Doing these tests made me realise how one is limited by the keyboard itself. Although so far the best result in this thread was on an azerty keyboard, I find them absolutely cancer and it’s really just France that uses them (despite other countries having accents on their letters or speaking French).
“default” keyboards were made for typewriters, and so the character disposition was made so that typewriter inputs wouldn’t get tangled up when typing fast. There is no reason to keep this layout on computers, except that people were already used to their typewriting layout.
I think qwerty is among the best for programming, because you have everything at the ready. There’s also a very real problem that qwerty users don’t have, is ctrl+z and ctrl+y (probably the most used shortcut). On azerty or qwertz keyboards, the Z is all the way out from the ctrl key. This makes you stretch your hand and not at all what the designers of this shortcut envisioned, which was to have your undo, which you obviously do before a redo, next to ctrl for ease of use. The shortcuts should be modified for other layouts. I would honestly switch to qwerty if I didn’t have to use accents because it’s just more comfortable.
But there’s other mechanical things at play. My keyboard is kinda older, and the key depth is actually incredibly bad (despite it still working 100% 7 years later). It makes a lot of noise and you have to press keys way too far down. Not helpful when you have to type a letter twice in a row – I actually just noticed that in the test.
I’ve heard of dvorak and other layouts but i think I and everyone else is too used to their layout to learn something else now. It would also need to prove it has actual benefits. I think the more important part is to make comfortable keyboards. Do you know how difficult it is to actually find a keyboard? Most people might just get whichever they find, and that’s bad. You need a wrist rest for extended use (the reason I’m reluctant to change my keyboard is because the wrist rest is so amazing, I can use it to write stories down for hours without issue), you need RGB lightning to work in low light environments (and it’s definitely not a luxury anymore in 2021), you need a keyboard that will last and not make a ton of noise every time you press a key down. I am not going to pay 100$ for a keyboard and have it break down after 2 years lol. Media keys are not necessary but I use them all the time and I’m going to guess many people do when they have them. Yet when you look for keyboards, they’re just kinda thrown in there in a list and you’re left to figure them out yourself. And you can tell me you use cherry mx brown switches and I have no idea what that means unless I’ve had them in the past. Just give me comparisons like how much sound does a key press make, how deep the key goes, etc.
I also wonder about those “ergonomic” microsoft keyboards and if they really work:
If you look at how your hands are resting on a keyboard, they are actually pointing inwards. It’s actually uncomfortable to make your hands point straight up. But knowing microsoft, i honestly don’t think it’s that great a product lol.
Yes I was recently in the market for a new keyboard.
Doing these tests made me realise how one is limited by the keyboard itself. Although so far the best result in this thread was on an azerty keyboard, I find them absolutely cancer and it’s really just France that uses them (despite other countries having accents on their letters or speaking French).
“default” keyboards were made for typewriters, and so the character disposition was made so that typewriter inputs wouldn’t get tangled up when typing fast. There is no reason to keep this layout on computers, except that people were already used to their typewriting layout.
I think qwerty is among the best for programming, because you have everything at the ready. There’s also a very real problem that qwerty users don’t have, is ctrl+z and ctrl+y (probably the most used shortcut). On azerty or qwertz keyboards, the Z is all the way out from the ctrl key. This makes you stretch your hand and not at all what the designers of this shortcut envisioned, which was to have your undo, which you obviously do before a redo, next to ctrl for ease of use. The shortcuts should be modified for other layouts. I would honestly switch to qwerty if I didn’t have to use accents because it’s just more comfortable.
But there’s other mechanical things at play. My keyboard is kinda older, and the key depth is actually incredibly bad (despite it still working 100% 7 years later). It makes a lot of noise and you have to press keys way too far down. Not helpful when you have to type a letter twice in a row – I actually just noticed that in the test.
I’ve heard of dvorak and other layouts but i think I and everyone else is too used to their layout to learn something else now. It would also need to prove it has actual benefits. I think the more important part is to make comfortable keyboards. Do you know how difficult it is to actually find a keyboard? Most people might just get whichever they find, and that’s bad. You need a wrist rest for extended use (the reason I’m reluctant to change my keyboard is because the wrist rest is so amazing, I can use it to write stories down for hours without issue), you need RGB lightning to work in low light environments (and it’s definitely not a luxury anymore in 2021), you need a keyboard that will last and not make a ton of noise every time you press a key down. I am not going to pay 100$ for a keyboard and have it break down after 2 years lol. Media keys are not necessary but I use them all the time and I’m going to guess many people do when they have them. Yet when you look for keyboards, they’re just kinda thrown in there in a list and you’re left to figure them out yourself. And you can tell me you use cherry mx brown switches and I have no idea what that means unless I’ve had them in the past. Just give me comparisons like how much sound does a key press make, how deep the key goes, etc.
I also wonder about those “ergonomic” microsoft keyboards and if they really work:
If you look at how your hands are resting on a keyboard, they are actually pointing inwards. It’s actually uncomfortable to make your hands point straight up. But knowing microsoft, i honestly don’t think it’s that great a product lol.
Yes I was recently in the market for a new keyboard.