I’m gonna have to do something soon to compensate typing all day.

My left wrist is going through an interesting period. Going back and forth between being painfully numb and having shooting pains go up and down my arm is just not the way to handle RSI(Repetitive Strain Injury). I’ve shifted my keyboard at home to a Dvorak layout, which is supposedly the way to layout a keyboard that makes sense.

The research on Dvorak vs. QWERTY keyboards is extensive. And I have absolutely no idea why the Dvorak hasn’t caught on. Not only was the inventor related (albeit distantly) to the composer of the same name, it was actually developed with typists in mind. Seems the keyboard that most people use was developed by the guy who made the first typewriter, who laid them out in a way that would keep the hammers from getting stuck while striking the paper at similar times. The Dvorak is designed for speed & shorter movements.

Consider that all the vowels (AEIOU) are located on the home row, on the left side. Considering that each word has at least one vowel in it, wouldn’t it be nice if all of them could be hit without having to extend a left finger up (to the ‘e’ for example) or the right finger up (for the ‘o’)? That, by itself, makes more sense.

Consider pairs of letters: Look at how many times ‘th’ comes up in words. Why not put them right next to each other? Seems to makes sense to me.

The keyboard is designed for left-right-left oscillation. So speed suddenly goes up. On average, 33%.

Well, I’m hoping it helps out. I’m also hoping that spending less time typing while not at work will help. Anything that helps is good.

Some References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard
http://www.dvorak-keyboards.com/dvorak-keyboard_com.gif
http://dvzine.org/zine/index.html
http://pykeylogger.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/DvorakHowTo