The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard

After touch-typing with QWERTY for over five years, I switched to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard in June, 2007. I provide some links here in the hope that some people will take interest and decide to abandon QWERTY like I did. You do not need to buy a special Dvorak keyboard to use Dvorak. Visit DVzine.org for information on how to use Dvorak on your computer.

General information

  • Wikipedia article on Dvorak
  • DVzine.org - The Dvorak Zine
  • Videos by the inventor, August Dvorak: here and here.

    • Learning Dvorak

  • ABCD: A Basic Course in Dvorak

    • Typing test

  • TyperA. You can also add a TyperA application on Facebook.
  • Ryan Heise's typing test

    • I had been planning to switch to Dvorak all through my junior year in high school, and when the summer before my senior year started, I decided to give up QWERTY altogether and type only in Dvorak. After learning the keys, I typed random pages from a book that I reading (first without punctuation or capitalization), timing my speed in wpm (words per minute) every minute. After one week of practice, my speed was up to 30wpm. After that, just from using Dvorak whenever I needed to type (which wasn't that often, especially when I was in France for three weeks), my speed slowly increased. I regained my speed with QWERTY in three months (my fastest ever on QWERTY using typera.tk was 100wpm) and continued to get faster. See my current record (112 WPM) with Ryan's typing test.

    For me, the most important thing is not speed but comfort. In this area, I've noticed a big difference between QWERTY and Dvorak. I'm very happy to have made the switch and only wish that someone told me about Dvorak before I started learning QWERTY.

    Is Dvorak the best keyboard?

    I don't think so, but it's the best one so far that's actually an official keyboard and so is available on virtually every computer. I did come across Colemak, Arensito, and many other non-standard keyboards (like these). However, since I still need to type very frequently on computers that aren't mine (school computers, for example), I decided to switch to Dvorak in the end, which I can at least easily use on new computers. I'm a bit annoyed with Dvorak's l on pinky as well, but all these alternative keyboards are all considerably better than QWERTY.

    When it does get to be that I only have to type on my own computer, I'll probably change again. The backspace key should definitely be in a different place--maybe like in Colemak, or I'll buy a Kinesis keyboard. But I hope that by then people will have come to some sort of a consensus on which layout is the best for English.

    There is, of course, also the problem of foreign languages. All these alternative keyboards have been designed for English, which has a unique letter frequency and frequent letter combinations. There seems to be some development of alternative keyboards for many languages using the Latin alphabet (French, Spanish, etc), but none of these have been standardized. Of course, for most of these languages, using Dvorak or any other alternative keyboard will be significantly better than using a QWERTY based keyboard modified for that language.

    Right now, I'm using Dvorak International (look here for the KLC (Keyboard Layout Creator) file and install using Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator) to type French and the usual IME input system with a program called AutoHotkey for Japanese.

    Tips on learning a new keyboard layout

    This is how I learned how to type on Dvorak. After learning the position of all the keys and getting to about 40 wmp, you might experience a brief period during which you see no improvement in your speed. Go through the following:

    (1) Practice typing the most common words in English.

    (2) Practice frequent letter combinations.
    -ing: with any verb, but singing is a fun one.
    -tion: nation, pension, iteration, action
    -ment: ointment
    -ate: automate
    -ize: standardize, mechanize
    -ish: establish
    -ly: any adverb
    -ght: night, might
    -ble: gullible, able
    -tch: patch, watch, catch

    (3) Practice consonants with two or three letters (not necessarily double or triple consonants).
    (With right hand only)
    th: this, that, thing
    tw: two, twine, twirl
    sh: shoot, short, shut
    st: start, stun, stare
    sm: small, smart, smell
    sn: snake, snarl
    sw: swarm, swirl
    fr: from, free, fry
    gr: great, grand, grab
    cr: creak, crime, cram
    wh: who, where, when, what
    wr: write, wrong, wring
    fl: flow, fling, fly
    gl: glow, glide, glib
    cl: close, clutter, clay
    ch: punch, change, cheese
    ck: kick, rack, back
    bl: blank, bleed, blame
    br: break, brine, broad
    str: string, strong, strike
    scr: scroll, scrape
    sch: school
    thr: throw
    chr: chrome
    and the worst--sl: slow, sleeve

    (With both hands)
    sk: sky, ski
    sp: special, spooky
    sq: squirm, square, squeel
    pl: plan, play, plow
    pr: pray, pry, press

    (With left hand only)
    xy: xylem, oxygen

    (Rare ones) qw: qwerty
    dv: dvorak; advertise, adventure
    dw: dwarf, dwell, dwindle

    (4) And their combinations.
    Present particile of any verb from (3) or (4), flush, check, which, click, crunch, strengthen, french, smash, starch, through, thrash, snatch, twitch, switch, twilight, and anything else you can think of.

    (5) Vowel combinations: ou, ie, ei, ea, etc.

    These don't cover all the letter combinations but should at least give you a good start.

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