comfortable to use at last!
« Last Edit: Wed, 27 January 2016, 10:08:54 by stevep »

Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #13 on: Wed, 27 January 2016, 16:57:23 »
Fair enough. I sure didn't spend as much time with alternate Layouts as i did with qwerty. But, the ergonomically benefits off most other layouts have not been proven to me in a way that would make me really understand the benefits. Most studies that have been done where either to short or measured making assumptions what should be better ergonomically (such as more home row is better, or alternating hands is preferred).
I don't say that making it harder to reach most used letters is a good thing. I just find that, for myself, the homerow is not always the single best place for letters on a "standard" keyboard. For example, in qwerty, i think the position of "e" is really good. It's one up for the middle finger (the longest finger) and positioned in a way the homerow would be on a horizontally staggered keyboard. I find that more relaxing to use than "e" at the homerow.
....
In the end, it's all personal preference. I can see why people choose alternate layouts, and am happy i don't have to  :D
Actually I largely agree that Qwerty E isn't terrible, although I'd still say home row is to be preferred. The worse culprit I think is T. It's the 2nd most common letter, but in an awkward diagonal position from the home row. And the fact that J and K are in the of two best keys on the keyboard seems like a crime against ergonomics!

Another thing to bear in mind with alternative layouts, is not just that the keys are in easier-to-reach positions, but also most layouts make an effort to have easier common bigrams. Bigrams like LO and ED are common but awkward in Qwerty. Colemak in particular is very good in this respect.

My personal experience is that learning a better layout is easily worth it overall, although I do recognize the real barriers and problems that stand in the way for some. For me, it was several weeks of pain during the learning stage, but I see it as a big gain for the rest of my life. It's an investment. The end result is, instead of feeling like the keyboard is working against you, it is pleasurable and comfortable to use at last!
So whats better did you say dvorak or colema ?

Offline domsch1988

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #14 on: Wed, 27 January 2016, 23:38:12 »
So whats better did you say dvorak or colema ?
See, that's the Problem. None of both is better or worse. They focus on different aspects they want to improve. Dvorak is for example heavily modified with the english in Mind. So as a German user, all the effort to optimise the layout are worthless. There is a German Dvorak, but thats even less supported than standard Dvorak.
In the end thats the Reason why no alternate Layout ever got "Mainstream" adoption. There is no one definitive answer to which is best. All claim to be, but in reality it's a preference thing. Qwerty comes pre shipped on every computer everywhere. So People use it. If there would be a definitive best layout, i think adoption of that would increase massively.
Currently, for any non geekhack Member, you first have to realise there are options other than whats pre Installed (hard enough, most people i deal with at work don't even now they can switch to English layout when they accidentally did). Then you have to do research. I mean like, read articles, studies, understand what they tried to do and assumed and align all that with your expectations and goals.

So, long story short, none is better, or worse. Both are better than qwerty, depending on what you try to achieve with a layout.  :thumb:

Offline stevep

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #15 on: Thu, 28 January 2016, 10:39:26 »
So whats better did you say dvorak or colemak ?

It's a personal judgement of course, but trying to be as objective as I can, I'd say Colemak is the better layout of the two. Dvorak does have slightly better support though. Colemak has fewer flaws overall than Dvorak in my view, and also benefits by being easier to learn. But fundamentally, they are both way better than Qwerty.

Offline keshley

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #16 on: Thu, 28 January 2016, 11:25:49 »
tl;dr

No. They're designed for different use cases.
  
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Offline jacobolus

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #17 on: Thu, 28 January 2016, 17:06:02 »
tl;dr ¶ No. They're designed for different use cases.
They are all designed for the same use: typing English words.

The design context and criteria were different though:

* Sholes/Densmore/Remington Co. QWERTY was designed to match Sholes’s typewriter mechanism of the 1870s, which involved a circular ring of letter “hammers” which rotated upward to strike the paper from the bottom, and the primary criterion was separating common digraphs to be far enough apart in the ring that they wouldn’t jam; not much consideration was given to typing using all of the fingers, and there was no standard typing technique at the time.

* Dvorak was designed for later typewriters from the 1930s where letters struck the front side of the paper roller, in the context of an existing standard approach to touch typing which had been developed in the 1890s and by the 30s was being taught in typing schools; its main design criterion was to reduce the amount of finger movement required, and in particular reduce the amount of typing on the bottom row, which is relatively slow and uncomfortable to reach on a typewriter.

