Talk:Dvorak keyboard layout/Archive 4

Article suffers from extreme bias in favor of QWERTY layout

" This reduction in finger distance traveled was originally purported to permit faster rates of typing, and also in later years, it was purported to reduce repetitive strain injuries.[3] " using "was" infers heavily that this possible benefit of the Dvorak layout has since been scientifically dis-proven which is entirely not true. Also "purported" has an extremely negative connotation, DEFINED: Appear or claim to be or do something, esp. falsely; profess.

I have changed it to read in a more neutral light:

"This reduction in finger distance traveled is claimed to permit faster rates of typing while reducing repetitive strain injuries.[3]"

This is only until someone post medical journal or other scientific evidence to prove this claim.

66.116.62.178 (talk) 07:15, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

QWERTY & DVORAK Printed On One Keyboard

Hello

I have an idea as to how DVORAK might gain more popularity. Basically, you would have a keyboard that has the normal QWERTY characters printed on it black on the top left of each key as usual, and then, on the bottom right of each key, you have the DVORAK key characters printed in red. That way, people could try out DVORAK without much hassle, and if they didn't like it, they could just go back to QWERTY. It would also be good for people who share computers- like, if you want to use DVORAK you can, then the other user just switches back to QWERTY. What do you guys think? Doom jester 11:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is a good idea, and one that is already occasionally implemented. Regardless, it is irrelevant what we think, since it is our job to tell the way things are, not dream up new ideas for ways to make it better. Also, Dvorak, being named after the designer rather than following a particular series of keys on the layout, should not be typed in block capitals. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 17:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any links to examples of such keyboards, printed with both? The availability of such technology could be notable somewhere in the article, but I don't know of them. Klalkity (talk) 09:16, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No need for this if you are already an experienced QWERTY touch-typist. I switched by printing out the Dvorak layout on a notecard and then taping it so it was hanging off the side of my monitor. I would look at the notecard while touch-typing, and it took me about 1 month to feel comfortable in Dvorak. For another 2 years or so, I was able to switch between the layouts at will; can't do that any more, though. It's been 6 years and my carpal tunnel symptoms haven't bothered me since. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.241.146 (talk) 02:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some years ago, there was such a keyboard, called the DvortyBoard (or something very close; spelling is correct). It was a modified Adesso EagleTouch product, but that was a light-duty keyboard, and eventually it wore out; key guides split and broke. One key changed internal keymaps on the fly. It's no longer made. Whether it's practical to move its electronics into a an Adesso EagleTouch, which would require technical ability, I don't know. Considering that that keyboard is light-duty, it doesn't seem wise.

Since then, a Canadian company, Matias, has been making such a keyboard; it's relatively costly, very likely because it's made in modest quantities. <http://matias.ca/dvorak/>

As well, another Canadian company apparently has the current rights to the name "DvortyBoard"; their keyboard is [more] ergonomic: <http://www.ergocanada.com/products/keyboards/dvortyboard_ergonomic.html>

IIrc, a company named Typematrix (?) made a switchable-layout keyboard; their key pattern was a simple row-and-column matrix without the stagger between rows that was needed for typewriter keylevers. Just about sure it had four rows.

I'm using a Key Tronic E03601P1 heavy-duty keyboard; at age 76, I won't wear it out! It's very rugged, with an excellent "feel". I simply moved its keys, using a Linux Dvorak keymap option (there are several). Keys in all rows are physically identical; a key puller tool would have made removing them easier. In all, swapping took about half an hour. Except when I need QWERTY for basic system setup and changes, it's just fine. (In those cases, I temporarily connect a QWERTY keyboard.) Apologies for topic drift!

Regards, Nikevich 07:08, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

You can buy Dvorak stickers in a variety of styles to stick on top of a normal keyboard. They are much more cost-effective than real Dvorak keyboards. Just search eBay. --PeterJeremy (talk) 12:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wondering...

Can the information in this webpage be added to the wikipedia article? I wrote that post myself, and it is in my personal blog. But I think it would help Dvorak enthusiasts a lot, and may even help more people accept the layout, reducing the time required to set up Dvorak on public computer. > http://thehunk.blogspot.com/2006/10/d-of-dvorak.html

--ADTC 16:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ADTC, I don't believe such a link would be appropriate. While the information will certainly be useful to some Dvorak typers (although I have to wonder how you propose to run the program on public terminals, most of which do not allow downloads and/or running downloaded applications), Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is an encyclopedic article about the certain phenomenon, not a collection of tips and tricks for Dvorak enthusiasts. If there is a Dvorak manual on wikibooks, your link might be appropriate there. Here, not so much.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thanks for your response. I understand it's not appropriate according to Wikipedia standards.

The program can be run on any Windows computer, provided the computer explicitely does not block downloading and running applications. This means that Windows itself should not be blocking the running of the application. Even if there are rules regarding usage of public terminals, Windows would be unaware of such rules and allow the user to run any application, unless a group policy was edited by the Admin to block it. I assume such is not possible as I've never seen a computer which automatically blocks download and running of programs. (For example, my college has rules that I am not supposed to download and run applications in the computers. But none of the computers have set Windows to not allow such. So I can run them.)

--ADTC 07:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, interesting. The computers of two public libraries I am occasionally using here are set up so they do not allow downloading and running downloaded apps. Apps on a flash USB drive are a different matter though; your little app might come in handy then. I'll certainly give it a try next time I need to use the library computer.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shortcut Support

This discussion continues from Shortcut Support in Archive 1. To read older parts of this discussion, please view Talk:Dvorak Simplified Keyboard/Archive01#Shortcut Support

Err... this is getting nowhere. Just chuck the whole thing. It's not working in your Word, and well, I have nothing I can do to correct that. To answer your question, I modified the original Qwerty layout to create this layout. And so it's internally Qwerty, not Dvorak (referring to your last sentence above).

On a side note, the keyboard layout doesn't actually change to Qwerty when Ctrl is pressed. Every keyboard layout has two layers. One is the base and the other is the output. Base is naming of each key position. Output is what is given out when I press a key. The Base for my layout is Qwerty while the output layer is Dvorak. Ctrl key is supposed to look at the base layer, not the output layer. Anyway if this also doesn't clear things up don't bother wasting your time whacking your brain. It's not working for you and there's nothing (100% sure about that) I can do to correct it. Really sorry about it, maybe you should try for some other solution! --ADTC 07:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This probably won't be terribly helpful, but Mac OS X has a built-in layout called Dvorak-QWERTY [command], which does exactly what you're describing. However, I find that in the long run it's better to switch over to Dvorak for the command keys as well. It takes longer to change the automatic Command-S/N/X/C/V/whatever than changing layouts, but in the end it is nice not to rely on a custom layout. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 07:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're right about this getting nowhere! That is what I mean, about it perhaps being base Dvorak rather than base QWERTY. Ah well, it remains as a tool anyway!martianlostinspace 11:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To clear things up:

Base Layer	Output Layer	Description
QWERTY	QWERTY	The standard Qwerty layout
QWERTY	Dvorak	The custom layout I have here (Shortcuts are supposed to follow Qwerty)
Dvorak	QWERTY	No use! Normal typing will yield characters according to Qwerty layout (Shortcuts are supposed to follow Dvorak!)
Dvorak	Dvorak	The standard Dvorak layout

IntrigueBlue, that's better and that's what I'm doing. I no longer use Qwerty even for shortcuts. The only reason I would use Qwerty is when I need to type with one hand (while the other hand is doing something else). Another reason why I have Qwerty installed is when my friends want to use my laptop, they can.--ADTC 20:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest that if you do a lot of cutting, copying and pasting but no typing, you can temporarily switch to Qwerty layout for doing so. Please don't be confused, this suggestion has nothing to do with my custom layout.--ADTC 20:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You probably realise this already, but if you use QWERTY for typing with one hand, you could do that on Dk single handed.martianlostinspace 14:46, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wastage of time. I don't always type with one hand. Just once in a while. So learning a new layout altogether will be inefficient in my case. It will help someone who regularly types with one hand or is handicapped. For me, I'd just brush up on QWERTY once in a while, since I already know. For 50 sentences typed in Dvorak, I may type one sentence in Qwerty. So what's the point in learning the one-handed layout for just typing one sentence? --ADTC 22:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

QWERTY to Dvorak converter

There is a JavaScript-based QWERTY to Dvorak converter on my website which I believe works significantly better than the one linked in the article. Since it's my site I don't want to change the link (self-promotion and the rest), but I thought I'd point it out. If you agree with me go ahead and change the link. Compare the linked converter to mine. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 22:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you list the advantages of your page as compared to the one linked? Also, check out "Dvorak Assistant" and "Quicker Access to Dvorak Assistant" in External Links section. Thank you! --ADTC 08:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. The linked version bugs quite badly with the use of the backspace key (it will only backspace once, and arbitrarily inserts spaces after you resume typing). Also, it is not possible to move the insertion point from the end of the typed text. However, it does have the benefit of not showing the gibberish QWERTY that is inputted. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 17:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese and Dvorak

Poor OS integration with foreign languages. For example, on Windows XP, one can use the Japanese IME to type Japanese, but only in QWERTY, even if Dvorak is otherwise specified as the default keyboard layout.

