Is it really worth learning Dvorak given that friend/libraries/internet cafes all use QWERTY?
I learned Dvorak about 4 years ago, and I’ve slowly lost my QWERTY skills. When I learned it, I was already proficient in QWERTY, and a friend of mine mentioned something about this, and I decided to give it a shot. I took an old keyboard and popped out all the keys and put them back in where the Dvorak keys are, and that’s how I learned. To be honest though, for my high school years, I had no trouble switching back and forth between the two. I would use Dvorak on my home computer, then use QWERTY just fine at the library or computer labs at school. That being said, after coming to college, I lug my own laptop around all the time. I never really have to switch over to Dvorak in my every day works. If I’m put in front of a QWERTY keyboard, for the first two minutes I’m really slow, but I usually am able to acquaint myself and type semi-proficiently. I agree with kindall wholeheartedly when he says that Dvorak is really comfortable. I feel so awkward when I go to QWERTY, and it’s not bec
I couldn’t get used to Dvorak, but I tried out Colemak. The layout isn’t too different from QWERTY, while supposedly being more ergonomic and faster. Switching between the two layouts was easier than Dvorak <> QWERTY, though honestly, I never learned to use Colemak completely.
I learned Dvorak and did experience an efficiency increase, and I was already a pretty fast QWERTY touch-typist in part due to working data entry summers. What was interesting and surprising to me was that I didn’t lose QWERTY. I found that the mappings were somehow stored in different places in my brain and after an initial moment or two of conscious awareness of my layout I was able to pretty easily switch. I did, however, work in IT and spent 100% of my day on machines that either belonged to other people or needed to be available to coworkers at a moment’s notice. So having a Dvorak setup at work was impossible. I did use one at home on and off but found myself switching to it less and less (this was in the DOS days and I had a TSR remapper). I never switched my key labels, either, which probably contributed to my level of commitment. I still enjoyed it as a brain exercise and a few years ago I tried it again briefly as a lark. I’d lost almost all the Dvorak, unfortunately. I’d say
