The quest for the world's best keyboard layout (2023)

If I gave you 19th-century technology and told you to use it every day from now on, what would you do?

For example, if I gave you a 19th-century mechanical typewriter to use, what would you do?
Assuming it still works, would you mind using it?

I know if you're an avid typewriter collector like actor Tom Hanks, you'd probably use them.
Otherwise, you might think it's one of the clumsiest gadgets you'll ever use.

However, every time you use a modern keyboard, you still use the same clunky character layout by default, even though the physical technology isn't 1800. i.e. Qwerty was patented in 1868.

Modern keyboard technology (e.g. mechanical switches) just makes this character layout more palatable for the modern user.

Is QWERTY optimized for less typing fatigue?

I don't know how true that is - but there are claims on the internet that the top line was intentionally corrupted so that the statement "TYPEWRITER QUOTE" could only be typed on the top line of the Qwerty layout.

Supposedly, this should help sales reps enter offers for prospects more easily.

Well, let's type it in and find out in the keystroke heatmap...

Well - it's up to you... To me it looks like an intentional tampering with the layout.

Additionally, other internet sources claim that the character layout of the Qwerty was influenced by the need to prevent the hammers from jamming when typing at high speeds.

However, some recent research has found that hammer blocking is not the true influence of the QWERTY layout.

It looks like the Qwerty layout was influenced by Morse code operators that needed to be translated quickly (see link below):

Qwerty is top-heavy

However, to be fair, there seems to be some typing optimization in Qwerty for non-sellers.

The combination of the letters ER and RE is the most important pair in the English language, according to Google Corpus Data.

https://gist.github.com/lydell/c439049abac2c9226e53

So Qwerty tries to optimize this pair by placing the letters E and R as adjacent parentheses.

Also, the letters Q, Z, and X are in the corners of the facility in less accessible places, which makes sense as these letters are among the least common.

However, every word in the English language contains at least one vowel. Therefore, it would be intuitive for a keyboard layout to place all vowels in the home row, since home row is the most accessible position.

However, in Qwerty, most of the vowels are on the top row of the keyboard, rather than the first row. In addition, of the 5 most common letters in English (E, T, O, A and I), only one is in the first line. Only the letter A is on the first line in Qwerty.

Also, only 2 of the 8 most common letters in English (E, T, O, A, I, N, S, and R) are on the first line in Qwerty.

More key presses outside of the home keys result in more finger flexing and unfolding, leading to early finger fatigue.

Dvorak introduces the 10-letter starting line

In 1936 the Dvorak layout was patented and with it came a new philosophy; Put the most common letters in the first line.

Dvorak was designed from the ground up.

A clean slate.

Now all the vowels (A, O, E, U and I) are grouped on the left of the starting line.

Also, Dvorak's starting line has 10 letters instead of 9 as was the case with Qwerty.

More key presses in the home row should result in less finger flexing and unfolding, resulting in less finger fatigue than in QWERTY.

The Dvorak layout was also designed for the typewriter. A typewriter has no need for abbreviations on the left. B. undo (Ctrl-Z), cut (Ctrl-X), copy (Ctrl-C) and paste (Ctrl-V).

Consequently, with Dvorak, there was no reason to keep the Z, X, C, and V keys next to the left control key, as is the case with Qwerty.

However, there are some common key combinations in positions that are suitable for the left hand, namely:

• Select All (Ctrl-A)
• Enter (Ctrl-J)

The value of left-hand keyboard shortcuts wouldn't exist until the keyboard came out decades later.

Colemak and the initial 8-letter keys

In 2006 Colemak appeared, but it was more of an evolution than a revolution.
The starting line still has 10 common letters, as seen with Dvorak.

However, from the heatmap, although there are 10 letters in the home row, more emphasis is placed on the 8-letter home keys.

Colemak also found that the primary keyboard shortcuts (undo, cut, copy, and paste) in Qwerty are in the most convenient positions on the left side. Therefore, Colemak kept these keyboard shortcuts in the same positions as Qwerty.