* Colemak was designed for computer keyboards in 2006, and tried to keep certain keys in the same place as QWERTY for their convenience to computer keyboard shortcuts, while rearranging the rest to avoid some of the more uncomfortable QWERTY placements and combinations. Because the bottom row is much easier to reach on computer keyboards than 1930s manual typewriters, Colemak doesn’t try to avoid it the way Dvorak does.
« Last Edit: Thu, 28 January 2016, 17:10:00 by jacobolus »

Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #18 on: Thu, 28 January 2016, 17:37:18 »
Thank you jacobolous!  :thumb:

Offline PieterGen

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #19 on: Fri, 29 January 2016, 06:54:56 »
Hi Domsch, you had several comments here, I'd like to respond to them :-)   

....i largely disagree with the idea, that more Homerow usage is better. With all layouts optimised for homerow usage, i find my fingers get cramped really fast. The overall movement qwerty requires is something i do enjoy and my handy seem to do so to. But this is personal preference.
This is "getting used to". You are apparently not used to typing "home row based". To see what is ergonomically better, you'd have to type both Qwerty and Dvorak for a longer period and THEN compare.

After all that, i use a mac, with a windows vm on it. Both productive with a microsoft keyboard. So any remappings need to be done through the os. Adding Layouts to mac is rather cumbersome and there aren't many readily available. And if you find the one you want, getting correct mappings in the VM is a gamble. Plus modifier remapping simply doesn't work, so no caps lock remap. On Top of that i use RDP most of the day on hundreds of Servers. So Mac to VM to RDP your almost guaranteed that your keyboard layout gets lost. It's the same with key combos. The "\" e.g. is cmd-shift-7 on the Mac, AltGr-ß in the VM. Parallels trys using mac combos in the VM, so technically both work (mostly). The RDP Session is all over the place and confused about all that. Same goes with keyboard layouts.
Fair enough. If you use VMs, RDP, SSH and on, using Qwerty is the easier solution.

Adding to that, my job requires me to work on dozens of computers a day. All of them with qwerty. This makes transitioning harder and no one would be able to work on my machine anymore.
Fair enough. You could bring you your layout on a USB-stick, or carry a hardware programmed keyboard with you, but true, if you are one of those people who work on many computers, sticking to Qwerty is easier.

But i largely disagree with the premise that rearranging letters gets more ergonomic.
  Is your statement "all layouts are equally ergonomic" or is it "Qwerty is the most ergonomic layout there is"?  An easy way to test the first statement would be to arange the letters even worse than Qwerty.....   Like this layout, the worst one possible, according to the Carpalx website: 

Quote
Dvorak is for example heavily modified with the english in Mind. So as a German user, all the effort to optimise the layout are worthless. There is a German Dvorak, but thats even less supported than standard Dvorak.
Well.... according the AdNW-layout-analysis (which you may or may not agree with), The letter placement in Dvorak is better for German than it is for English.  And we think that AdNW does even better, in both languages.  Our analysis summed up is:   
- for English: (worst) Qwerty - Dvorak -Colemak - AdnW (best)
- for German: (worst) Qwertyz - Colemak - Dvorak - AdNW (best)

Reducing it to What is better? Qwerty, Colemak or Dvorak? the answer would be:  Colemak for English and Dvorak for German.

As usual, YMMV.   
« Last Edit: Fri, 29 January 2016, 07:03:37 by PieterGen »

Offline hoosieree

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #20 on: Fri, 29 January 2016, 08:13:06 »
For me, this thread is highlighting the ways in which we measure layouts.  Home row usage, alternation, rolls, stretches, chords, hurdles, etc.  Given human variation (both bodily and what we type), it seems a single measurement along any axis wouldn't generalize to the whole population.

Second i largely disagree with the idea, that more Homerow usage is better. With all layouts optimised for homerow usage, i find my fingers get cramped really fast. The overall movement qwerty requires is something i do enjoy and my handy seem to do so to. But this is personal preference.

This agrees with some recent research about sitting vs. standing office worker health.  My eye doctor advises avoiding long stints at the computer because maintaining a fixed focal depth for too long strains the eyes.

