The Dvorak Keyboard

Okay, so I’ve recently been wondering if there’s another way to type with my keyboard without actually physically changing the keyboard. After all, people in other countries with other languages must be able to use a keyboard, right? Even if they don’t speak American English? And is there a better way to type here in America? Even with our English?

I’ve always known about being able to change the keyboard layout in the preferences menu in Windows, but I’ve never really researched it and tried it. Well, now I have.

I personally have always hated the QWERTY board layouts. And now I’ve come across the Dvorak layout. Turns out, the QWERTY layout was contrived to slow down people’s typing in order to accommodate the typewriters’ capabilities in the mid-1800’s. Remember those? The long, hammer-like action?

Well, right around 1936, a man by the name of Dr. August Dvorak studied how people type and the letters that are most commonly used. He came up with a much better layout than the QWERTY keyboard. I’ve been playing with it for a few days now, and I can’t believe I haven’t used it sooner.

This entire post was typed with the Dvorak layout, and my keyboard was actually able to keep up with me. I typed this entire post in about minute and a half, versus the usual 3-4 minutes. (Not including thinking time)

I’ll be posting more on this, but if you like, you can check out some more info on the Dvorak keyboard layout here…