Why I'm Quitting Ergonomic Layouts And Colemak

[Mad_Maxx]

This summer I decided it would be fun to try out a different layout, and make my own ergonomic keyboard. I made the keyboard, below, and got to about 40 wpm in Colemak, which is pretty decent for me.



Unfortunately, this long and unproductive summer has finally come to a close, and yesterday I once again resumed normal classes. All was well in my world, until this morning in my mechanical engineering lab, when I was faced with a standard dell keyboard. It stared starkly, accusing me of wasting hours and hours on silly things such as creativity and adventure.

Of course I knew that I would face this hurdle before starting my little escapade, but I had rationalized it by saying that I would always carry my keyboard with me, that I could switch layouts easily, that its just not that big of a deal. Two things that I did not anticipate were that I would have to work in a group, so no switching out the boards, and that the two upperclassmen labs that I have happen to be quite difficult (surprise) and any encumbrance is going to be a serious problem.

My experience with Colemak was a good one, and I hope that one day I'll be able to use it again, but for now I'm going to have to use qwerty and a layout thats much more standard.

I'm hoping to make something based of the the 22mini keyboard http://22kbd.com/164.
It seems like the best compromise between form factor and usability.

[CPTBadAss]

You could always carry one of these around and have your Colemak layout with you at all times.

[Mad_Maxx]

You could always carry one of these around and have your Colemak layout with you at all times.

Wow that things pretty neat, I've never seen it before.

Unfortunately, the problem is that when working with the lab group, there is only one keyboard, and everyone ends up using it at some point or another. The labs are known to be pretty intense, so I just dont want to complicate anything.

[CPTBadAss]

They won't want to use your board after they realize it's Colemak. Problem solved .

But the Hasu USB-to-USB converter has virtual dipswitches so you could just keep toggling back and forth from Colemak to QWERTY.

[Data]

You could always carry one of these around and have your Colemak layout with you at all times.

Wow that things pretty neat, I've never seen it before.

Unfortunately, the problem is that when working with the lab group, there is only one keyboard, and everyone ends up using it at some point or another. The labs are known to be pretty intense, so I just dont want to complicate anything.

Computers have lots of USB ports and it's possible to use several keyboards at once.  I'm sure you can find ways to make it work in your lab(s).

That said, having to consistently use lots of different keyboards throughout the day has forced me to stay very far away from newer (arguably better) layouts like Colemak.  QWERTY all the way.  I can manage fine going between staggered, ortholinear, and ergonomic/split layouts (with a few errors at first) as long as they're all QWERTY.

[Mad_Maxx]

They won't want to use your board after they realize it's Colemak. Problem solved .

But the Hasu USB-to-USB converter has virtual dipswitches so you could just keep toggling back and forth from Colemak to QWERTY.

You could always carry one of these around and have your Colemak layout with you at all times.

Wow that things pretty neat, I've never seen it before.

Unfortunately, the problem is that when working with the lab group, there is only one keyboard, and everyone ends up using it at some point or another. The labs are known to be pretty intense, so I just dont want to complicate anything.

Computers have lots of USB ports and it's possible to use several keyboards at once.  I'm sure you can find ways to make it work in your lab(s).

That said, having to consistently use lots of different keyboards throughout the day has forced me to stay very far away from newer (arguably better) layouts like Colemak.  QWERTY all the way.  I can manage fine going between staggered, ortholinear, and ergonomic/split layouts (with a few errors at first) as long as they're all QWERTY.

Yeah the real problem is that its a pressure environment, and I don't want to be adding anything that might make things more complicated. It would be possible, but its just not a risk that I want to take, especially with my controls lab, since I'm worried about it enough as it is.

[deci]

It's possible to retain more than one keyboard layout at the same time though.

Currently I use colemak at home (at 50 wpm) and qwerty at work (at 100wpm).
Although I have noticed I do tend to make a few more errors now in qwerty than I used to, this generally only affects typing games / tests as it seems to only occur when I'm trying to copy words really fast and I don't actually type anywhere near that fast when I'm programming.

Colemak is similar to qwerty which I actually suspect is worse for switching between two layouts from an accuracy standpoint and I have heard of many people who can type in both dvorak and qwerty with no problems.

Honestly I thought Colemak was really easy to learn as it shares so many of the same keys as qwerty. The odd thing for me is that it actually feels somewhat less comfortable to me.
Like my fingers feel cramped staying on the home row all the time. I may stop using it just because qwerty actually feels better to me, but i'll give some time to see if I get used to it.

[0100010]

This is why I stick with QWERTY as well.  Besides my keyboard, I use enough others throughout the day that are not mine, that make it not practical.

[Mad_Maxx]

It's possible to retain more than one keyboard layout at the same time though.

Currently I use colemak at home (at 50 wpm) and qwerty at work (at 100wpm).
Although I have noticed I do tend to make a few more errors now in qwerty than I used to, this generally only affects typing games / tests as it seems to only occur when I'm trying to copy words really fast and I don't actually type anywhere near that fast when I'm programming.