It is possible to use the Japanese IME with a Dvorak layout in Windows but only by means of a registry edit. This probably is of no interest to the vast majority reading this article so I don't really see a need to change anything but I thought I'd just mention it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.255.239 (talk • contribs)

This is because Japanese has absolutely nothing to do with QWERTY. But it is mapped to a QWERTY keyboard so that all the people in Japan will have a fixed standard to type Japanese in. QWERTY, Dvorak and Japanese are all three unrelated keyboard layouts. You can remap Japanese to Dvorak, but there is absolutely no point in doing so. This is because Dvorak layout is based on English, not Japanese. All the Japanese letters will still be in random position, and would therefore not have any advantage over the QWERTY-based Japanese layout. I hope you understand what I mean to say.--ADTC 08:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: Corrected your {{unsigned|86.29.255.239}}--ADTC 08:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the above poster is talking about the common method of typing Japanese using Roman letters, not by using the Japanese keyboard layout, which apparently is less popular, even with Japanese users. Obviously, a user used to typing Roman letters with the Dvorak layout would wish to do so regardless of the language the text was to be rendered in. The problem here lies with a poorly coded Japanese input method, though, and not with the Dvorak layout. Rōnin (talk) 10:02, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Ubuntu I was actually was able to change the layout to Dvorak and still be able to type in Japanese ime. So it is possible, (at terminal I did #setxkbmap dvorak) at least in ubuntu. I think I disagree with ADTC just because dvorak has the vowels on the home row and Japanese almost always follows vowel, consanent, vowel pattern i.e. vowels are used a lot.For example 配列(means layout in japanese) in hiragana as はいれつ and in romanji(roman character representation of japanese) as "hairetsu" you type h a i r e t s u and space and it converts it to kanji. There is even a group in japan that has a dvorak layout customized for japanese Here (Worth adding to artical? maybe not...). So yeah it is possible to make a layout streamlined for Japanese. I really don't know why I'm even talking in this discussion as I don't even use dvorak anyways.--stan_the_fisher —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.176.131.66 (talk) 16:44, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting Vandalism

Can anyone who deletes vandalism, check if the vandal replaced good text with vandalism, if so, revert to a previous, good version rather than just removing the vandalism

The current problem is that vandals are replacing the "overview" section with vandalism, and so when it's deleted/"fixed" the overview section remains missing -- Lee Carré 02:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By default, vandalism is always reverted. This is because it's easier to revert than to go to Edit page and remove it manually. Also it ensures that the page returns to its previous state with 100% assurance. So, don't worry about it. If you find that a vandalism has been removed, but not reverted, feel free to revert to a version before the vandalism occured. Just make sure you include any legitimate edits which happened after vandalism was removed (not reverted).--ADTC 03:01, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough :)

I do my best to include any legitimate edits made after the vandalism, i believe in doing a through and proper job ;)

When vandalism occurs, what's the standard/default procedure for placing a notice on the user/IP page of the editor? I've just reverted another act of vandalism on this article, but don't know the accepted way to notify the user. -- Lee Carré 13:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Check out WP:TUSER and pick the template that seems the most appropriate. Remember to subst: it as explained on that page. —INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 19:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, great :) thanks -- Lee Carré 22:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

English-based typing versus Multiple languages as reason of not beating QUERTY

Strange, in this article I don't see nothing about different languages as reason to DSK not catching up. I mean, different languages have very different requirements to a "optimized" keyboard typing. However, Dvorak common (roman) letters are ONLY arranged for ENGLISH typing. Even in other language implementation, the common Roman letters remain in the same position, clearly ignoring the other language requirements. Also this article is very POV, the whole article is just a big propaganda telling how wonderful Dvorak is. SSPecter ^talk ♠ _{05:45, 16 December 2006 (UTC)}.

That is because the only evidence against the ergonomic superiority of Dvorak is extremely biased itself. And, let's face it, who reads this article that doesn't already use the layout?

As for your point about other languages, it is true that Dvorak is optimized for English. However, all romance languages use similar word structure, so Dvorak in French would still be more ergonomically correct than QWERTY. Besides, how is QWERTY any more optimized for a completely different language than Dvorak is? —INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 01:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree. For example: Words in Portuguese and Spanish are very similar, but are quite different from English. Indo-European languages rules ARE very similar, but word structure can be very different. For example: English use k, y and w as normal letters. However Portuguese abolish these letters in portuguese words (although it still use these letters in foreign words). Other letters can be poorly used (z, x and h in Portuguese, for example). There are many other word differences, like the usual th English sequence (see the H - T together in Dvorak?), which is not used in Spanish or Portuguese at all. I agree QWERTY dont have any optimization in key positions, but it is wrong implying Dvorak is globally better than QWERTY, and not just English-specific. And its foolish say Dvorak should be used instead of QWERTY without considering global needs (and not just American/British needs). SSPecter ^talk ♠ _{15:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)}.

I think that there's very little to disagree about. Dvorak is likely to be better than Qwerty (or Azerty, or...) for most European languages. However, Dvorak is not optimized for any language other than English. The Dvorak keyboard for Spanish would have to include accents, the ñ letter, and so forth. According to [one comparison page], the 23d Psalm in Spanish was still 33% better in Dvorak than Qwerty. (I don't know how that applet handled accented characters or ñ.) Chip Unicorn 23:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also really, is that quite that big a deal? it seems like a nonissue to me. somehow, on my computer, theres this little red line that pops up underneath misspelled words. I have no idea where it came from and I cant stand this little red squiggly. so i took the liberty of spell checking your post. Thejakeman 04:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a big deal to people in jobs involving typing. And a big POV unproven propaganda-like article praising one thing (Dvorak) and condemning other (Qwerty) is simply wrong. Thanks for fixing my letters, by the way. ;) SSPecter ^talk ♠ _{15:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)}.

Let's not confuse encyclopedic standards with reality. Any "independent research" you like, or Dvorak's himself, applied (again, "independent resaerch") to a corpus of any of the major traditionally latin-alphabet languages, will clearly show Dvorak as the winner over QWERTY. Unless you disbelieve everything except what is appropriate for use in Wikipedia (including the very application of academic content to a new question), you have to conclude that Dvorak is indeed superior to QWERTY. QWERTY's own inventor would agree. So would Dr. Dvorak, who would be well-qualified to say so, I might add. Apply his facts, Dvorak wins, hands down, even in the "wrong language", over QWERTY. Klalkity (talk) 09:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Page protection

Because of a resumption in the spam-blanking by an anonymous vandal, I have re-protected the page from any editing by anonymous users. I'm not sure why they are targeting this page in particular and hope that we won't have to keep the protection on for long but I do think that we need to drive off this vandal. Rossami (talk) 14:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weasel Words

Why is this tag in here? I read the article and I didn't see any blatant weasel words. Can anyone elaborate on this? Also, this page should be archived again. I'd do it, but I haven't learned how.--Littleman_TAMU ^(talk) 21:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

External links section

Please review Wikipedia:External_links before re-adding any of the huge number of external links I deleted from this article. Wikipedia is not a link farm or a link directory. (Even after deleting more links than I can count, there are 15 external links. That's more than enough for any article.) Rray 00:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I think we ought to cut it back to a manageable size of say six links at most. I would suggest the following:

DvZine.org - A website advocating the Dvorak layout with a webcomic zine
Step by Step Guide to Switching to Dvorak - How to switch to Dvorak with minimal disruption to your work/life
A Basic Course in Dvorak - by Dan Wood
Dvorak vs QWERTY Tool - Comparison site that allows to calculate statistics of the different layout.
The Fable of the Keys - Article by Liebowitz and Margolis questioning the Dvorak keyboard’s superiority.
The Fable of the Fable - Web page questioning the credibility of "Fable of the Keys".

This would give us a good, manageable sample to start with. If anyone wants to add any more, we can discuss them on a case by case basis one at a time. — jammycakes ^(t)_(c) 16:44, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be possible to have Doomtech's guide to learning Dvorak added again? It might not be perfectly written, but it is a good method for learning Dvorak anyway. The less people who need to rearrange the keys the better. Best wishes, 62.16.207.52 06:19, 20 July 2007 (UTC)Nicho.[reply]

I'd be inclined to give a weak no, I'm afraid. There are a lot of high quality resources out there on switching to Dvorak, and we need to draw the line somewhere. One or two of the links in the list may be a little bit arbitrary, but the main idea is to just have a small representative selection. On the other hand, if other people think it is worth adding then I won't object. — jammycakes ^(t)_(c) 11:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about this typing tutor: http://dvorak.nl/learn.plp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.100.113 (talk) 23:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dvorak vs QWERTY Tool appears to be broken. I would however like someone else to verify before it is removed. Jincopunk 6 April 2009

Unnecessary fact tags

I just happened across this article and found some very unnecessary {{fact}} tags. For example, on the statement that most UNIX variants can be configured to use Dvorak. I don't think it's necessary to cite the existence of keyboard maps (and the xmodmap utility) to prove this -- every modern OS can manage keyboard layouts, it's not a fact that needs citing. Similarly, the fact that typing on a Dvorak keyboard when expecting QWERTY can lead to gibberish -- this is also obvious, when you hit the wrong keys, you'll get gibberish output. No citation needed. There are a lot more such tags which could be removed by someone with the desire to clean this up. -- dcclark (talk) 00:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Resistance to change section too long?

