Why are the keys on a QWERTY keyboard arranged in such a way?

shutterstock

What is commonly called QWERTY (more properly, the Sholes layout) was designed by Christopher Lathan Sholes, then modified through a series of business relationships. Sholes original keyboard was alphabetical and modelled after a printing telegraph machine. The alphabetical layout was easy to learn, but not easy to type on.

For one thing, all practical typing machines of the day relied on mechanical levers, and adjacent letters could jam if struck with rapidity. There has long been a myth than Sholes designed the QWERTY layout to slow typists down in order to prevent this. Nothing could be further from the truth, but Sholes’ first customers were telegraphers. Over several years, he adapted the piano-like alphabetical keyboard into a four row keyboard designed to aid telegraphers in their transcription duties.

This new layout mostly spread out commonly struck keys, but also placed easily confused telegraph semaphores together. This layout was sufficient to permit telegraph transcription to keep up with transmissions and created a growing market.

During this time, Sholes teamed up with several other inventors to form a type-writer company with assignment of all related patents. An association with Remington led to increased sales, at which time another company acquired the shift platen patent that permits a typewriter to type in mixed case, and they seem to have made a few essentially random changes in order to avoid the original type-writer company patents.

So that’s it then, right? QWERTY is crap?

Well, no. QWERTY was based mostly on the needs of telegraphers in transcribing Morse code, and Morse had been scientifically designed to make transmission of English language messages as efficient as possible. The result is that the QWERTY arrangement is pretty good—efficiency wise.

In the 1930’s John Dvorak used modern time-motion study techniques to design his own keyboard, and around it has grown up a whole cult following and mythology. But the fact is, it’s much ado about nothing. Careful scientific studies in the 1950’s, 70s and 80s have shown that choice between the Sholes and Dvorak layout makes no material difference in typing speed. Practice and effort are what yields rapid typing, and studies of professional typists have shown that however well we may perform on timed trials, few typists ever exceed 35 words per minute in their daily work.

So relax. Take an online typing course, practice a little, and relax.

Before the cult rolls in, it is possible that the Dvorak layout is more comfortable or less straining to you, but the science doesn’t support this as a general conclusion. What the science says is, repetitive motion pain can be alleviated most effectively by the proper positioning of of the wrists during typing and mousing, by correct posture, and by varying the work environment (as by using a well-configured standing desk or switching between workstations that use different, but ergonomic, keyboards).