2022-08-16

Why is traditional keyboard layout bad?

Your keyboard is killing your hands. It's time for a change.

This is how our fingers move naturally.

From bottom left to top right for the left hand, and from bottom right to top left for the right hand.

The movement direction is symmetric.

Hand natural movement direction

Touch Typing on a Traditional Keyboard is Harmful

If you search "touch typing" in google image, you can see lots of colorful images like this.

The color means that one finger is responsible for one or two column of keys. Both index fingers take care of two columns and other fingers one column. The fingers of both hands are responsible for the same number of keys in the alphabet and digit zone, totally 40 keys.

Traditional keyboard touch typing
Hand movement of touch typing on a traditional keyboard

The fingers of both hands move up and to the left, and down and to the right. Appearantly the touch typing diagram on a traditional keyboard is harmful to the left hand wrist.

If we force the left fingers move up and to the right, and down and to left, apparently the fingers of both hands are responsible for different number of keys.

In additon, the move distance is also different. For example, the offset from F to T is 3/4 key while the offset from J to U is 1/4 key.

Bad movement on traditional keyboard layout
Traditional keyboard layout has different offsets between rows

That is because the keyboard layout has different offsets between rows, 1/2 key, 1/4 key and 1/2 key respectively.

This stagger design comes from the classic QWERTY typewriter. The typewriter was designed with different row offset because of mechanical design considerations. Now computer keyboards are entirely electronic, there is no reason at all to keep the stagger. We keep it just because most people know it and for no other reason.

Conclusion

If we use touch typing on a traditional keyboard, the fingers of both hands are responsible for the same number of keys in the alphabet and digit zone, totally 40 keys, but it's harmful to the left hand wrist.

If we don't use touch typing on a traditional keyboard, the fingers of both hands are responsible for different number of keys and the movement distance are also different, which is difficult to learn and prone to mistakes. 

Time for Change

X-Bows symmetric ortholinear layout

Author

Ken@X-Bows

Tags

Ergonomic Keyboard