This section seems a bit over-long and rambling -- is it possible to prune it a bit? — jammycakes ^(t)_(c) 13:23, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Microswitch?

The article refers to installing a microswitch in the back panel of an Apple. I've always heard that term used to refer to a snap-action momentary switch with a lever on it, as in the linked article. Surely it's a toggle or a push-on/push-off? --Yuubi 21:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is being called a microswitch here is in fact a DIP switch. —optikos (talk) 05:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism

Stan Liebowitz & Stephen E. Margolis: SHOULD TECHNOLOGY CHOICE BE A CONCERN OF ANTITRUST POLICY? should be added. —Zorro CX 12:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. The argument against the DSK given by Liebowitz & Margolis is a strawman stuffed with wrong data, bad history and poor logic. More to the point, the central theme of the position they continue to maintain (despite such debunking as put forward so succinctly by Marcus Brooks in The Fable of the Fable) is totally irrelevant to the DSK, and would, in my opinion, serve only to rekindle tangential debate.--Pendant 19:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Developer Dvorak

http://www.siteuri.ro/dvorak/ddvorak.php The idea is based on Programmer Dvorak. Sorry my english.

tricky

God, has anyone ever tried typing "wikipedia" in Dvorak? I'm not that good overall yet, but it's the most excruciating word I've yet come across--worse that "puppyish", don't ask me why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.49.147.73 (talk) 20:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A conspiracy!

I think I more or less wrote it off once I tried typing "David". Rōnin (talk) 21:20, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia - Not so bad, It's letters are spread out across 3 rows and mostly use the left hand, but you're not going to be able to type every word efficiently. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.194.190.179 (talk) 14:52, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where's the tilde

On a standard US-Dvorak keyboard? I can't sign my edits at home without switching back to qwerty! Tar7arus 16:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's to the left of 1 in the top (number) row (you have to hold SHIFT when typing it).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:15, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou Tar7arus 18:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Request for references

A section is marked references requested. Here is a reference: http://web.syr.edu/~rcranger/blackburn.htm. It seems to verify that Apple produced a DSK in the early days. I found it by chasing the link in this article to the world typing speed record holder and my reference came off that Wikipedia page.

However, I must apologize that I have never submitted anything before and it looks a bit like 30 minutes to do the required reading to make proper updates, which is a barrier to me. So I did not update the article nor do I expect to be back here again, so use this or not as you see fit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.184.0.103 (talk) 03:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ref the Fact for "seeing a resurgence recently" text - well a few people (author+some friends) are mentioned on post at http://theironlion.net/blog/virgin-typing-very-first-time/ as using it. Enough? I have also never made a substantial edit before, unsure how to edit the Fact tag or include the link for the mo. This edit should remind me when/if I become more confident in future but feel free to edit/comment on this link/how to ref to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgbreezer (talk • contribs) 12:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The World's Fastest Typist

Barbara Blackburn, cited in the 'Notable users' section of the article as being "world typing speed record holder", no longer holds this record. She held this record from 1975 to 1985. There is no successor since Guinness stopped evaluating for the category of World's Fastest Typist in 1985, alledgedly because the lack of a standard layout prevented fair comparisons. So one can say that Ms Blackburn is the only record holder.

1. Mark Kislingbury of Houston, Texas, USA holds the Guinness World Record for using a stenotype machine(a). The National Court Reporters Association speed and real-time champion achieved 360 words per minute with 97.23% accuracy, at the NCRA 2004 summer convention on 30 July 2004.

2. Gregory Arakelian (USA), of Herndon, Virginia, holds the Guinness World Record for a standard keyboard(b). He set a speed record of 158 wpm, with two errors, on a personal computer in the Key Tronic World Invitational Type-Off. He recorded this speed in the semi-final, in a three-minute test, on 24 September 1991.

(a) confirmed (to me by email) by National Court Reporters Association Director of Communications Marshall Jorpeland

(b) Note that I have so far been unable to determine which 'standard keyboard' Mr. Arakelian was using! I've written to Guinness World Records Limited for confirmation (18th October 2007) - no response as yet... --Pendant 21:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up: I've just today had a (very terse) letter signed by Sarah Wagner at Guinness World Records, London, stating that 'George Arakelian was using a QWERTY keyboard when he achieved his record typing speed.' Sadly, no references were cited in the letter at all. The reference to Barbara Blackburn as "world typing speed record holder" needs to be removed. --Pendant 15:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this published in a publicly available reliable source anywhere? If so, the article can be updated to say she was the former world record holder, but in any case the statement needs to stay in one form or another, because she is a notable user and was in fact instrumental in popularising the layout through her status as a world record holder. However, you do need to cite your sources. Snthdiueoa (talk) 17:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi - I'm Greg Arakelian. I took the test on a QWERTY keyboard. If you have questions, you can send an e-mail to greg at arakelian dot c-o-m. My record was awarded to me by the Guinness Book of Records in 1991. I have a plaque, signed by the folks at Guinness, testifying to that fact. The contest in which I participated was sponsored by a number of large companies, including WordPerfect Corporation, ManTech, and Keytronics. There were over 10,000 contestants world-wide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.24.236 (talk) 04:36, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd query the relevance of the entry of the real-time reporter "record". By its very nature, stenotyping uses "short forms" and abbreviated typing, so can't be compared to keying in every character. I've hit between 2-4000 wpm over a period of 10-12 seconds of dictation, but that's nothing remarkable, because I'm using keyboard shorthand. Secondly, 97.23% accuracy is very poor. In my place of work I'm contracted to commit no more than 2 errors per page (355 words).

Proword (talk) 02:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Escape Key

It seems like this article needs some discussion of the missing escape or 'esc' key. 76.24.213.203 20:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of the Escape key, as well as of the function keys (F1 through F12), is not affected by the keyboard layout, hence there is no point of discussing them in this article.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments why QWERTY is better than Dvorak

I have learnt Dvorak and I find QWERTY definitely better. 1) I have a weak right hand pinkie and Dvorak demands that this finger is highly active in jumping from L to S in any plural ending in LS and any word with the very common cluster SL.

2) In Dvorak, your fingers are locked up for lots of combinations 'digraphs', while in QWERTY, you use one finger from each hand. An example of this is GH - a tremendously common digraph in English (and Dutch) and the qwerty solution is far superior to Dvorak - the forefinger of each hand like tapping a drum. Dvorak has the same finger jump from G to H which is less satisfactory.

3) QWERTY has some brilliant/neat solutions like the WERT - so that the word WERE WE SWERVE etc (Nothng in Dvorak matches the speed of WERE on QWERTY. And backwards REW FOR REWIND, FLOWER, POWER, FEWER, LOWER etc.

Then QWERTY uses the pinkie and the forefinger of the same hand in combination as in PH and AT. That gives stability to the hand as a whole similar to using the pinkie and thumb in piano playing. The fingers don't work, the larger muscles of the arm do. Using a Chinese brush to do calligraphy, the fingers do not work so much as the larger muscles of the arm and this is less tiring. The same principle is used in QWERTY with PH and AT ST. This is exactly the opposite of how Mr Dvorak explained it in his book - that the greater distances between two keys makes things difficult as if you had to go a long way on a journey to the shops. Nonsense.

Dvorak did not design his own keyboard. There were lots of typewriters with all the vowels on one side.

Sholes, who invented the typewriter from the beginning did not arrange the layout to slow people down so the keys would not stick. Dvorak sold typewriters and needed to increase sales.

Sholes had a journalist use his machine who made switches in qwerty that we have today. The military or air force test (the only one)where typists learn Dvorak from scratch and increased their speed above their old QWERTY speeds was conducted by Dvorak himself.

For my own part I did the following experiment. Having learnt QWERTY and Dvorak I took a keyboard and starting from the Dvorak layout, started to improve Dvorak by switching keys around. Although the new combinations you create are faster, you lose other quick combinations - nothng beats WERE in qwerty for speed and it is really your own frustration with your typing technique - especially if you do not play a musical instrument.

A pair of philosophers wrote an article that questioned all of Dvorak's and Dvorak's present day advocates putting some of the above points.

