Learning to type in Dvorak

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staticlag

[H]ard|Gawd
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So I have been relearning to type in Dvorak recently and I must say that while its not too fun learning to type again its not really as hard as I thought it would be.

I would say that the most painful part of the process is the feeling of anxiety that I get when I am trying to type an email response to a co worker and its extremely slow for me to get my thoughts down.

I normally type 60 wpm in QWERTY so going to around 15 or so that I'm putting out now is a bit painful
 
I tried DVORAK a few years ago but quit when I realized that programming with this keyboard layout is an utter PITA. It's also horrible for any language other than English. It just isn't worth the trouble.

Good luck with your efforts, though :)
 
Thanks!

I figure that learning to type in DVORAK and QWERTY are like learning to play two different instruments in music, they each have their strengths.
 
if your typing speed is the issue, get an old keyboard, some black spray paint for plastic, and spray all the keys. you will become a better typist, and fairly quickly I imagine. the actual letters are more a distraction than useful after you have been typing a few years.
 
I tried learning dvorak years ago but I kept running into problems when I would service other peoples computers since they are all standard. I agree dvorak is more efficient but I couldn't stick with it long enough to get truly great while my standard typing suffered.
 
tried dvorak, gave up after EVERYTHING else is in qwerty, like smartphones virtual or hardware, still in qwerty. Heck even xbox and ps3 have you entering in text as qwerty, my tomtom has qwerty as an option, not to mention the 2 laptops scattered around my house, htpc and fiance's computer all still uses qwerty, i wouldn't be able to switch it cuz she'd kill me, so it's really a no win. Stick with basically the worldwide standard imho.
 
Sorry for being the naysayer, but I have to disagree with the last commenter.

If you are doing it just because you want to have geek bragging rights and say "I can type 60 WPM on a Dvorak keyboard", then by all means. I wish you the best of luck.

I gave Dvorak a try a few years and found it too cumbersome to learn a new method of typing at the same time I was starting a new job (used it on my work computer). However, having read this, I might try to dig the old Dvorak out of the parts bin and see what I can do with it now.
 
There is a programming dvorak keyboard layout.


Also, it seems pointless to switch when you only type 60WPM on a standard qwerty keyboard. There is a lot of room for improvement.
 
The biggest problem that I have that's keeping my speed down on formal tests is that I am pretty horrible at touch typing punctuation, whenever a test throws in weird brackets and dashes and stuff like that I always have to hunt and my WPM is brought down to 60wpm...
 
It would be awesome to see a touch typing test that made use of auto correct features -- capitalizing letters, corrected spelling and one that understands "ctrl+backspace." I don't ever use regular backspace... weird habit I think but I like it.
 
I agree "ctrl-backspace" is great. It makes correcting errors so much easier. It's a pain when I use a program that doesn't support it and adds thin vertical rectangles instead of deleting the word.
 
QWERTY was originally designed to slow people down so they didn't jam the keys on an old-fashioned manual typewriter. I've bested at upwards of 100 wpm on qwerty.

That said, there is basically no need to go at that speed except for a typing test. When I'm typing, I'm usually composing what I'm going to say and typing much slower than I could.
 
Lethal said:
QWERTY was originally designed to slow people down so they didn't jam the keys on an old-fashioned manual typewriter. I've bested at upwards of 100 wpm on qwerty.
Click to expand...

While it is often said that QWERTY was designed to "slow down" typists, this is incorrect – it was designed to prevent jams[1][..]
Click to expand...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY

Rearranging the keyboard layout on a mechanical typewriter made jams less likely, while not impeding typing speed. DVORAK is also hardly the most efficient layout for English. A while ago some people came up with more efficient layouts using a neural network algorithm.
 
I'm a Dvorak typist mainly because I mostly am at my own workstation, and I've been using it more or less exclusively for 3-4 years. If you're interested in Dvorak, check out http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ and up the ante a little bit.
 
the QWERTY layout was designed to achieve two goals: (1) to reduce jamming and (2) make it easy for salesmen to type out “typewriter"
Click to expand...
How relative is this for Today?


I'd personally learn COLEMAK

Designed for QWERTY users to be more DVORAKian
Colemak_fingers.png
 
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so is like 100wpm a wall for querty boards or is it my fingers holding me back??

cuz it seems like i can't get past 105 on some typing tests...
 
Still doesn't change the fact that it'd be less movement on a dvorak layout. I learned to type on qwerty and later, dvorak. dvorak was much better when actually typing sentances, but I had to switch back when I was programming... just wasn't conducive. Getting back into it wasn't too hard though... I want to go on and learn other keyboard layouts as well... not sure which though.
 
DVORAK is more efficient for typing English, yes. But you lose speed in every other language and while programming or using keyboard shortcuts in general unless you remap all those too. It's just not worth it.
 
mistachewey said:
so is like 100wpm a wall for querty boards or is it my fingers holding me back??

cuz it seems like i can't get past 105 on some typing tests...
Click to expand...

It's you.

In college I was monitored doing 120wpm with very few typos as the professor thought I was cheating. This was reading from book, and typing in test software. Taking a test over and over I could increase my WPM as I could process the reading faster in my brain. (I can also read fast.)

When typing my thoughts in chat, e-mail, or a document I know for a fact I hit 140wpm or more. Oddly, my mother is the same and can routinely hit 120-130wpm retyping or off her head.
 
ToddW2 said:
It's you.

In college I was monitored doing 120wpm with very few typos as the professor thought I was cheating. This was reading from book, and typing in test software. Taking a test over and over I could increase my WPM as I could process the reading faster in my brain. (I can also read fast.)

When typing my thoughts in chat, e-mail, or a document I know for a fact I hit 140wpm or more. Oddly, my mother is the same and can routinely hit 120-130wpm retyping or off her head.
Click to expand...

What's the definition of a 'word' with WPM? Here in Europe we use characters/minute, according to which I can do around 350 CPM at times.
 
Yea I never saw the point in dvorak... the main issue is like others have said. Everything is QWERTY... so even if you learn dvorak and convert your own keyboard to use it, whenever you use someone else's setup you are going to be screwed.

I remember hitting 300 wpm on some short tests back in middle-school... it was something i had memorized and just took the test over and over until I could mash the keys so fast it would max out the test. Normal typing I hit 100-130 with minimal errors...

And Elledan, definition of a word is just that. "is" counts as a word as does "definition" ... obviously definition takes longer to type but it sort of balances out for the most part because it's not like you're always typing really long words or really short ones.
 
This thread has really opened up some new lines of thinking for me, I think that I really found out where my problem is in typing qwerty. It is the fact that with my right hand I only type with my first 2 fingers. Whereas with my left hand I can type quickly and effectively with all fingers. This really leads to a lot of movement on my right hand side when I am trying to type, as I shift my entire hand around to hit keys like L and P. Nevertheless I just hit 69 wpm on this test

http://www.typingtest.com/testdone....gcpm=364&dur=60&time=60&chcsum=33168&unit=wpm

So maybe I should really practice my touch typing before I really get into another language :)

Though I will really try and learn Dvorak this summer if I have some extra time....
 
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