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Do you know what QWERTY is? Unsure - then just glance down
at your computer key-board. The first six letters at the top left of your keyboard spell
it out – QWERTY. Well, did you know that this arrangement of letters, along with the
other 20 on the traditional keyboard were arranged that way to make the job of typing more
difficult? Let's find out why?
The first commercially successful typewriter was developed by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1873. Originally, the keys were arranged alphabetically. However, a problem soon arose. People became so adept at using the keyboard that the keys would stick or jam when struck in quick succession. In order to overcome this problem Sholes decided to make the job of typing as slow as he possibly could. His solution? He placed the most frequently used keys as far apart from each other as he could. His keyboard became known as the QWERTY keyboard.
So, that is the reason why your keyboard is formatted the way it is. Ironic, really – considering that every other aspect of your computer is streamlined for maximum efficiency and yet you have to labor over a 127 year old system designed specifically for inefficiency. And inefficient it certainly is. For one thing, QWERTY was not designed for touch typing, which came much later. For keys that are not in the middle or home row it is necessary to reach across diagonally. This is difficult and leads to a high error rate.
Another keyboard layout was designed by August Dvorak in the 1930’s. Dvorak’s keyboard put nine of the most used letters in the middle row of the keyboard. This allows the typist to write over 3,000 words without the fingers reaching. In comparison, only about 50 words can be typed on a keyboard without reaching on QWERTY’s middle or home row. Another advantage of the DVORAK keyboard is that the workload is much reduced. This is achieved by redistributing the workload amongst the fingers. As a result the fingers of a typist on a DVORAK keyboard moves about one mile per day whereas the same typist on a conventional QWERTY keyboard will move his fingers between 12 and 20 miles per day.
So, does the DVORAK system really improve performance. In order to prove that it does August Dvorak retrained 14 Navy typists during World War Two. The result? After just one month their work productivity rate improved by an amazing 74 percent. Accuracy improved by 68 percent. So, you would think that people would be jumping over each other to switch over from QWERTY to DVORAK. However, increased productivity meant that some people could loose their jobs. The Dvorak was said to be able to allow one typists to do the work of TWO. During the Depression this was not seen as a good thing, since people desperately needed their jobs! A second reason for the lack of willingness to change layouts was that for well over 58 years people were USED to using the QWERTY keyboard. It would require them to learn a whole new keyboard arrangement!