However, Dvorak was asked to design a one-handed layout for someone who lost the use of one hand, and there are Dvorak layouts for one-handed use for the right and left hand in Mac and in Windows.

Changing from QWERTY to Dvorak frees the hand up because the layout is different, but while particular stresses in QWERTY are solved, other stresses (LS and SL) are introduced.

As for people claiming that it is easy to switch back and forth between the two systems, this is not true. Unlike a musical instrument, you do not have a sound - audible feedback that puts you on the right track and you inevitably mix the one up with the other.

Why putting the vowels bunched together on one hand is better is not explained logically anywhere, and IE and EI combination is easier if you the middle finger of each hand used alternately.

Dvorak explains that it is an advantage to have the vowels on one side as most words are consanant/vowel alternately. This is not true in English which does not have accents over letters like Ö and Å and instead uses vowel combinations - as saint, pea, thought ai, ea, ou, ai etc.

And yet, in vowel pairs: ea ae ie ei etc, ie and ei are on QWERTY typed with alternate middle fingers, whch is a good thing. So the argument that English is composed of consonant/vowel/comsonant combinations falls apart - and the argument for having all the vowels on one side with it.

Dvorak was essentially a salesman for his own products and distinguished himself by sticking to the outmoded layout of having vowels on one side that he did not invent himself. He used enthusiasm and arguments that do not hold together as few people used both systems perfectly, and most of those who used typewriters were women and they were not supposed to out-argue men in an office environment.

I do have a problem with Dvorak with this L and S thing. QWERTY has Q and A on the little finger which is not an active combination except in Arabic words like Qatar.

Dvorak is ok, but QWERTY is better.

Most languages use QWERTY with only very slight changes, such as the French AZERTY (they have a frequent combination EZ. But there is a Canadian keyboard keeping QWERTY.

Most languages have more than five vowels, and the requirement to keep the vowels on one side of the keyboard - which is the only thing that identifies Dvorak cannot be met in any case.

Dvorak users do not, in practice, show higher speeds than the fastest QWERTY typists.

In any case the basic layout of the keyboard with two free vertical rows in the middle - TY, GH and BN in QWERTY is the same. Because Dvorak gives less chance to relax the fingers, I find that at fast speeds it causes me more pain than QWERTY.

Dvorak argues that it is better to make the right hand do more work, while on QWERTY the left hand is too busy. This argument does not hold water either. most string instrument players - who are right handed - use the right hand for plucking or bowing and the difficult delicate fingering is done by the left hand. The left hand is more active in those who play wind instruments, the right hand coming in for the lower notes only. Most left-handed people do not play stringed instruments the other way around in any case, although it is possible. RPSM (talk) 10:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings. I think that I should point out that most typists are not musicians. I, for one, have never played a string instrument in my life, and my only experience with woodwind is on a recorder, which feels totally different from a keyboard. I shall now commence in pointing out the problems within the above collection of tripe.

1) You have a weak right pinkie? I don't. Lots of people don't. That's a pretty weak first argument.

2) GH is typed with the right index finger on Dvorak. The right index finger should be strong and fast. On QWERTY, you use both index fingers, which would be better except that you have to reach with both, completely nullifying the potential advantage.

3) When I type WERE on QWERTY, it's really not all that fast. I must report that it's faster on Dvorak due to the alternation.

What's this about the larger muscles of the arm doing any work in typing apart from row changes? That's not how I learned...

Dvorak didn't design his own keyboard? Uncited argument is unarguable.

I can touch type on both QWERTY and Dvorak. As it happens, there is feedback. It's visual.76.90.162.112 (talk) 01:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Original Dvorak Layout

If anyone were to click on the link in this article that leads to the patent of dvorak, they would get stuck and need to download a tiff alternatiff, therefore I would like to inform you what is hiding there. The original layout indeed had the keys for "pyfgcrl" in the top row but... The letter Z is on the wrong side of the image in this article. In this article's diagram Z appears to the far right while in reality dvorak's patent has Z on the far left. The symbols are positioned differently too. The hyphen is on the far right of the home row in this article's diagram whereas the layout Dvorak patented has the hyphen in the bottom row. In this article's diagram the semicolon is in the bottom row on the left while the layout dvorak patented has it in the top row. I indulge you with a diagram of the patent. >>>Please include this diagram in the article.

    ;   ,   .   P Y F G C R L 
    A   O   E   U I D H T N S
    Z   Q   J   K X B M W V -

24.44.79.177 (talk) 02:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)ben[reply]

OR you could add a link to the specific patent at http://www.google.com/patents --Cogburnd02 (talk) 15:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed the layout showed into original patent is different. Does anyone understand what character you'd get by shifting '.' (dot)? Maybe the patent is expired and you could include a picture of the layout in this article. Also, what function have keys on the right of 'L' and 'S', which are showed as blank?

Pronunciation?

Is the IPA right? I read the listed as dv oo r ahk. I think it should be dv ore ahk. In other words, should the oɹ instead be ɔr, ɔər, or ʊəɹ? 199.46.200.233 (talk) 18:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was never good with the IPA format, but I thought it would be something like: dvɔɹʒɑk as "duh-vore-~~bei~~ge-ack -- MacAddct  1984 ^{(talk  contribs)} 20:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would be nice to get some clarity on this. In fact, it is the reason I came to this page: to get an accurate pronunciation. I would guess that I am not alone in this. I have heard it both duh-vore-ack and duh-vore-~~bei~~ge-ack . My understanding is the first is the correct. In other words, it is not like the composer's name. 199.46.199.233 (talk) 20:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I say it the way I suggested because that's how my father taught me, and he's British, so maybe it's a British thing? -- MacAddct  1984 ^{(talk  contribs)} 21:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing, on the Dvorak wikitionary talk page, someone made a similar comment:

Is there also a pronunciation like /ˈdvɔː(r)ʒɑːk/? That would work for the Czech composer spelled "Dvořák" but maybe the name of the keyboard is further anglicized/americanized...

--MacAddct  1984 ^{(talk  contribs)} 21:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that the composer's name has the ʒ (beige) sound, while the keyboard layout has an ɹ sound (or whatever your dialect of English does with r's). The exact quality of the first vowel also likely depends on your dialect: any of o, ɔ, ɔə, or ʊə are reasonable. -- Arthaey (talk) 21:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The psychologist did not pronounce his name like the composer, as clicking through will quickly reveal: August_Dvorak. I am going to correct the pronunciation of this to be the same as his name; if someone has a *really* good argument why they should be pronounced differently they can revert it (and give that argument here.) Otherwise I think this is the obvious thing to do. Zombiejesus (talk) 07:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Antonin Dvorak, lol, ...

...is the composer, August Dvorak the ed psych and inventor of the kb. I've changed it accordingly --Mongreilf (talk) 14:57, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Electric Typewriter caused interest

I'm not sure and I don't have any sources, but I think "Improvements in typewriter design made key jams less of a problem, but the introduction of the electric typewriter in the 1930s made typist fatigue more of a problem. This caused an increase in interest in the Dvorak layout.[citation needed]" is false. There wasn't an increase in interest in Dvorak because it hadn't been invented yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Humanperson0 (talk • contribs) 00:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge in Svorak

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Merge in Svorak into other languages section. Klbrain (talk) 20:58, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Does Svorak really need a separate page? Pretty much everything there is reproduced in this article. Vquex (talk) 18:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I think it should be merged under a new section called "Variations" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.72.48.155 (talk) 07:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually already mentioned under the "other languages" category. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:58, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other Languages I think Svorak is notable, so you might want to add the other languages section which was deleted because none were notable. I added it because of Svorak info. I can't believe it was deleted.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why no scientific tests on Qwerty vs Dvorak performance?

I taught myself to touch type when I was about 16, and on a portable manual typewriter. It was about the handiest thing I have ever done, because I have always done my own typing, and average about 60 wpm on a computer keyboard. I have often wondered why the outmoded QWERTY is STILL standard, even when everything else about typing has changed so much.

I read many years ago that Dvorak minimised the distance the fingers had to travel by putting the most used keys on the home row, as well as on the keys used by the strongest fingers. Figures I read earlier were that Dvorak cut finger distance travel by about 30% over Qwerty which means you could either type a lot faster, or type at the normal speed but go easier on your fingers, with less chance of Repetitive Strain Injury.

I find it astonishing to read—here and elsewhere—that tests on the merits of the two systems “are inconclusive”. We are talking about entirely measurable quantifiable operations here, which can be researched for next to nothing in monetary outlay, by just about anyone. What, we have a Large Hadron Collider looking at the early universe, but tests on keyboard layout efficiency “are inconclusive’? Bollocks!

My idea would be that someone could write a simple program that begins by randomly allocating a virtual keyboard position to every letter and adds up the distance that has to be covered by moving from one letter to the next in a piece of input text. So the program would generate a particular keyboard layout, and the operator would then input a sizeable piece of text, say about 100 pages, and the program would measure how far fingers resting on home keys would have to travel to type the entire piece of text. If the program also included an average finger movement speed, it could also tell you long a competent typist would take to type that text.