So, common keyboard shortcuts in convenient left-side locations are:

• Backspace-Wort (ctrl-W)
• Select All (Ctrl-A)
• Save (Ctrl-S)
• Undo (Ctrl-Z)
• Cut (Ctrl-X)
• Copy (Ctrl-C)
• Paste (Ctrl-V)

The Carpalx Project and the 9 or 10 letter starting line

In 2009, the Carpalx project offered 8 keyboard layouts for different use cases depending on what you want to achieve.

There are basically 2 ways available, depending on how long the starting line should be:

a) Layouts with a starting line of 9 letters

For typists who still want to use the Qwerty character mask (initial 9-letter series) but want to change a key selection to reduce typing, choose one of the following options:

Carpalx QWKRFY - only 5 key pair changes and sticking the ZXCV.

Carpalx QWYRFM - only 10 exchanges of key pairs and holding the ZXCV.

Carpalx QFMLWY - many key changes for 42.6% less effort than Qwerty, but ZXCV is not fixed.

b) Layouts with a 10-letter starting line

For those typists who prefer a 10-letter start line for Colemak and are already using the Colemak layout, choose one of the following options:

Carpalx GYLMWP - keeps 9 letter keys patched like Colemak and ZXCV.

Carpalx PBFMWJ - retains the same 11-letter keys as the Colemak and powered ZXCV.

For those typists who accept the most key exchanges, to get the most benefit, choose one of the following options:

Carpalx QGMLWY - 10-letter start line and ZXCV corrected for 44.3% less effort than Qwerty.

Carpalx QGMLWB - 10-letter starting line, but just stick to ZXC for 44.4% less effort than Qwerty.

From the heatmap it can be seen that for Carpalx QGMLWB (and Carpalx QGMLWY) more emphasis is placed on the 10 letter start line than the 8 letter start keys.

Some common key combinations in convenient left-hand positions are:

• Save (Ctrl-S)
• Undo (Ctrl-Z)
• Cut (Ctrl-X)
• Copy (Ctrl-C)
• Find (Ctrl-F)

Colemak Mod-DH to de-emphasize the middle columns

Some Colemak users felt that even with the 8-letter home keys, all was not well.

There was some concern that the common bigram "he" caused unnecessary fatigue when using Colemak.

So a modified Colemak layout was created, dubbed the Colemak Mod-DH, to emphasize the central pillars.

A de-emphasis on the center columns reduces lateral movement of the index fingers, resulting in less finger fatigue.

In fact, the Colemak Mod-DH has 2 main features:

a) The Angle Mod function

The idea behind the Angle Mod is to encourage a more comfortable and symmetrical typing posture on standard keyboards. The result is that when using the Colemak layout, the fingers of the left hand can more ergonomically reach the buttons on the bottom row.

This concept is ideal for an ISO keyboard, but can also work for an ANSI keyboard.

In order for the ergonomic finger technology to work for the Colemak layout, the finger assignment changes as follows:

• The left little finger in the bottom row is assigned the Shift key (instead of the Z key in Colemak).
• The remaining fingers get the same X, C, and V keys as on the Colemak.
• The left index finger is assigned the V, B, and Z keys (instead of just V and B on Colemak).

For typists adopting the Angle Mod, no keys switch fingers from the standard Colemak, making it easier for existing Colemak users to adopt.

So, Colemak with Angle Mod looks like this:

Note - button colors correspond to the new finger assignments for the Angle Mod feature.

All the top and middle lines are the same as the Colemak.

In the bottom row, the Z button is moved to the right to an uncommon position, and the XCVB buttons are moved to the left.

http://colemakmods.github.io/ergonomic-mods/angle.html

b) The damping of the center loudspeakers

To make the center columns less prominent, the letters D and H have been moved away from the center columns in the base row to a more ergonomic position in the bottom row.

The result of shifting D and H and shifts for Angle Mod is below:

However, the new finger mappings for the Angle Mod require fingertip adjustments and may not be for everyone.

The heatmap clearly shows that the initial 8-letter keys are preserved as in the Colemak layout.

The central columns are also less hot than Colemak's.

