Dvorak-keyboard.com Website Review

THE DVORAK KEYBOARD is an ergonomic alternative to the layout commonly found on typewriters and computers known as “Qwerty”. The Qwerty keyboard was designed in the 1870s to accommodate the slow mechanical movement of early typewriters. When it was designed, touch typing literally hadn’t even been thought of yet! It’s hardly an efficient design for today’s use. By contrast, the Dvorak There were several variations in the Dvorak’s design in its first few decades, but these were settled when the American National Standards Institute approved a standard for the layout of the Dvorak in 1982. The diagram above shows the standard layout as adapted for PC Because computers weren’t even a researcher’s dream in the late 1920s and 30s, the Dvorak design took about 12 years to perfect, and included extensive study of languages using the Roman alphabet (mostly English), the physiology of the hand, and practical studies. Dr. Dvorak (Univ. of Washington, Seattle; b.1894, d.1975) used his research to design two other keyboards specifically for people with only one hand (one each for the right and left), which allow people with the use of just one hand to type very easily and efficiently — The Dvorak has the most-used consonants on the right side of the home row, and the vowels on the left side of the home row. Among other design features, it is set up to facilitate keying in a back-and-forth motion — (right hand, then left hand, then right, etc.) When the same hand has to be used for more than one letter in a row (e.g., the common t-h), it is designed not only to use different fingers when possible (to make keying quicker and easier), but also to progress from the outer fingers to the inner fingers (“inboard st*oke flow”) — it’s easier to drum your fingers this way (try it on the tabletop). The back-and-forth flow obviously makes typing quicker and easier: try typing the word “minimum” on the Qwerty keyboard, then look how you’d type it on Dvorak. The design puts fully 70