The first thing you would measure would be the performance of Qwerty and Dvorak and the other candidate arrangements. At least such a system would give you measurements on the notional efficiency and speed of one system over another which had scientific and mathematical credibility.

By getting the program to test ALL the possible keyboard layouts, we could well come up with one which is better than any of the other candidates, and would be notionally the most efficient layout of all. Of course, there are other criteria to be considered apart from pure finger movement distance. The stronger fingers should have more work to do than the weaker ones, the work should be roughly equal for both hands, and awkward movements when fingers have to move down a row should be minimised, speed and dexterity measures would have to be adjusted for the different fingers, digraphs should not be adjacent and so on. But the initial program could be rejigged to give weight to all these other variables. Why has nothing like this been done? A program like that could be written by any amateur coder.

Of course the usual anal retentive will now post in and tell me that “this is not the place to canvass new ideas, no matter how brilliant”, so I am going to post this on the Wikipedia Computer Research Desk. As well as here. Myles325a (talk) 01:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Like this? It's in a link from one of the external links. However, he's hardly an expert and it isn't exactly the kind of source which would meet the terms of WP:RS. --Izno (talk) 03:23, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not actually so easy to measure. Just about everyone has years of experience with the QWERTY keyboard, so it takes a LOT of training to make a comparison, and people who would be interested in doing so aren't really a random sample. It took months for my Dvorak speed to surpass my previous QWERTY speed (~60wpm) and eventually peaked at 10-15 wpm faster. Once I let myself type QWERTY again when it was necessary, that speed had plummeted, but eventually came up to 10-15 wpm slower than my old speed. But it wasn't a controlled enough test to conclusively rule out that my QWERTY speed wouldn't have improved with similar training (though I'm pretty sure it's the layout.) I do know that it feels like less work than QWERTY, but my personal experience doesn't belong in the encyclopedia; I hesitate even to put it in the discussion. Craig Butz (talk) 04:27, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a program that compares typing on various documents and books. The author concluded that Dvorak takes about 38% less finger travel than QWERTY. http://www.integrity.com/homes/tomandkaren/Keymileage/ --WikiBum (talk) 06:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Using the KISS principle (Keep It Scientifically Simple) let's eliminate the human variable (ie any putative typing speed) and look at the layout and what it's intended to do ... type text.

To me the simplest and most practical way to see which keyboard causes the least work/ is most "efficient" is to see how many different words can be typed without moving the hands from the "home keys". This eliminates any gross hand/arm movement and relies simply on finger movement.

Using an on-line Scrabble Word list (172,804 words), for each of the following four keyboard layouts, QWERTY, DVORAK, COLEMAK and MALTRON I created four word lists showing which words (and how many) could be typed on each keyboard without moving from the home keys.

The actual word lists are in this link:

http://proword-keyboardlayoutefficiency.blogspot.com/2011/02/most-efficient-keyboard-layout.html

QWERTY - 198 words can be typed without taking the fingers from the home keys.

DVORAK - 3126 words can be typed without taking the fingers from the home keys.

COLEMAK - 5963 words can be typed without taking the fingers from the home keys.

MALTRON - 7639 words can be typed without taking the fingers from the home keys.

I won't describe the method used to derive the lists, simply because there are so many different ways of doing this. There was no fancy programming, just using the find and replace function in a word processor. In line with KISS one doesn't even need to be able to type to test the validity/ falsity of the above figures. One only needs to be able to read English, look at a particular keyboard "home row" and see if a particular word can be typed on that home row. If even a single letter not in the home row appears in the word, then it is eliminated.

I attempted to insert an entry to this effect in several different Wikipedia pages, but these were removed citing "original research". I HADN'T included the link to the word list(s) so I can see the logic for the removal, but I don't believe that with the inclusion of the link, the statement could be deemed "original research".

Proword (talk) 03:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your blog (or all blogs) doesn't fall under the category of a reliable source, especially since you've admitted that the contents were written by yourself and thus it's indirect original research anyways. I give you kudos for your work, but it's just how Wiki works. Plus, who is to say that 70% of the words 3126 you can type on home row in dvorak are more common in usage than 10% of 7639 words in maltron, thus indicating dvorak is more efficient in the real world. EDIT: Also looks like Maltron is pushing it since it requires a custom made keyboard to be able to implement. It's as though I said "well if I put you into an fMRI machine you wouldn't even have to touch the home row" MrCrackers (talk) 06:15, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT again. Another problem with scientifically determining which is better is determining which parameters define better. Minimizing finger travel distances means nothing for efficiency if the most common keys are place near weak fingers / hand. Or how about the number of times you have to make jumps between fingers which are awkward to perform and throw off rhythm? Even above, simply determining how many words can be typed without moving off home row is riddled with problems. Obviously dvorak is more efficient than qwerty in every way, but proving it beyond a doubt is a challenge. MrCrackers (talk) 06:26, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Unfortunately, I don't know of any scientific studies on Dvorak that weren't fundamentally flawed in terms of bias or research model. That makes it a bit hard to find reliable sources on the matter. The best we can do is to cite flawed studies and then say that they're flawed. I don't know anyone who has switched to Dvorak and switched back to QWERTY for any reason other than to be able to use work/public computers, but all of the really compelling evidence is anecdotal and/or personal. —INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 12:25, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see no indication (on this page anyway) that there has been any reference to Lillian Malt's 1977 paper

http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers/236-lillian-malt-papers.html

presented at the PIRA Eurotype forum. She compares various performance indicators for QWERTY, Dvorak and Malt(ron). Perhaps there may be food for thought/discussion in that.

Proword (talk) 15:37, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I specifically prefaced my remarks by suggesting elimination of the human factor. (KISS)

To me this would mean that:

Minimizing finger travel distances means nothing for efficiency if the most common keys are place near weak fingers / hand

is invoking a factor which will vary from person to person. I've seen nothing that says every person has the same strengths/weaknesses in their fingers/ hands. Further, whether one person is able to get "rhythm" to their typing is dependent on so many factors that it would be pretty meaningless to take it into account.

As to whether words are "common", that varies, depending, again, upon many factors. On this website

http://jamesboard.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/the-most-common-words/

there is a list of three hundred words which are said to comprise 60-65% per cent of all written English.

Of these words, using the "home row test":

QWERTY can type 7 words; Dvorak can type 53 words; Colemak can type 77 words; Maltron can type 90 words.

Lastly, since this particular discussion is about a "scientific" test, then it should be noted that science does not seek to "prove" anything. It simply deals in probabilities. The only places you can find the concept of "proof" is in law, mathematics and armouring. So to "prove" one keyboard layout is better than another is highly improbable. ;-)

Reference the Maltron, I'm not sure of the relevance of that since it is obvious that by its very design it addresses factors that are above and beyond mere "layout" or key distribution.

"determining how many words can be typed without moving off home row is riddled with problems"

I'd be interested to hear what problems you would see in this. It may be possible to devise some research to address these problems and come up with a "scientific test" as requested.

Proword (talk) 05:53, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since there seem to be no other bids, I'd like to suggest the following criteria for a "scientific test".

Objective: It should exclude "personal" factors. Comfort of use, typing speed (which is really a function of expertise and practice, thus a result rather than a cause of ergonomics), strength/ dexterity of fingers (which will vary from person to person), distance fingers travel (a function of the size of the keyboard; using QWERTY on a laptop keyboard will give a different result to using a full sized "ergonomic" keyboard).

Definitive. There should be no ambivalence or looseness in expression to mislead the user. A single word or number is ideal.

Universal: It should be applicable to any keyboard (layout) which can be used for "touch typing". (This will ignore touch screens, stylus operated systems, smart phones, iPads, PDA's etc.)

Accessible: It should be practicable by a moderately skilled user. There should be no necessity to write complicated software, rewire a keyboard, swap key caps. Probably nothing needed more than a basic word processing package

Reproducible: Like any scientific test, it should be capable of being repeated any number of times, with consistent results.

Inexpensive: Ideally, it should cost nothing.

Proword (talk) 03:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Citation needed overload

"Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth novels[citation needed]" - eh? It's disputed that he wrote the Xanth novels? Will any one of the Xanth novels with his name on the cover do as a reference, or would they be considered too primary? --81.171.134.226 (talk) 10:40, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Citation needed" doesn't mean that the factoid is "disputed", just that a reference is needed. In theory, since Wikipedia is not supposed to feature so-called "original research", every single contribution should have a corresponding reference. In practice, much of the submitted material doesn't, but unsupported material can always be "challenged and removed", especially if the "citation needed" tag was applied first to request a reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.54.159.162 (talk) 17:10, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Studies

This article is a mess as far as mentioning studies. There is no mention of claims or studies that show (or do not show) whether Dvorak is better than Qwerty. Even August Dvorak's original claims are not mentioned! Instead, the "Resistance to adoption" section starts with mentioning the "resistance" without saying what is being resisted. There is a phrase that says "however, Liebowitz notes that..." without mentioning who on earth Liebowitz is. (In fact it's the only mention of Liebowitz in the article proper.)