So, common keyboard shortcuts in a convenient position on the left are:

• Backspace-Wort (ctrl-W)
• Select All (Ctrl-A)
• Save (Ctrl-S)
• Cut (Ctrl-X)
• Copy (Ctrl-C)
• Paste (Ctrl-V)

However, the idea of ​​not emphasizing the center columns for the fingers for ergonomic reasons gave rise to the other keyboard layouts.

Workman and Norman with conventional fingering

In order to generally achieve better finger ergonomics, two layouts with a similar philosophy to the Colemak Mod-DH were created.

The layouts were Workman and Norman.

Both retained the initial 8-letter keys for the common letters, but emphasized the center columns without the need for a new fingermap.

The keyboard shortcuts on the left side of Workman are:

• Select All (Ctrl-A)
• Save (Ctrl-S)
• Rücktaste (ctrl-H)
• Undo (Ctrl-Z)
• Cut (Ctrl-X)
• Copy (Ctrl-C)

For the left keyboard shortcuts for Norman:

• Backspace-Wort (ctrl-W)
• Select All (Ctrl-A)
• Save (Ctrl-S)
• Undo (Ctrl-Z)
• Cut (Ctrl-X)
• Copy (Ctrl-C)
• Paste (Ctrl-V)

Halmak discards the initial 10-character line

Since 2016 we have designed Halmak by AI.

Similar in philosophy to Workman and Norman, the Halmak layout offers the following features:

— lowering of the central pillars.

— Retention of the conventional finger assignment.

Like the Dvorak layout, the Halmak layout was designed from the ground up.

A clean slate.

The Halmak layout uses an 8-letter starting line exclusively, with punctuation marks in the middle columns.

That means there is no 10-letter starting line.

Also, none of the traditional left-side keyboard shortcuts (undo, cut, copy, and paste) are in the same locations as Qwerty.

However, there are some common key combinations in positions that are easier for the left hand, namely:

• Backspace-Wort (ctrl-W)
• Save (Ctrl-S)
• Rücktaste (ctrl-H)
• Find (Ctrl-F)
• Enter (Ctrl-M)
• Paste (Ctrl-V)
• Copy (Ctrl-C)

Some trigrams are also incorporated into the layout in a diagonal motion and include the following:

• Y, O and U (right hand only)
• B, H and Y (top left to bottom right)
• Y, E and S (bottom right to left)

The MacOS version of the Halmak layout is here:

The Windows version of the Halmak layout is here:

Engram and initial 8 letter line

Now we have the engram layout based on bigrams from Google Corpus Data.

The Engram layout shares many similarities with the Halmak layout:

• Clean slate design.
• Result in the middle columns.
• The initial 10-letter string is discarded for the initial 8-letter keys only.
• N-gram optimization.

An earlier version was originally released, but the latest version is as follows:

Like Dvorak and Halmak, Engram was built from the ground up.

A key difference is that all scores have been moved to more ergonomic positions. This includes punctuation marks, which are along with the number line and around the Enter key.

However, there are some common key combinations in positions that are easier for the left hand, namely:

• Cut (Ctrl-X)
• Copy (Ctrl-C)
• Tab (Strg-I)
• Enter (Ctrl-J)

Since the letters E and T are the most common in English, they have been placed on the strongest finger of each hand. i.e. the middle fingers.

A key feature of the layout is that many shared bigrams are adjacent keys on the same hand.

• TH (e HT).Note — TH is the most commonly used bigram in English.
• EA (durch AE).
• IE (and NO).
• OU and LD.Note: Words like COULD, SHOULD, and WOULD.
• ST(eTS).
• PRO.

Also, there are the same finger bigrams for common words like:

• IS (Ringfinger)
• SE (Ring Finger)
• DO (middle finger)
• TO (middle finger)
• I (middle finger)
• ALL (index finger)

Then there are important trigrams of adjacent letters like:

• TU
• PRO

And a word like THOUGHTS can be broken into the adjacent bigram keys TH and OR and then terminated with the adjacent key trigram HTS.

Engram also has symmetry in the home keys between the right and left hands.

• The 2 most common letters are on the middle fingers: E (left middle finger) and T (right middle finger).
• On the left, IE and EA are adjacent keys within games (EI and AE are less common, as are outside games).
• On the right, ST and TH are adjacent keys within games (TS and HT are less common, as are outside games).

