Introduction to Alternative Keyboard Layouts
The main benefit of an alternative keyboard layout is to reduce typing strain and improve typing speed.
- If you are new to alternative keyboard layouts, checkout the section for Newcomers.
- If you are already familiar with the benefits of alternative keyboard layouts, checkout the section for Experts.
For Newcomers
Welcome to the world of alternative keyboard layouts!
The elevator pitch — by using english speech patterns and the dictionary of english words, you can develop a keyboard layout that makes it easier to type common english words.
That’s it — the goal is to make typing easier. QWERTY was invented in 1874 and since then many people have tried to do exactly that.
You may have heard of layouts like Dvorak or Colmak, which do provide a large improvement over QWERTY, but let’s use some numbers and definitions to quantify the levels of improvement.
Some common acronyms to describe keyboard layouts are:
SFB - lower is better
DSFB - lower is better
LSB - lower is better
Rolls + higher is better
Redirects - lower is better
You don’t need to know all of the definitions right away. These are merely the tools to begin the point of comparison. Though if you want a detailed description of each see the section on terminology.
This is a brief table summary of the statistics for the most well known keyboard layouts:
QWERTY Dvorak Colmak DH Workman
SFB: 6.615% 2.779% 1.387% 3.000%
DSFB: 11.196% 6.979% 8.877% 8.248%
LSB: 6.882% 1.255% 1.975% 1.727%
Total Rolls: 37.243% 38.924% 46.113% 46.113%
Total Redirects: 13.187% 3.458% 10.579% 10.414%
As you can see, from a numerical point of view there are large improvements to be made over QWERTY. A detailed discussion of these metrics is in the section for experts.
Getting Started
Now that you have been convinced that there’s some benefit to switching keyboard layouts — let’s look at the costs. Switching layouts is not a small undertaking, it often takes months of work. Personally, I found it took (2) months to reach 40 wpm after switching from QWERTY to Gallium. If you are someone who plans on doing a large amount of typing in the future, it may be a good long term investment. The process is annoying at first, and don’t plan on being able to jump into a new layout for your day job. It will likely take (5) days to hit 20 wpm.
I recommend checking out youtube videos for testimonials about other people’s experience on switching layouts (good and bad).
Here’s some creators with unbiased perspectives:
If you still wish to embark on this several month journey, keep reading below to see a comparison of the most modern keyboard layouts and a more detailed plan on how to get started.
For Experts
The goal is to find a keyboard layout that had the best feel, flow, and speed.
When deciding which layout to use, a combination of theoretical data and real world experimenting is required. Lets start with the theory as described in the following table.
Here’s a brief table summary of the main statistics for the top alternative keyboard layouts:
Sturdy Canary Recurva Gallium Graphite
SFB: 0.935% 0.962% 0.829% 0.956% 0.996%
DSFB: 6.222% 8.057% 5.756% 6.456% 6.260%
LSB: 2.413% 2.675% 1.844% 1.456% 1.358%
Total Rolls: 48.082% 48.537% 48.176% 44.566% 44.276%
Total Redirects: 5.399% 7.152% 5.549% 3.157% 3.043%
Right Hand: 55.13% 56.09% 53.21% 51.50% 51.74%
Left Hand: 44.52% 43.56% 46.44% 48.14% 48.07%
Determining which layout to use depends on individual typing style. It’s recommended to select 4 keyboard layouts and spend a week on each to find the best fit. It typically takes a month of experimenting to find your preferences, and another two months of practice to become proficient at the layout of choice.
I recommend practicing with the following resources:
The main factors to consider in a keyboard layouts is the SFBs, LSBs, rolls, redirects, scissors, finger usage, and an even hand split.
On cyanophage there’s an option to sort layouts by SFB percentage. The low SFBs allow for a fast typing speed by giving each finger time to ‘set up’ the next key press.
For some people, myself included the lateral stretch is uncomfortable. Therefore the LSB is an important metric in my keyboard layout decision. For others this factor may not be a concern.
High rolls is typically a main selling point in the argument for alternative keyboard layouts. The feeling of typing in a clean consecetive sequence is very satisfying. Another major concern is the roll / redirect ratio. Some layouts focus on reducing redirects rather than increasing rolls. I recommend trying out a low redirect layout to see if it better fits your typing style.
If the hand split is very close to 50 / 50, it reduces strain by balancing the work across both hands. As a note, the hand split numbers don’t total to 100% — this is due to the small amount of typing work done outside of the main 30 keys.
Another factor to consider is the workload of each finger, and most importantly reducing the pinky finger usage. Any SFBs on the pinky will be very slow to type.
Additionally, the number of full scissor and half scissor bigrams will influence how comfortable it is to type adjacent letters.
Terminology
A non-exhaustive list of keyboard layout terminology:
- Bigram: A sequence of two keys (not containing space)
- Trigram: A sequence of three keys (not containing space)
- SFB: Same Finger Bigram; a bigram that requires the same finger for both keys
- DSFB: Disjointed Same Finger Bigram; pressing two keys with the same finger, separated by x letters
- LSB: Lateral Stretch Bigram; a bigram typed with adjacent fingers, but requires a lateral stretch
- Redirect: A trigram which changes direction on the same hand (excluding SFBs)
- HSB: Half Scissor Bigram; a bigram of adjacent columns, separated by one row
- FSB: Full Scissor Bigram; a bigram of adjacent columns, separated by two rows
- Roll: A trigram which changes hands once (excluding SFBs)
- Alternate: A trigram which changes hands twice (excluding SFBs)