Anyway, I came here to mention Donald Norman and Diane Fisher's paper Why Alphabetic Keyboards Are Not Easy to Use: Keyboard Layout Doesn't Much Matter from Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Volume 24, Number 5, October 1982 , pp. 509-519(11), which ought to be mentioned in the article as well. (Quick summary: For *beginners*, alphabetical, QWERTY, Dvorak, and random arrangements of keys are all equivalent, and for experts, Dvorak (ASK) is 10% better than Qwerty, and alphabetical layouts are quite bad.)

[I'm reading his The Design of Everyday Things; he also cites the book Cognitive aspects of skilled typewriting, edited by J.K Cooper (1983), New York: Springer-Verlag, which contains more on this.] Shreevatsa (talk) 20:31, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dvorak is a con

The article should link to http://www.reason.com/news/show/29944.html which does a pretty good job of debunking the myths about Dvorak keyboards being better. Richard W.M. Jones (talk) 10:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Does it now? I'm not sure it's the same article as mentioned here [1], but the authors are the same. As an aside, I'm rather astounded by the "if X was superior to Y it would have prevailed" thing. Some people seem to be way to attached to their pet economic theory (usually ideologically motivated, no less). 85.226.59.234 (talk) 04:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like an argument of economics, not ergonomics. I agree that the oft-quoted studies strike me as so much crud, particularly the laughable idea from the supposed Navy study that one can be back to full speed and then some 10 days after training, but the entire article is devoted to challenging the validity of given evidence, not proving that it is in fact wrong.

And no, I wouldn't want to type on a Dvorak manual typewriter either. QWERTY was designed for typewriters and for typewriters it was clearly king. That it was copied to computers is the real puzzler. —INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 11:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because it would have put typists on both hemispheres out of work, and most of them were not getting paid enough already. Try going from 90 WPM to 20 in one simple move. Besides, if you want better typing speed from a layout, at the very least you put E opposite the other vowels, and H opposite S and T. QWERTY at least got the latter right. I don't know what DVORAK was really designed for, but it's not speed.Thetrellan (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Examples of non-English Dvorak keyboards?

In other European languages, letter frequencies, letter sequences, and digraphs differ from English. Also, many languages have letters that do not occur in English. For non-English use, these differences lessen the supposed advantages of the original Dvorak keyboard. However, the Dvorak principles have been applied to the design of keyboards for these other languages.

Could we get some examples of these, or links to articles or images discussing them? 64.85.240.2 (talk) 15:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notable users

Should this section really be here? I understand that it is significant that a world typing speed record was set using Dvorak, but this is mentioned earlier in the article. That these other people use it is really not significant (who cares which keyboard some random fantasy author and a former Microsoft executive use?). To keep things even, we should add a notable users section for QWERTY keyboards. It will be long. NeverWorker (Drop me a line) 07:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. In an overwhelmingly QWERTY world, it is quite significant that alternatives such as Dvorak are used by notable people. As long as the individuals concerned meet Wikipedia's notability criteria, and the fact that they use Dvorak is verifiable, then there's no reason whatsoever to remove them. Why did you do it (talk) 20:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't the fact they use a Dvorak layout being notable or not be what matters and not whether the person alone is notable? Random trivia about notable people isn't necessarily notable. If association was enough of a factor to classify something as notable Wikipedia would have a shitload of articles about neighbors of notable people, favorite dishes of notable people, 1st grade teachers of notable people, dishwashers of notable people, mosquitoes that bit notable people, brand of softeners used by notable people... you get the picture. --TiagoTiago (talk) 17:20, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have to agree with TiagoTiago. His examples are a bit on the absurd side, but, alternatively, imagine a "list of notable users" in an article about the QWERTY layout, consisting of people who are known to use QWERTY and who meet our notability criteria. That would be quite ridiculous, and not just because the list will be unmanageably long. Just because a small number of people use Dvorak, and an even smaller portion of those people are notable does not automatically result in an encyclopedic addition. The section should only list notable people who are notable in relation to Dvorak. If that includes no one, then there shouldn't be a list.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 27, 2012; 17:45 (UTC)

Why is this section still here? It amounts to "Celebrity Endorsements" and has NOTHING to do with the topic. There is no discussion here supporting it. I'm too new at this to know the protocol -- otherwise I would delete it now. I'll revisit this in a while and remove the section if there isn't significant support added to the discussion.Arbalest Mike (talk) 17:13, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "The section should only list notable people who are notable in relation to Dvorak."

I don't think even that would be appropriate--and, anyway it would probably be a fairly redundant to point out Dvorak proponents who use Dvorak (although I'd be willing to bet that a significant percentage of Dvorak proponents actually use QWERTY). TheScotch (talk) 04:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The page on reference [16] is down (permanently)

The page on reference [16] is down. It's this page: http://web.syr.edu/~rcranger/blackburn.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.101.118.182 (talk) 07:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hurdling

Section 2.2 states that "there are no words requiring a hurdle on the Dvorak layout" and it's even cited. However, it isn't true. "Starve" and "Harvey" require hurdling. Though, to be fair, the same words require it on the QWERTY layout. The Luizer (talk) 19:06, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is a very good point, the article should be changed to reflect that. Would you happen to have a source for that? --WikiBum (talk) 06:10, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The hurdling example of "minimum" in QWERTY in the article doesn't make sense, since m and n are typed with the index finger, but i with the middle finger. Therefore, it's not the SAME finger hurdling between the rows. 204.92.65.10 (talk) 14:43, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Slow down the typist

The purpose of the qwerty keyboard was not to slow down the typist, as urban legend has it. Whether keys jammed was more a function of key location than speed. You could hit e.g. "th" faster without jamming if the typebars were further apart. A study suggests that placing commonly used keys apart actually speeds things up.--Louiedog (talk) 12:29, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It may be clearer if I explain the mechanics of the jamming. When Sholes made his typewriter, touch typing was not in existence then and people had to hunt-and-peck. Thus, if 2 keys were in close proximity to each other, then people could hunt-and-peck those 2 keys in quick succession (since they were close to each other) and that quick succession would cause the jam because the second type bar would come up and jam the first type bar as it was coming down. Thus when Sholes scattered the digraphs, hunt-and-peckers would not be able to peck digraphs as fast because they had to move their hand further along the keyboard to peck the second key, slowing down the digraph sequence and allowing more time for the first typebar to fall back into place before the second typebar came up. It was this slowing of the digraph typing that reduced the jamming. Thus, the jamming was a function of the speed, and to your point (and as Sholes recognized), the speed was a function of the location of the digraphs. Essentially, Sholes was able to reduce jamming by slowing the digraph typing speed by hunt-and-peck typists. If I missed something about the mechanics please let me know.

In addition, the study you cited has been questioned. [[2]]--WikiBum (talk) 06:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Two-handed hunting and pecking still makes it possible to hit two keys in very fast succession, wherever those keys happen to be located. There's no reason keys not adjacent to each other would necessarily take longer to stamp out. More sources that show "slowing down" to be urban legend:

Despite the commonly held belief, the Qwerty keyboard was not actually invented to slow down typists and thereby reduce typewriter jams. It was created to reduce jams, yes, but it did this by separating common letter pairs from each other. It also attempted to increase speed by having many letter pairs on different hands.

Legend has it that the QWERTY keyboard was also made intentionally clumsy (only one vowel in the home row, for instance) in order to slow down typists and further reduce the possibility of jamming.

reason.com also debunks.--Louiedog (talk) 10:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up: Additionally, if you've ever used a typewriter, you'll notice that the easiest keys to jam are those right next to each other. This is because the trajectories of the two typebars have so much overlap that the path of one takes a good deal of time to clear the path of the other. The further away keys have minimal overlap in their trajectories; hence the next letter can begin sooner without clashing. If Sholes really wanted to slow down the typist on successive keystrokes, he wouldn't have put the most common digraph "th" on opposite hands, especially not in the most central place where the fingers are most likely to be anyway.--Louiedog (talk) 11:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm currently traveling and I'm at the airport now and I don't have much time to look into the sources. I promise to look at them objectively and I look forward to continue our discussion later and I hope that we can continue to handle this professionally. --WikiBum (talk) 03:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You might also want to look into the qwerty article. They have a higher quality source basically attesting to the same thing. As far as I can tell from searches, the "he tried to slow down the typist" idea was conjured up somewhere in the effort to justify Dvorak as a superior format and everybody else just assumed it was a legit story and copied it down the line.--Louiedog (talk) 06:59, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why people refer to the "urban legend" or "myth" of the design of the QWERTY keyboard and its raison d'etre.