I can't find it now, but I remember seeing a keyboard that used a motor (I think?) to physically move the left and right halves to different positions after some time, specifically to prevent the user from staying in one spot for too long.

There are also some "enhanced interrogation" techniques that involve making it so the person can't change their position for a long time.  Even a comfortable position can become excruciating if you're unable to change it up now and then.

Right now I'm learning Dvorak and Colemak because I'm curious about them.  But I can definitely see the merit of your last point (that splitting/tenting and columns help more), and hope to try something like that in the future.

My favorite programming language is J, which means lots of my programs look like this:

Code: [Select]
('|' <;._1@,"1 (10{a.) ];._1@, fread) &.> 1 dir 'data/*.dsv'
Lots of holding shift on most keyboards.  Programmer Dvorak would help with this, but I like the idea of a thumb-activated layer even more.  Maybe like one thumb button for a numpad, another for a "symbol pad".

Offline domsch1988

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #21 on: Fri, 29 January 2016, 10:50:59 »
I just ordered a atreus today. So I'll soon be able to hardware program layouts. Since the 40% staggered layout will need some relearning anyways, I'm thinking about going with another layout... Im really impressed by the in depth and knowledgeable input we got here. The atreus should rule most reasons to sat with qwerty out. In the end there is no one easy answer for everyone. I really am looking forward to give a alternative layout a shot in another environment, meaning another keyboard. ..

Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #22 on: Fri, 29 January 2016, 17:22:45 »
I just ordered a atreus today. So I'll soon be able to hardware program layouts. Since the 40% staggered layout will need some relearning anyways, I'm thinking about going with another layout... Im really impressed by the in depth and knowledgeable input we got here. The atreus should rule most reasons to sat with qwerty out. In the end there is no one easy answer for everyone. I really am looking forward to give a alternative layout a shot in another environment, meaning another keyboard. ..
Go with the dvorak cause pietergen said it will be best for germany

Offline skitty

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #23 on: Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:23:35 »

And because of dvorak I can't seem to play games again cause of dvorak.

This is sometimes a problem for me but it doesn't take too long to map the keys to dvorak. Usually I just have a key combination to switch between qwerty and dvorak (such as alt+shift) but when that doesn't work in games I just remap the keys.

Offline priyadi

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #24 on: Tue, 08 March 2016, 23:33:14 »
If you are an Indonesian (which your name suggests) and type a lot in Indonesian, then Dvorak is actually worse  than QWERTY. A few years ago, I ran carpalx using text from Indonesian Wikipedia as input resulting in that conclusion. So I decided to learn Colemak instead.

Hello guys What do you guys think? I'm a dvorak typer but I don't know if changing to dvorak makes an improvement on me. And because of dvorak I can't seem to play games again cause of dvorak. Are dvorak or Colemak is better than qwerty?

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Offline klennkellon

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #25 on: Sat, 19 March 2016, 15:24:19 »

QWERTY was designed to spread out the most commonly used letters to prevent typewriters from jamming, which in turn sped up the typing.

This is obselete now, and DVORAK or COLEMAK are more ergonomic to type on, however typing speed is usually not changed much.

Offline PieterGen

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #26 on: Sat, 19 March 2016, 18:52:43 »
If you are an Indonesian (which your name suggests) and type a lot in Indonesian, then Dvorak is actually worse  than QWERTY. A few years ago, I ran carpalx using text from Indonesian Wikipedia as input resulting in that conclusion. So I decided to learn Colemak instead.
, but
That may be a good suggestion. I know nothing about the Indonesian language(s?) but I do know that some layouts work betterand other worse for various languages. Illustration for the languages Dutch, German and English. Warning: subjective ballpark estimates. 10 means perfect, 0 means ultra bad.   
- Qwerty: English 6, German 4, Dutch 4
- Colemak: English 8, German 5, Dutch 5
- Dvorak: English 7, German 8, Dutch 7

So there are at least 3 factors that determine what is your perfect layout:
1. your brain and hands
2. the language(s) you type
3. the keyboards you use (flat, laptop, mechanical , split, etc.)

Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #27 on: Sat, 19 March 2016, 20:18:00 »
Dvorak is making my pinky hurts and now I need a new layout

I type on english

can you guys recommend me a new layout? I'm getting an ergodox

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #28 on: Sun, 20 March 2016, 00:49:25 »
I use Colemak since 2009. I noticed a big difference from qwerty. I don't have RSI issues. I'm not committed forever to Colemak, I would consider another layout.