The engram is certainly strong for common bigrams and trigrams and finger symmetry in the initial line.

EngrammModName

For those who like the engram letters but mostly want the same qwerty score, check out a modified engram.

The arrangement of the keys is as follows:

This layout can be used for those transitioning to Engram, or perhaps you simply prefer the letters to be streamlined while the punctuation remains almost the same as QWERTY.

Is there a better arrangement?

If you examine the different layout sites, you'll see different metrics and claims about how the layout is better than the rest.

The truth is that layouts differ because the philosophy used to create the layout is different and the metrics measure different things. So the different metrics mean you end up comparing apples to oranges.

Instead, when choosing a different layout, it might be better to ignore the metrics and go with the layout philosophy that you most agree with.

Philosophy A - Mostly QWERTY, but with a better starting lineup

The following layouts are intended for those who want to continue using the Qwerty layout (i.e. 9-letter start line) but want to swap out a selection of keys to make Qwerty less tiring.

You might also prefer to keep the keyboard shortcuts basically the same as Qwerty.

Choose one of them:

• Carpalx QWKRFY - only 5 key pair changes and sticking the ZXCV.
• Carpalx QWYRFM - only 10 exchanges of key pairs and holding the ZXCV.
• Carpalx QFMLWY - lots of keystrokes but not fixed ZXCV.

Philosophy B - Emphasize the 10-letter opening line

The following layouts focus on maximizing the use of all letters in the initial row (i.e. 10-letter initial row).

Choose one of these options for a stronger 10-letter opening line:

• Dvorak — Qwerty's other score.
• Carpalx QGMLWB - almost the same score as Qwerty.
• Carpalx QGMLWY - almost the same score as Qwerty.

Also, the layouts below are for those who want a modified Colemak (i.e. 8 home buttons) but swap out a button selection to emphasize the 10-letter home row.

• Carpalx GYLMWP – Fixed ZXCV.
• Carpalx PBFMWJ — ZXCV movido.

Philosophy C — Emphasize the initial keys of the letter

The following has a strong 10-letter home line, with more emphasis on the 8-letter home keys:

• Colemak - fixed ZXCV; Result almost the same Qwerty.

For layouts that place more emphasis on finger ergonomics (i.e. natural finger movement), choose a layout with a weaker 10-letter start line.

These layouts have a weaker 10-letter starting line because there is less emphasis on the middle letters.

• Colemak Mod DH - some Colemak key exchanges; and the ZXCV shortcuts have changed but remain on the same fingers.

Note — For Colemak Mod DH, the typist must comply with the angle mod finger assignment.

• Workman - Only ZX shortcuts are like Qwerty; same score as Colemak.
• Norman – ZXCV shortcuts and scoring are the same as Colemak.

Now separate rows of letters with punctuation marks for maximum finger ergonomics:

• Halmak — optimization of trigrams; mainly Qwerty Score.
• Engram - optimization of bigrams and trigrams and finger symmetry; All points are reassigned.
• EngramMod — optimization of bigrams and trigrams and finger symmetry (like Engram); but mostly Qwerty Score.

Why bother switching to a new keyboard layout?

There is a common thread in all layouts.

Basically, the greater the QWERTY deviation, the greater the potential benefit.

After deciding on the philosophy that you agree with the most, choose the layout with the other desired attributes. e.g. B. fixed ZXCV, punctuation, internal roles for common bigrams, etc.

Fortunately, if you switch to a different layout, you won't lose the ability to use Qwerty again, even if you're not typing.

If you type in Qwerty again, you may notice some loss of finger muscle memory for the Qwerty layout. This loss can mean looking at the keyboard more often than before, and it limits the maximum speed you can type in Qwerty.

But if you've always looked at the Qwerty keyboard before, you'll probably keep the same Qwerty typing speed as before.

However, switching back to Qwerty only makes sense until you can type faster in your new layout.

So is it still worth dropping Qwerty permanently?

Think like this….

What if I told you that for the same pay, you could type with less effort every day?

What if I told you that you could type for the rest of your life with less effort?

Would you be interested now?

Changing keyboard layouts is an investment, but you'll get a lifetime benefit...