Colemak is similar to qwerty which I actually suspect is worse for switching between two layouts from an accuracy standpoint and I have heard of many people who can type in both dvorak and qwerty with no problems.

Honestly I thought Colemak was really easy to learn as it shares so many of the same keys as qwerty. The odd thing for me is that it actually feels somewhat less comfortable to me.
Like my fingers feel cramped staying on the home row all the time. I may stop using it just because qwerty actually feels better to me, but i'll give some time to see if I get used to it.

I could try switching between them both, but I'd rather just use one consistently.

I only get that cramped feeling when im using my laptop keyboard, but if im using my ergodox or custom its not really a problem.

[jdcarpe]

For the reasons you stated, you have come to the correct realization when it comes to alternative keyboards and layouts.

I found the following site, http://www.aboutonehandtyping.com/introduction.html several years ago when thinking about different layouts and designs. It's good reading.

[mattbox]

It's the same argument for MS Word. Sure, there might be better programs out there, but eventually you'll have to work with others.

[Oobly]

This is precisely the reason that I chose a very different layout from QWERTY for my custom ergo board. It doesn't mess with my QWERTY skills, so I use QWERTY at work (on a 60% on my own machine, full size on servers and other's machines) and my own layout on my own board at home. I'm still a touch faster on QWERTY, but that's probably due to the 30-odd years of using it as opposed to less than 2 on my custom.

It trains a completely different set of muscle memory, so there's no confusion. I found relearning the shortcuts on my new layout to be just fine, that's definitely not a good reason to use a layout with ZXCV in the standard positions.

I really enjoy using my custom board and don't have any regrets with the decisions I made.

[steve.v]

Force them to use colemak. win.

[deci]

This is precisely the reason that I chose a very different layout from QWERTY for my custom ergo board. It doesn't mess with my QWERTY skills, so I use QWERTY at work (on a 60% on my own machine, full size on servers and other's machines) and my own layout on my own board at home. I'm still a touch faster on QWERTY, but that's probably due to the 30-odd years of using it as opposed to less than 2 on my custom.

It trains a completely different set of muscle memory, so there's no confusion. I found relearning the shortcuts on my new layout to be just fine, that's definitely not a good reason to use a layout with ZXCV in the standard positions.

I really enjoy using my custom board and don't have any regrets with the decisions I made.

Yeah I have been wondering if I should learn a custom layout that is a little more differentiated from qwerty.

Colemak doesn't interfere with my qwerty skills that much so far except at some random times, but when it does it's really annoying.
It's like for a second or two, I can't type at all...

[Joey Quinn]

Hey Max if you need to borrow a board let me know. Sorry about the situation.

[Oobly]

My advice would be to keep your little custom board and design a new character layout for it yourself, using something like AdNW BU-Teck as a starting point. You can retain your QWERTY skills and enjoy your custom and all the benefits that come from using a more ergonomic (and fun-to-use) keyboard.

It will take longer to learn than Colemak, but you won't have the same moments of confusion when switching and in the end it can be even more optimised and efficient, especially if you have applied the criteria that matter most to you in the optimisation.

[Mad_Maxx]

Hey Max if you need to borrow a board let me know. Sorry about the situation.

Hey man thanks, I might have to take you up on that. No tragedy though. I kind of thought I might run into something like this. It was fun while it lasted.

My advice would be to keep your little custom board and design a new character layout for it yourself, using something like AdNW BU-Teck as a starting point. You can retain your QWERTY skills and enjoy your custom and all the benefits that come from using a more ergonomic (and fun-to-use) keyboard.

It will take longer to learn than Colemak, but you won't have the same moments of confusion when switching and in the end it can be even more optimised and efficient, especially if you have applied the criteria that matter most to you in the optimisation.

I'm more of an all or nothing type of person. I don't really want to try and switch between anything too different. I'm not a great typist, and I feel that whenever I make a layout change I just set back progress that much more. Plus now that school is in session I don't think that I'll be able to be finding the time to be learning a whole new layout.

I might keep the custom, I might not. I feel like its a a little to personalized to me to be desirable anyway. I really don't like having extra boards though. I'm sure I won't use it anymore though.

[Macsmasher]

I switched to Colemak and I have to work on client systems and servers all the time. I just use the Colemak PKL (portable keyboard layout) when working on client computers. I keep it on a flash drive as well as Dropbox. It's simply a little applet that runs memory resident (doesn't require installation) so I can run it on any system without requiring admin rights. It simply remaps the keys for Colemak. I've never had an issue running it in two years. Logging in usually still requires qwerty, but that's not an issue for me.

[jd29]

I switched to Colemak and I have to work on client systems and servers all the time. I just use the Colemak PKL (portable keyboard layout) when working on client computers. I keep it on a flash drive as well as Dropbox. It's simply a little applet that runs memory resident (doesn't require installation) so I can run it on any system without requiring admin rights. It simply remaps the keys for Colemak. I've never had an issue running it in two years. Logging in usually still requires qwerty, but that's not an issue for me.

Yeah, this is what I do for Workman. Plug $3 flash drive into the front, run. Pause or kill it when you someone else is about to get on.