In September 1977 Lillian Malt presented a paper to a conference of PIRA - the Printing Industry Research Association - in which, on page 1, she says:

"One piece of equipment which is universally recognised as being ill-fitted to human operation is the ubiquitous typewriter keyboard. The standard Scholes-designed keyboard with its qwerty layout, must be one of the very few pieces of equipment which has entirely resisted improvement, which could and should have been made to complement our advancing technological ability.

It has been said of the Scholes letter layout that it would probably have been chosen if the objective was to find the least efficient - in terms of learning time and speed achievable - and the most error producing character arrangement. This is not surprising when one considers that a team of people spent one year developing this layout so that it should provide the greatest inhibition to fast keying. This was no Machiavellian plot, but necessary because the mechanism of the early typewriters required slow operation."

http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers/236-lillian-malt-papers.html

I can't think of any organisation more likely to know whether Ms Malt was spreading an "urban legend" or not.

She also certainly was aware of the Dvorak keyboard, since she used it in her own study, some of the results appearing in this same paper, so she would presumably have known if this was a Dvorak-inspired rumour, as would members of PIRA. (An organisation which a quick Google search tells me is still extant.)

Proword (talk) 00:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC) 202.165.90.156 (talk) 14:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)I have looked into building typing speed, and one thing I've noticed is that one-handed words are by far the hardest to type. Just try typing a little Greek mythology some time. Lots of left handed words. Based on this one observation, I can tell you that DVORAK is not designed for speed, and QWERTY is not designed to slow down typing. In DVORAK, all the vowels are on the left, and S, T, and H- the most commonly combined consonants- are on the right. If you wanted speed, the first thing you would do is put H on the side opposite to T and S, as we see in the QWERTY layout. QWERTY isn't as fast as it could be, that's true. E should oppose all or most of the other vowels. But neither is DVORAK. Thetrellan (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

Can someone please add a pronunciation guide of the usual type (eg. "pro-NUN-see-AY-shun") alongside the IPA one? I speak for most of the world when I say that I can't read IPA.76.75.115.163 (talk) 15:59, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No criticism of the Dvorak layout?

There are new keyboard layouts that are better than Dvorak, for example, Klausner, Colemak, CarpalX, and others.

Common criticisms of Dvorak include:

Dvorak overuses the pinky and ring fingers - especially the pinky stretch to reach the frequent letter L.
the awkward lateral stretch to reach the frequent vowel letter I.
The fact the top-ten frequent letter R isnt even on the home row.
The letter R in the top row requires a ring finger stretch.
Punctuations kill relatively prime key positions, instead of being on the bottom row.

The CarpalX site publishes a scientific comparison of the various popular keyboards. This page has a friendly chart showing the results of the study, and compares many keyboard layouts. (QWERTY sucks compared to all of them.) http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?popular_alternatives

The study evaluates the keyboard according to 'base', 'stroke', and 'penalty'. Unfortunately, the definitions for these terms exist elsewhere on the site, but they are straightforward.

Base: how 'reachable' the most frequent keys are. The most frequent letters should be under the fingers in the home positions, whereas the least frequent letters should be in the bottom row or the awkard lateral stretches of the top row.
Stroke: how easy it is to type letter combinations. Frequent letter combinations should be done with alternating hands or else by a single-hand 'roll' (like drumming the fingers), to ensure speed, accuracy, and comfort. Using the same finger for different letters in the combination is bad. Hopping up and down between the top row and the bottom row is bad.
Penalty: counted separately, the overuse of the 'weak' ring and pinky fingers, which are less dexterous and shorter than the middle and fore fingers.

The main point of the findings is, these typing components are ultimately conflictive. For example, if all the most frequent letters are within relatively easy reach (good base), then this may cause certain frequent letter combinations to become awkward (bad stroke) and overuse of the weak fingers (bad penalty), or so on. Thus, it is possible to have different kinds of layouts, each making tradeoffs, to specialize in one component at the expesne of an other. (Tho, it should be noted, QWERTY sucks at all three components.)

Of the popular optimal keyboards, the study considers the Colemak the best, requiring the least overall effort in terms of base plus stroke plus penalty. Klausner is almost as good overall, but actually is slightly better in terms of base plus stroke, but at the cost of a slightly higher penalty. The statistical analyses suggest two keyboard configurations that improve on the Colemak success, doing slightly better in all three catagories. Then, the study offers the 'CarpalX keyboard' (generated from the computer-simulated statistical evolutions of each component), that is dramatically better at stroke and penalty, but at the cost of a slightly less good base, because it intentionally avoids using the ring and pinky thus reducing access to frequent letters. Even so, the CarpalX layout preforms significantly better than the Dvorak in all three components.

Despite how supremely important the keyboard is to the 20th and 21st centuries, this seems to be the only study of its kind. (In English anyway, presumably the German 'Neo Keyboard' derives from scientific comparisons of keyboards of several languages.) AFAICT, even the inventors of other keyboards seem to refer to the CarpalX study and no other studies. If you can plow thru the unfriendly statistical analyses, its quite a fascinating study. This page has links to statistical models and analyses. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ Haldrik (talk) 22:50, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The LETTER L doesn't seem to be a problem at all. I often prefer using my right ring finger instead of my pinky, but anyway I can agree that using pinky does not feel comfortable, therefore I prefer the ring finger. The above mentioned criticism of 'l position' does not apply at all for me. It is IMPORTANT to take into account that not everybody is using the same touch typing technique, hence some alleged 'flaws' do not apply for everyone. Sometimes it's convenient to not to use the same finger to type the same key. --Avoided (talk) 03:07, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Dvorak Debate is irrelevant

If a few years speech recognition techonology will be so advanced, that no one will ever type on their keyboards anymore. Google is currently developing this (the same company that is making the driverless car a reality after years of naysayers.

When you dictate to your computer, you can easily do 160 to 200wpm. Much faster than mosts typists. This frees your mind to think about the content of your document, not the typos and spelling errors. The idea of typing will seem "quaint" and in a generation, no one will remember how. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.194.190.179 (talk) 15:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a page for discussing improvements to the article. No one cares about your opinions. --118.208.111.55 (talk) 15:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not only that, but can you imagine an office full of people trying to dictate to their computers? :-) Jerry Kindall (talk) 20:44, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Use of video in introduction section.

Personally I don't see much point in having a video showing nothing more than someone typing something quickly. If it were more readily visible to see that the user was typing using the dvorak system (from a top-down view) then I could see justification (better yet, type something in QWERTY then type the same thing in dvorak), but otherwise it doesn't add anything to the article. My guess is that the intention was to demonstrate that one can type quickly using Dvorak, where "quickly" is a relative term, but this should be pretty obvious without the need for a video. I'm not going to remove the video, however, since it isn't getting in the way of other content, but others might disagree. MrCrackers (talk) 17:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing to stop the video being "digitally enhanced" to give a misleading appearance eg being "sped up". In any case, use of keyboard shorthand techniques which reduce the number of keystrokes being used would show that a truly "efficient" typist would seem to be working much more slowly, regardless of which keyboard layout was being used, Dvorak or otherwise while in fact producing text more quickly.

This video shows audio transcription using keyboard shorthand on a Maltron. Looks a lot less frantic, but certainly a lot quicker than 115 wpm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYJtF1I3PRs — Preceding unsigned comment added by Proword (talk • contribs) 05:32, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proword (talk) 02:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The video is useless in relation to the article. For all we know, the person could be randomly hitting keys on a keyboard. I'm not saying he is, but the video doesn't seem to suggest otherwise. A better video would have a top-down view with both the keyboard and screen visible, and the screen should ideally show that the Dvorak keyboard is set, and also show the text that is being typed. The current video ought to be removed from the article as it certainly does not add value to it. -- ADTC^{Talk Ctrb .} 09:21, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't believe the useless video is still there on the article. Ok, that's it. I'm removing it. -- ADTC^{Talk Ctrb .} 04:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

/* Controversy */ No evidence given of non-NPOV claim

The article states that "But of course flaws can also be found in these anti-Dvorak works, for example claiming that the man in charge of the 1956 investigation had a personal grudge against Dvorak". Aside from this sentence not fitting Wiki grammar standards, it has no reference supporting it or an evidence at all, and it reads frankly like a pro-DVORAK smear. I've put a CN tag on it for now, and I'll come back in a few days to see if it has been improved, otherwise I think it should go. 91.85.140.182 (talk) 18:17, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed it altogether.--Louiedog (talk) 18:33, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll stop worrying about it then. 91.85.140.182 (talk) 21:03, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why is Amiga not included?!

