What is the Dvorak Keyboard?
The Dvorak keyboard is a keyboard with a different layout of keys than the QWERTY arrangement. Dr. August Dvorak, and William Dealy developed the Dvorak keyboard in 1936. One may see the Dvorak keyboard referred to as the Simple keyboard, or simplified keyboard. However, in most cases, the design has failed to garner much attention, and the QWERTY layout is far more popular. There is some indication that the Dvorak keyboard might result in faster typing for people trained to use it, because of the placement of the letters. In 1985, Barbara Blackburn earned the Guinness Book of Records “World’s Fastest Typist” title using a Dvorak keyboard. Her maximum speed measured at 212 wpm, and her typing speed over fifty minutes was an average of 150 wpm. Many believe Blackburn’s success is directly related to the principals Dvorak had in mind when determining where to place keys on the Dvorak keyboard. The most frequently used letters are in the middle row, and the top row contains frequently use
Back when industrial type writers first started to play a critical part in the evolution of communication one of the major issues that typewriters faced were the sticking of keys as they were pushing into the paper. The reasons for this were keys were originally aligned in alphabetical order. For example, the first row of keys was – A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I – etc. This meant that as certain combinations of keys were used in close contact with one another and would cause spelling errors. They then re-invented the layout to the QWERTY keyboard we all use today. The QWERTY keyboard was designed to reduce the keys from sticking as they were pressed. However, believe it or not, the QWERTY keyboard is an extremely inefficient way of typing. Few know that there is a much faster, easier, more efficient, and more comfortable alternative: the Dvorak (pronounced “duh VOR ak”) keyboard.
