Dvorak, Anyone?

Dvorak is a type of keyboard. A man named Dvorak and a partner designed it in the 1930s. They studied the physiology of the hand and typing and devised a keyboard based on their research. (There are also right-hand or left-hand versions for one-handed typing. I don't know if Dvorak developed those versions or if they were developed later.) More info can be found on several websites. http://www.powertyping.com , http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard are just a few useful sites.

Advocates of Dvorak say it is easier to learn and use than the more common Qwerty keyboard. The most-used letters are on the home row; the least used on the bottom row. The most frequently used words utilize the keys on the home row most often. All the vowels are on the left side of the home row. This makes it likely you will alternate hands when typing most words, which is better for the hand muscles and for speed.

I've been toying with the idea of switching to Dvorak for a couple of years. The fact that it was supposedly better and easier appealed to me. I like doing things efficiently. It chafed that I was stuck using a less-than-perfect keyboard just because that’s what worked with the original typewriters. In this computer age, when it is so easy to learn, use and switch between Qwerty or Dvorak, why use the inferior Qwerty?

The drawback, though, was that I’ve been using Qwerty for 30 years. It would not be easy to switch. Would it be worth it? I’m a writer. A pre-published one, yes, but still a person who uses her keyboard daily. Over the years, I’ve developed the ability to “think into the keyboard”, making typing far easier than handwriting. If I attempted to learn a new keyboard, that ability would be lost, at least for a time. Could I reclaim it quickly after learning the Dvorak keyboard?

I decided to try. I was on the cusp of a change anyway. Why not make it a big change? We were preparing to move. I knew that packing, cleaning and all the chaos inherent in moving (with which I am well-acquainted) would make it difficult to produce much creative writing. Why not use this time to learn a new keyboard? If, by the end of the move, I hadn’t learned Dvorak well enough to type 40 words per minute or I decided it was too difficult to make the transition, I would revert to Qwerty. I had one month.

The tale of that month (still not quite finished) will follow soon.