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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: nads93uk on Sat, 20 February 2010, 11:44:36

Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: nads93uk on Sat, 20 February 2010, 11:44:36: Hi all, I just made a keyboard layout from realising that QWERTY was only good for salesmen to type "typewriter" on without moving from the top row

DVORAK: was just too damn hard
Colemak: better but some letters were annoying.

Its called Asiru because, well I had no other name for it and the first 5 Keys on the home row luckily happened to be pronounceable.

Tell Me What You think, installation links for U.K and U.S&A are below.

http://www.box.net/shared/db6fa0sde4

Pic: (http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/3275/asiru.gif)
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: JBert on Sat, 20 February 2010, 14:26:16: Well, I think the "advantage" of Colemak or Dvorak over Qwerty is known.

What exactly is this layout supposed to improve and what was your basis to make it?
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: msiegel on Sat, 20 February 2010, 14:50:47: hmm... here's what i notice:

- right pinky has to cover a lot of territory
- key staggering is "backward" for the left hand... and/or number row has nonstandard staggering
- are the pipe and backslash separated?
- alt is some distance from the space bar -- is it supposed to be hit by a finger instead of the thumbs?
- control keys seem to be different sizes, but can't tell why
- why isn't D on the home row?? :)

thanks for your efforts :)
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: nads93uk on Sat, 20 February 2010, 15:25:43: Quote from: msiegel;159669
hmm... here's what i notice:

- right pinky has to cover a lot of territory
- key staggering is "backward" for the left hand... and/or number row has nonstandard staggering
- are the pipe and backslash separated?
- alt is some distance from the space bar -- is it supposed to be hit by a finger instead of the thumbs?
- control keys seem to be different sizes, but can't tell why
- why isn't D on the home row?? :)

thanks for your efforts :)

- You're right, right pinky too much, gotta change,
- Staggering and Keysizes - This is just the mockup of the layout made by Microsoft Keyboard Layout thingy
-D isnt on the home row because I thought it would be quite easy to reach, but i guess not,

-Thanks for all your feed back

Any advantages you see? I would rather someone else point them out rather than me promote them.
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: nads93uk on Sat, 20 February 2010, 15:35:19: Quote from: JBert;159662
Well, I think the "advantage" of Colemak or Dvorak over Qwerty is known.

What exactly is this layout supposed to improve and what was your basis to make it?

Well, I realised I got used to this pretty quickly, I started using it 3 days ago and I type at 23WPM now (apparently). And I tried to follow the same principles as Colemak, but tweak it slightly.
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: msiegel on Sat, 20 February 2010, 15:36:30: Quote from: nads93uk;159676
Any advantages you see?

it's hard to tell if these will be advantages, before actually trying out the layout, but i see:

- the most frequently used letters in english are on the home row (almost ;)
- home row keys where fingers rest alternate between vowels and consonants
- the pinkies reach punctuation marks one space away from the home row

an animation of text being typed with this layout might turn up more interesting characteristics and help qualify its efficiency :)
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: nads93uk on Sat, 20 February 2010, 15:37:20: Quote from: webwit;159677
Needs motivation like JBert noted, otherwise it is just random.

I wouldnt say its random, I actually thought about it ^_^
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: nads93uk on Sat, 20 February 2010, 15:45:16: Quote from: msiegel;159679
it's hard to tell if these will be advantages, before actually trying out the layout, but i see:

- the most frequently used letters in english are on the home row (almost ;)
- home row keys where fingers rest alternate between vowels and consonants
- the pinkies reach punctuation marks one space away from the home row

an animation of text being typed with this layout might turn up more interesting characteristics and help qualify its efficiency :)

Is there a way I can make an animation quickly and easily?
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: msiegel on Sat, 20 February 2010, 15:50:15: Quote from: nads93uk;159682
Is there a way I can make an animation quickly and easily?

i wish i knew of one. it would be great to have around here :)
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: nads93uk on Sat, 20 February 2010, 16:07:14: Quote from: webwit;159684
Well, strangely you don't share your ideas, get back to me when you are ready to share them. Or is it just a truthiness layout? Drovak/colemak is bad (but you can't state why other than "feeling") and your layout fixes it. Yes, but why and how? Where did they fail, how did you fix it, and what research do you have to back it up?

Sorry for not explaining, I never said they were bad as such, I just personally thought that DVORAK was too hard to learn and that Colemak had a few letters like Y, P in a place that was not too inconvenient for a QWERTY'er.

Then again my inspiration for this layout was Colemak, and thats one of the things I based this on. Among others:

-Most used shortcuts are either in the same place or moved slighty
-All vowels are on the home row
-Common words and things we usually type (like popular websites) are quite easy to type
-Relative ease of transition from QWERTY

Research wise, not so much but I thank you for your feedback (can I count this as part of my research?). It is much appreciated
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: Rajagra on Sat, 20 February 2010, 17:11:08: That layout is neither ANSI nor ISO.
It has ANSI's Return and Backslash keys, and ISO's extra key to the left of Z.
Now those are good things, but I've never seen a board laid out that way.

If I was designing a layout that used the extra ISO key, I'd steal the 'comfort Colemak' idea of changing the stagger of the left hand slightly. Or go the whole hog like this:
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3701&d=1249982099)
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: Computer-Lab in Basement on Sat, 20 February 2010, 17:20:14: QWERTY is the way to go im ny opinion, it is the most comon and thats what they use in most school computers.
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: kishy on Sat, 20 February 2010, 17:27:59: Quote from: Computer-Lab in Basement;159719
QWERTY is the way to go im ny opinion, it is the most comon and thats what they use in most school computers.

