Quote:
Originally Posted by unit
I thought the whole point of qwerty was to be inefficient?
Posted via RS Mobile |
Yes. The existing keyboard was designed experimentally by Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter, to slow the typist down, because the keys in his 1873 machine fell back into place by gravity. It was designed to slow humans down so typewriters wouldn't jam. How is any of that applicable today?
What's wrong with the QWERTY layout?
It places very rare letters in the best positions, so your fingers have to move a lot more.
It suffers from a high same finger ratio that slows down typing and increases strain.
It allows for very long sequences of letters with the same hand (e.g. "sweaterdresses")
It was designed to prevent the keys from sticking, without any consideration to ergonomic or efficiency aspects.
It was designed so the word "typewriter" could be typed on the top row to ease demonstrations.
It suffers from an extremely high ratio of home-row-jumping sequences (e.g. "minimum")