Change the Player, Change the Game

I have been a Dvorak typist for many years now. This is simply an endorsement of how you can change the player to change the game. You are the player, and the game is comfort and productivity on a keyboard.

If you haven't heard of Dvorak or don't know why it is a superior keyboard layout, check out the online comic: DVZine

Understanding the benefits intellectually is simple. Deciding to actually make the change is much harder. Take me for instance. I learned to type in the 7th and 8th grade. So, I had decades of muscle memory formed around typing with the qwerty keyboard layout.

I had a friend who convinced me to give Dvorak a try. I couldn't find a Dvorak keyboard back in the 90s so I took an old ivory keyboard and wrote the alternative keyboard layout in with a black Sharpie pen. Mavis Beacon had just dropped support for Dvorak in whatever edition was out at that time, so I learned using an online website keyboard graphic.

I was a web manager during the learning phase and it was VERY difficult to make the switch when I had an emergency email to send and my typing rate was 10wpm instead of the usual 70wpm. But I stuck with it. I was comfortable with Dvorak in about a month, and three months into it I could not fathom how I had ever accepted the qwerty keyboard layout. It was a game changer.

I was faster, more comfortable, and when I started coding the benefits quadrupled due to coding-friendly layout. So, here are my basic tips and observations:

1) while learning Dvorak, I recommend NOT going back to Qwerty until you are fluent with Dvorak. Once you are fluent you won't want to type Qwerty ever again, but you may have to if helping someone at their desk on their keyboard.

2) remember that GNOME and Windows both support Dvorak easily now in their language/keyboard input settings . . . just check it out

3) reread DVZine once in awhile during learning phase to remember why your life is going to get so much better.

4) use KeyHero to test yourself and watch the improvement over time.

5) buy the fantastic Matias Dvorak Pro keyboard . . . it is hard-wired so you can switch between dvorak/qwerty at the press of a button. I am VERY particular about my keyboards and this one is top-notch. It not only gives you a handle visual of both keyboard layouts if you need it; it also facilitates using your computer in a peer-programming situation without having to toggle the keyboard via system trap or control panel settings (which, by the way, compared to the old days of the 90s is quite simple on nearly over OS now).

I can tell you this: if I were in charge of an IT shop, I would offer a $500 incentive bonus to any IT person able to demonstrate 50+ wpm using dvorak on keyhero in 3+ tests with two retests at 3 month intervals. I KNOW after that the person would ever go back. It's just simply taking control not only of your keyboard, but your comfort and productivity.

You can choose to keep typing qwerty which was designed to make typists SLOWER (read dvzine.org for details), or you can decide to make in investment in yourself and learn dvorak. Change the player, change the game.