Consider this:
Qwerty should not be the standard by which to judge alternate layouts. And now, the whole idea of qwerty is silly. Qwerty is based on a mechanical limitation/workaround, so the character layout makes NO SENSE what so ever relating to our fingers. None. It's only here because of uber-vintage history. If anything else, there would be a different "spread out/un-ergonmic" layout, but the odds of it being qwerty is remote.
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Offline b0f0

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #29 on: Sun, 20 March 2016, 02:24:57 »
But why do people report lower word per minute results with all layout but qwerty ? I read the threads on GH and it seems that all the  people that tried dvorak or colemak they type slower than in qwerty ? Why is that so? Why do we still type faster in qwerty ? This doesnt get out of my head.
I mean, if the end result is to type slower than before than I dont want to switch to a new layout. Whats the advantage of dvorak and colemak if they are not faster than qwerty ? 

Offline klennkellon

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #30 on: Sun, 20 March 2016, 02:32:23 »
But why do people report lower word per minute results with all layout but qwerty ? I read the threads on GH and it seems that all the  people that tried dvorak or colemak they type slower than in qwerty ? Why is that so? Why do we still type faster in qwerty ? This doesnt get out of my head.
I mean, if the end result is to type slower than before than I dont want to switch to a new layout. Whats the advantage of dvorak and colemak if they are not faster than qwerty ?
I think it's because pretty much everyone typed on QWERTY long before they typed on Dvorak.

Some of the people here like me have typed on qwerty since we were in diapers, its like learning another language. you might get really good at it but its unlikely you'll ever be 100% as fluent as you were in your native tongue.

Offline LuX

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #31 on: Sun, 20 March 2016, 05:03:52 »
But why do people report lower word per minute results with all layout but qwerty ? I read the threads on GH and it seems that all the  people that tried dvorak or colemak they type slower than in qwerty ? Why is that so? Why do we still type faster in qwerty ? This doesnt get out of my head.
I mean, if the end result is to type slower than before than I dont want to switch to a new layout. Whats the advantage of dvorak and colemak if they are not faster than qwerty ? 

If typing speed is your only concern, you probably shouldn't switch. At best you'll see a slight increase in speed after a year of practice. I see Colemak as a much more comfortable and less tiring way to type, rather than a faster. Not to mention you can be all elitist about it.
That being said I'm already faster on Colemak than I was on QWERTY. As Klennkellon said it, it takes years to master a new layout. I've used Colemak for almost 3 years now, me thinks. I became fluent and confident on it after just about a month of practice, getting around 40 wpm, but have since slowly gained speed. Over a year ago I struggled to get 60 wpm, about a year a ago I struggle getting 70 wpm, now I struggle getting 80 wpm, and it's getting better. Maybe if I practiced more the progress would be faster. The thing that makes me constantly faster is typing accuracy, confidence and reflex to certain common words, and those are all things that take years of practice.
Over all it was more of a personal experience rather than any need to do the change, but I ended up liking it.

I'm willing to bet that if Colemak was the standard layout that people used since the beginning of typing, they would be on average noticeably faster than now with QWERTY.
However, if your work requires you to go from computer to computer, I wouldn't switch from QWERTY, I don't see the benefit being THAT good. A much better idea would be to simply get a more ergonomic keyboard.
If you do switch, I'd recommend going with Colemak. I see it being ergonomically much better than Dvorak, not to mention easier to switch, plus the most common shortcuts are in their familiar places. If ease of switching doesn't matter to you there are slightly better layouts than Colemak to try out.

Offline jaffers

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #32 on: Sun, 20 March 2016, 05:52:39 »
I'm trying to type w/ Dvorak. I have a toggle layer on my keyboards for qwerty for games, too lazy to remap every key for every game.

This is one of the smartest things I've ever heard

Offline b0f0

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #33 on: Sun, 20 March 2016, 12:37:13 »
I just measured WPM in qwertz layout and I am so slow that for me it is not important which layout I start to learn 10 fingers typing. So I will try Curl-DH Mod-Dh Colemak.

Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #34 on: Sun, 20 March 2016, 18:03:16 »
What is this curl dh colemak mod?

Offline klennkellon

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #35 on: Sun, 20 March 2016, 19:21:59 »

And because of dvorak I can't seem to play games again cause of dvorak.

This is sometimes a problem for me but it doesn't take too long to map the keys to dvorak. Usually I just have a key combination to switch between qwerty and dvorak (such as alt+shift) but when that doesn't work in games I just remap the keys.
im practicing dvorak and usually when i want to game i'll just switch windows input mode to QWERTY so WASD acts like normal.

Offline b0f0

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #36 on: Mon, 21 March 2016, 00:52:43 »
What is this curl dh colemak mod?
All about Mod-DH https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/, and on the same link there is also a link to Curl-DH. Both are modifiaction to Colemak layout.
More on Colemak layout is desciribed in this FAQ here http://colemak.com/FAQ or just type this in http://colemak.com/ for more information on Colemak.

I think the link for Mod-DH is very rich with information, they make comparisons to other layouts, it seems these people spend a lot of time thinking about layouts and they are very serios about it. Meaning they make good studies and provide a lot of information.

Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #37 on: Mon, 21 March 2016, 01:10:14 »
Curl-DH is for ISO right? and Mod-DH is for ansi right?
I love the layout but I don't know about the angle mod

I'm planning on buying an ergodox which one should I choose from the mod DH? cause they seems to be so much option on the ANSI version

Offline b0f0

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #38 on: Mon, 21 March 2016, 01:19:32 »
Curl-DH is for ISO right? and Mod-DH is for ansi right?
I love the layout but I don't know about the angle mod

I'm planning on buying an ergodox which one should I choose from the mod DH? cause they seems to be so much option on the ANSI version

From the Mod-DH page it say, "The mod works best on keyboards which have good support for the "Angle" mod i.e. ISO keyboards, and symmetric ergonomic keyboards. It can also be applied successfully to ANSI keyboards with an adjustment."

Dont know which one you could choose, I am also getting my ergodox keyboard this week. So I am still choosing my layout. I think the best idea I can give you is read the stuff that devs offered on those web pages. To see if the changes they made comparing to other layouts are okey for you.

Offline vandr0iy

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #39 on: Wed, 27 April 2016, 08:02:32 »
Hello guys What do you guys think? I'm a dvorak typer but I don't know if changing to dvorak makes an improvement on me. And because of dvorak I can't seem to play games again cause of dvorak. Are dvorak or Colemak is better than qwerty?
I learnt to touchtype with colemak - if I have to learn a new skill, I gotta do it in the best way I possibly can. And, if you do touchtype already, on dvorak - simply continue doing so. With QWERTY your wrists would be destroyed - your fingers move too unnaturally.

Offline Glod

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #40 on: Wed, 27 April 2016, 15:57:27 »
loving colemak, after 3 months i type 75wpm, my hands don't hurt, im using all fingers evenly, and i really don't feel a need to use a ergo board except for my Atreus when i travel.

Offline bocahgundul

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #41 on: Wed, 27 April 2016, 17:34:40 »
loving colemak, after 3 months i type 75wpm, my hands don't hurt, im using all fingers evenly, and i really don't feel a need to use a ergo board except for my Atreus when i travel.
Yep I'm loving colemak too. I'm in 3 weeks now and I type 55wpm and my fingers doesn't even hurt anymore


Hello guys What do you guys think? I'm a dvorak typer but I don't know if changing to dvorak makes an improvement on me. And because of dvorak I can't seem to play games again cause of dvorak. Are dvorak or Colemak is better than qwerty?
I learnt to touchtype with colemak - if I have to learn a new skill, I gotta do it in the best way I possibly can. And, if you do touchtype already, on dvorak - simply continue doing so. With QWERTY your wrists would be destroyed - your fingers move too unnaturally.
 


