Fast forward to 3 years after learning dvorak. My qwerty speed has dropped significantly to about 60 wpm but I suspect that if I spent a day or so typing in nothing but qwerty I could get back up to 90.

BUT I also noticed that typing it dvorak involves *much* less finger movement than qwerty. So although I don’t type that much faster in dvorak vs qwerty, my fingers are having to endure far less fatigue. Qwerty now that I think of it sort of feels like jumping jacks for your fingers where home row is pretty much useless.

I wish there was more conclusive research on the topic. I may do some myself :)

I do think it’s somewhat compelling that the only recorded world-record holder swore by Dvorak… and her speeds were truly phenomenal.

:)

I don’t get how people think using a QWERTY keyboard layout after you learn Dvorak would be hard, all the keys are labeled! Yes, it’s not as fast for me to type, but I rarely spend much time on computers that I don’t have control over. I can pretty much touch type type on my phone, which uses QWERTY, I think switching back and forth occasionally is probably good for my brain.

I made the switch to Dvorak mostly to be different, and after 10 years of using it, I can’t say I know of anyone else I’ve talked to about it that also uses it, so I guess I’ve succeeded?

I don’t think using Dvorak makes me smarter or better or geekier than anyone else, but it definitely makes me a little different.

QWERTY was made to slow the typist speed as it was problem in old typing machines, so why still using it and raise children that use it too??

Switching takes about two weeks to get to some degree of proficiency, but then you can get on the upswing and it starts to pay back. If you don’t put in the two weeks, you’re probably not going to finish the switch. Now that I use Dvorak-right, however, I can certainly switch back into QWERTY and get whatever tasks done that I need to. There’s a bit of a bike-riding effect, at least for me; that is, once you learn (i.e., QWERTY) you can hop back on after not using it for a while.

And in my case, of course, right hand Dvorak is a dream compared with both two hand Dvorak and QWERTY. I do not get any of the wrist strain which I start to feel using QWERTY on a regular basis.. though I also admit that two hand Dvorak was also a lot better for me. The concentration on up and down movements rather than side to side tracking makes a gigantic difference for me. Whatever you do, my suggestion is to always learn to touch type, because if you rely at all on a modified keyboard you’re obviously going to be out of luck on any other computer system.

As a side bonus, keep your key caps Qwerty, and boom, instant mini-security system. If you have a password screen up, and someone tries to guess your password, or even if they know it, laoo,rpe != password. And you can keep other people from unscrupulously jumping on your computer. If someone tries to go to ‘uaj.xrrtvjrm’, they’ll probably just find another laptop to check their facebook messages rather than try to figure out what’s wrong with your keyboard.