Any information about Dvorak layout with Amiga OS and spin offs?! In-Correct (talk) 09:23, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Apple's support of Dvorak

I read the following in the article: "Since about 1998, beginning with Mac OS 8.6, Apple has included the Dvorak layout." I'm not so sure it was that late... I worked for Apple in 1992, I was the sole user of Dvorak in my work area for a while, and to my best recollection, the layout was already there, as an option. This would have been on version 6.1 or thereabouts. I do remember it, because my then-manager had a fit when she saw me pasting little paper keycaps to my keys. She later complained about me being absent one day and my backup being completely baffled about what keys to use when using my system. I don't know who the source was for this fact, but I'm proof that it is probably inaccurate... Demf (talk) 01:22, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure it does not cost $320 to learn to touch-type in Dvorak...

The section "Standard Keyboard" says: "Re-learning touch typing is an investment, with average level courses costing $ 320 or about, not counting the time of the student, and these are still not the true professional studies"

With the reference leading to this page. Turns out it says nothing about Dvorak. It only says at the bottom that you can take courses for touch typing that are around £200. Can we remove this blatantly incorrect point? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.179.99.6 (talk) 05:47, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removed it had punctuation issues anyway. _{(That is not why I removed it, however!)}

PatheticCopyEditor (talk) 04:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Redundancies in article

Please note that the controversy and resistance to adoption sections contain virtually identical information and should be merged. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.58.172.100 (talk)

Apologies I accidentally erased someone else's edit just now

Hi there, someone just now edited this page at the same time as me, so I got the page that comes up asking if you want to merge your edits with their edit. Mine was just a minor edit, and the web browser only showed the other person's edit for some reason, not mine, so I went back one page in my browser to recover my own edit meaning to copy / paste and re-edit the page - but accidentally seem to have committed it instead. Apologies to whoever it was - as I don't know how you can find out who it was, thought best to say something here instead - do make your edit again if you see this! Robert Walker (talk) 16:23, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Modern Operating Systems, Early PCs

The text could be rewritten; I didn't quite want to replace it, but I'm essentially certain that each keystroke sends a number that corresponds to its physical location on the keyboard. Technical people refer to this as a "raw keycode". That number simply tells the computer which key has been pressed. IIrc, when a key is released, the same number is sent again, but with one bit changed to tell that it's a release and not a "strike".

The raw keycode does not correspond to the numerical code (think ASCII numbers) that represents the character on the keytop. The operating system takes the raw keycode sent by the keyboard and provides a new number that represents the character (again, think ASCII). This process uses the keymap to accept one number, the raw code, and provide a second one, which corresponds to ASCII (or its huge superset, Unicode, in more recent computers).

Accommodating a different letter layout is done by selecting a different keymap.

While this scheme was used in early PCs, it is still in use today.

For specifics, see <http://api.haiku-os.org/US_PC_keyboard_keycodes.png> These raw key codes are given in hexadecimal (base 16); the prefix "0x" signifies that the following digits are hexadecimal. For instance, when you press an "e" key with the QWERTY layout, the keyboard sends an hexadecimal 29, the raw keycode, to the computer. It is the QWERTY keymap that interprets that as a letter "e", which is ASCII (and Unicode) 0x65, hex. 65. That 65 goes to the application.

Regardless of the keymap in use, a keyboard of this type always emits an hex. 29 when you press that particular key.

With a Dvorak keymap, that key's 29 hex. ("0x29") is translated by the Dvorak keymap into a period (full stop), hex 2E (or 2e, the same thing; different hexadecimal representations may use small or capital letters to represent the larger digits).

The keymap software keeps track of shift status (for languages that have capital and small letters), so that the appropriate code will be provided. ("Small" is the Unicode term for "minuscule" letters; it replaces the term "lower case" that refers to hand-set type of past centuries (pre-Linotype, at that.)) As well, Control key and "Alt Gr" key status affect which code is provided by the keymap; keymaps that accommodate dead-key diacritic prefixes are handled by the keymap software.

Regards, Nikevich 08:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

A few comments about the Dvorak layout

The Dvorak consonant sequence "D H T N S" does seem optimal. The nearest row on the Blickensderfer typewriter, which had an improved layout, was " D H I A T E N S O R ". Note the "DHTNS" consonant sequence when you omit the vowels. Dr. Dvorak must have known about the "Blick" typewriter. I have seen this consonant sequence in another layout, as well. Embedded words and names sometimes appear in alternate layouts, such as the FITALY matrix for smart phones and tablets. FITALY also contains JUMP and DORS, the latter being an unusual woman's name.

Perhaps it has little significance, but those who, like me, who commit sin by looking at the keyboard as they type, can create errors because some neighboring letters (in dim light, especially!) look similar. I note O and Q, perhaps U and J, K and X, G and C, as well as M and W. I rather wonder, at times, whether Dr. Dvorak placed similar-looking letters near each other, or (more likely) he simply concluded that his arrangement was optimal. (Did he own a BMW, by any chance?)

Casual regards, Nikevich 09:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Did I read right?

A keyboard...for a computer...patented..in 1936. Someone help me out with this, please. 67.1.86.144 (talk) 03:08, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I just had to read the article. Stupid old me...67.1.86.144 (talk) 03:10, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merging "Controversy" And "Resistance To Adoption" Sections

Why are there TWO controversy sections?! I am merging them together. AND some of this information is stated TWICE. Obviously no need for duplicate sections. In Correct (talk) 21:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Intro section is misleading

The following sentence is problematic: "This reduction in finger distance traveled is claimed to permit faster rates of typing while reducing repetitive strain injuries, though this has been called into question."

The article by Liebowitz that is cited 1) makes no mention of repetitive stress injuries in relation to Dvorak or QWERTY at all and 2) acknowledges that ergonomics research shows that Dvorak allows for slightly faster typing than QWERTY (2-10% according to various ergonomic studies which Liebowitz himself cites in the article), just "nowhere near" the 20% - 40% claimed by Paul A. David. I might add that 10% is "somewhere near" 20% in my opinion. I feel that this nuance is very important. I would also suggest that the article reflects that the benefits of Dvorak in relation to repetitive stress injuries are unclear, at least scientifically.

Finally, we must consider that Liebowitz may be biased. Being a libertarian and a member of the Cato Institute, he has a vested interest in proving that a free market always makes the right decision. Liebowitz may be treating Dvorak unfairly because of this.

This study finds that Dvorak allows for faster learning and faster typing compared to QWERTY, but not higher accuracy: http://atri.misericordia.edu/Papers/Dvorak.php — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.188.79.49 (talk) 11:17, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

iOS Support

iOS is now allowing new (non-apple) keyboards to be downloaded and used by non-jailbroken users. Does this count as support for Dvorak keyboards? It is stated in the iOS section that they have no support, and I am wondering if this is referring to iOS 7 or includes the new iOS, since iOS 8 still has no apple version of the simplified keyboard. Nevermind I just checked and this is only stated in the introduction/summary and addressed differently throughout the article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.160.54.2 (talk) 01:20, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Italian Dvorak keyboard

Due to medical reasons, I have to type in Dvorak. And now that I'm learning Italian, I decided to create one for Windows. How can I create a image showing the layout? I'll put the link to download when I can create the image.ចេក ម៉ានុត (talk) 09:47, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are multiple ways of doing that; however, it's a different issue here. Wikipedia does not cover new development until that development itself is covered by multiple reliable, third-party sources, so unless your layout catches on and becomes sufficiently popular (well, as popular as a Dvorak layout can be expected to become :)), adding something you yourself have made will be considered original research and quickly removed. Publishing original research is explicitly outside of Wikipedia's scope. Sorry!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 10, 2015; 13:11 (UTC)

Well, let's spread it then :) https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=9F75D645806F5B50!5290&authkey=!AKEWO6drhb6VCi4&ithint=file%2czip ចេក ម៉ានុត (talk) 06:13, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck :) I am, frankly, surprised, that there was no Italian Dvorak layout for PCs! Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 11, 2015; 13:02 (UTC)

I've managed to find one, but it doesn't solve the problem that capital letters with the grave accent can't be typed. And can't I put the link to download my layout in this sentence "Several PC versions, consisting in the original layout with accented vowels added, are also being developed." as reference? ចេក ម៉ានុត (talk) 00:35, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, because you'd be linking to a self-published source, and those are not acceptable sources. Kind of like the blogs. I'm not saying an acceptable source does not exist somewhere, but if, like you say, an Italian Dvorak layout is an oddity some people create mostly for their own use, linking to the pages of such people would not be an acceptable practice. You could probably add a link to the External links section, but even that, I dare say, is a stretch (although few are probably going to care).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 12, 2015; 12:59 (UTC)

pronunciation notation strange

I'm not aware of a superscript schwa meaning anything in IPA, I suspect the author meant /d(@)v0r{k/ but I'm hesitant to edit it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Telmac (talk • contribs) 19:07, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ping Help talk:IPA maybe? --Izno (talk) 19:34, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

iOS 7.1.1?

"As for iOS, only iOS 7.1.1 offers Dvorak."

What does this mean? There's no citation, and I can find no reference to anything like this anywhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.109.5.23 (talk) 16:33, 16 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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