I'm learning colemak now because dvorak is destroying my pinky finger  :'(
But I'm really glad that I choose colemak  ;D

Offline knightjp

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #42 on: Thu, 19 May 2016, 17:11:08 »
Here is my experience with alternative layouts. I will admit that I'm still on the fence of returning to Colemak or going with Dvorak, but I do enjoy shortcuts. Since I use Mac OS X, I could use Dvorak with the QWERTY command keys.

https://julxrp.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/colemak-vs-dvorak/
https://julxrp.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/your-keyboard-you-ill-stick-with-colemak/
https://julxrp.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/good-bye-colemak-its-been-fun/
https://julxrp.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/your-keyboard-you-qwerty-is-no-picnic/

Offline batfink

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #43 on: Fri, 20 May 2016, 07:58:51 »
I will admit that I'm still on the fence of returning to Colemak or going with Dvorak, but I do enjoy shortcuts.

There isn't really any compelling reason to pick Dvorak over Colemak if you are learning a new layout for the first time (in my view).
I'm surprised you found Dvorak easier to pick up, on the face of it should be much harder to learn. And that L key on the pinky looks painful.
The lower same-finger count and reduced pinky usage of Colemak should outweigh Dvorak overall, although obviously both layouts are still way better than Qwerty.

I'm guessing you might just need to give Colemak more time. It will gel eventually. If you get frustrated and started chopping and changing layouts, you'll probably only make matters worse.

If you are struggling with awkward wrist angle on Colemak, try using the Angle Mod.


Offline droshi

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #44 on: Mon, 25 July 2016, 11:43:41 »
I went from qwerty (several years touch typing) to dvorak (about 10 years) and just recently in the last year I went to Colemak.

Personally I feel a layout isn't that hard to learn, and is more than worth the effort. I gained a bit of speed going from qwerty to dvorak, but not much going to colemak. What I do like with Colemak over Dvorak is the location of zxcv for shortcuts. This was pretty annoying in Dvorak.

Both dvorak and colemak are infinitely more comfortable for me to type long periods on, and so I think they are worth it. I wonder if those that say they layouts are not worth it have just given up trying? Or are only looking for speed increases? If you are super fast on qwerty and don't want to switch because of that, fine, but if you want a more comfortable experience, I think it's hard to beat the newer layouts.

Offline Questengine

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #45 on: Sun, 31 July 2016, 14:29:39 »
I used QWERTY for nearly 20 years and hated it the whole time.  Hated typing in general... and I'm a programmer so I have to do a lot.  Switched to Colemak maybe more than 3 years ago and never looked back.  I feel sorry for the folks who think QWERTY is the only option, there are so many better things to try!

Offline MajorMajor

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #46 on: Tue, 02 August 2016, 07:59:13 »
I've been using Dvorak  for over a year now and I haven't run into a game I couldn't play, though many you need to remap the keys.

Some games like League of Legends are more intelligent in that they map spells to the physical key location, rather than a specific character. So when you play on Dvorak, it actually maps for 4 spells to ' , . p and even displays those characters on-screen under the spells. Hopefully more games follow suit.

Personally, after reading this guide to keyboard layouts and other people's opinions I would learn Colemak if I had to do it all over again. I'm still thinking about switching to Colemak from Dvorak just to have the shortcuts like Copy and Paste be in better position...
TKL / Clears / Dvorak / Flipped Space for Life / Best Programming Keyboards

Offline tomboy

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #47 on: Tue, 02 August 2016, 08:52:10 »
Also look into Workman, that's what I use. It's similar to Colemak, which is better than Dvorak IMO.

Hey fellow Workman user, I'm glad I'm not alone :)

Offline Input Nirvana

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #48 on: Wed, 03 August 2016, 23:47:24 »
After using Colemak for 7 years on my Kinesis keyboards, I thought I'd try Colemak on my iPhone...just because. FYI it doesn't work for me AT ALL. I don't know if it will. I thought that was interesting.

I've typed with Colemak so long, and without legends on one keyboard and qwerty legends on another...I didn't even recognize the Colemak layout on a friends keyboard when looking at it.

I'm open to the modified Colmak or Workman. Maybe someday.
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Offline Questengine

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Re: Are Colemak, Dvorak is better than Qwerty?
« Reply #49 on: Thu, 04 August 2016, 07:26:03 »
I think there should be another computer generated colemak style keyboard for mobile devices.  The most common characters would be near the sides, close to your thumbs and the less common letters in the middle, harder to reach.  Then the common pairs should be staggered, diagonally, with UNcommon pairs side by side.  So if you think you want to tap the S,but you actually tap the B beside it by mistake, then proceed to the next character T, the autocorrect can assume you probably meant "ST" instead of "BT"