Although I agree, I will say this...if we applied the same reasoning to everything, we'd consider rubber dome keyboards superior to those "noisy, weird feeling keyboards".
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: Rajagra on Sat, 20 February 2010, 17:33:04: Quote from: nads93uk;159682
Is there a way I can make an animation quickly and easily?
Not sure if you can modify it, but Hi-games' animation (http://hi-games.net/typing-test/watch?u=2591) is pretty good at showing how 'busy' a layout is to use.
Quote from: Computer-Lab in Basement;159719
QWERTY is the way to go im ny opinion, it is the most comon and thats what they use in most school computers.

I read that most people tie their shoelaces wrong (granny knot with bows, instead of double reef bow.) I have no intention of copying them.
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: kishy on Sat, 20 February 2010, 17:36:30: Since when is that the wrong way to tie shoelaces?

Must be a UK thing. Nobody here does it that way because it would leave far too much length on the laces. I'm guessing the "standard" length for shoelaces over there is shorter for a double reef knot to look like a remotely good idea.
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: Rajagra on Sat, 20 February 2010, 17:46:20: Granny knots come undone when pulled on (http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/slipping.htm). Reef knots tighten when pulled on. Both use the same length of lace.

When I say double reef bow I mean a single reef knot with double bows. It's a misleading name but that's what they call it.
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: nads93uk on Sun, 21 February 2010, 14:04:27: Quote from: Rajagra;159717
That layout is neither ANSI nor ISO.
It has ANSI's Return and Backslash keys, and ISO's extra key to the left of Z.
Now those are good things, but I've never seen a board laid out that way.

If I was designing a layout that used the extra ISO key, I'd steal the 'comfort Colemak' idea of changing the stagger of the left hand slightly. Or go the whole hog like this:
Show Image
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3701&d=1249982099)

What is Comfort Colemak?

And the mix up of the ANSI and ISO is because on Microsoft Keyboard creator, I loaded a UK layout on an ANSI template. My Bad
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: Rajagra on Sun, 21 February 2010, 14:21:35: Quote from: nads93uk;159858
What is Comfort Colemak?

Basically, it's Colemak with ZXCVB moved one position to the left. Obviously you need a key to move the Z to, so that's why the extra ISO key is useful.
(http://folk.uio.no/obech/Images/Colemak/Cmk-BoardFigs/CmkBoardFigIBM-Eu_FingerLight.png)
Image by DreymaR (http://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=731).
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: FunkTrooper on Sun, 21 February 2010, 14:21:50: Quote from: Rajagra;159717
That layout is neither ANSI nor ISO.
It has ANSI's Return and Backslash keys, and ISO's extra key to the left of Z.
Now those are good things, but I've never seen a board laid out that way.

Keyboards like that do exist! Keyboards like... this one I've got right here! (http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=8030&stc=1&d=1266783648)
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: ch_123 on Sun, 21 February 2010, 14:23:18: Quote from: Computer-Lab in Basement;159719
QWERTY is the way to go im ny opinion, it is the most comon and thats what they use in most school computers.

For some reason, reading this post reminds me of that scene in The Wall where the children are on conveyor belts, being fed into a machine that grinds them up into sausage meat.
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: DreymaR on Mon, 22 February 2010, 06:29:24: Nads93: I'll give you this: You've got nads.

However, one of the design 'principles' (or maybe I should say 'realities' instead?) of Colemak was to spend hundreds of hours perfectioning it with regard to digraphs as well as mere letter frequencies. Keep that in mind. Each time I tried to suggest a single change in one key's placement, Shai had a damn good answer why that wouldn't be such an optimal idea. This is what finally won me over to using Colemak just as it was designed (with respect to the main letter placements). So if you're making your own tweaks you should endeavour to have some equally good answers to why you've done every little move. Just saying.
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: Input Nirvana on Mon, 22 February 2010, 21:00:03: I think it's great to experiment to find something that works better, or to fix something, or even just for fun.

I very fortunately found Colemak while doing some research on Dvorak because typing has always been an uncomfortable chore for me. Without getting scientific (others have done that part for me) Colemak is a HUGE improvement over QWERTY for me. There are quite a few options that already exist and I have no desire to test drive them all. That being said, a letter moved here or there may not have a huge effect, but I recognize keyboard layouts are mostly about compromise. Ergo, no distinct best or worst :)

DreymaR, I followed your posts on the Colemak forums, which helped me understand some of the mechanics involved. Thanks!
Title: NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT!!!! Please Give Me Feedback
Post by: Tony on Tue, 11 January 2011, 07:45:49: (http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/3275/asiru.gif)

This layout makes type "the" - the most typed trigraph of English all by the right hand, which is quite tiring after a while.

How many times you have to type "the", "they", "them" "these", "there", "then" each day?

Th and he - the two most frequent digraph in English should be easily typed, preferably by alternation between hands.

Edit: Some layout pictures for anyone who wants to know

(http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/1112/colemak.png)
Colemak

(http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/8633/dvorak.png)
Dvorak

(http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/1197/capewell.png)
Capewell

(http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3429/arensito.png)
Arensito