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Of Keyboards and Men
Dvorak vs. Colemak

June 6, 2010 by Pavel Soukenik

The computer age made it easy to switch the keyboard layout to Dvorak Simplified Keyboard without any hardware modifications, and also made it possible for anyone to swap a few individual letters or all of them. One such recent creation of a complete keyboard is the Colemak layout, named after its author Shai Coleman who released it in 2006.

Colemak leaves 17 keys (Disregarding the number row and various function keys.) in identical positions to qwerty to ease the learning and preserve the location of frequent keyboard shortcuts. This might be good for many people. In my case, the reason I failed to learn touch typing until recently was the temptation to fall back to my very fast ‘hunt and peck.’ With only two keys in the same position on Dvorak, this was not an option. Too many similarities also interfere with the mental switch (Czech keyboard and qwerty are mostly identical and switching between the two is very difficult precisely because they are so alike.).

The comparisons between Dvorak Simplified Keyboard and Colemak often conclude that the latter is better and usually revolve around several statistical metrics. Two prominent measurements pointing in favor of Colemak are the ‘distance’ that your fingers need to travel and the percentage of letters typed on the ‘home row.’ I am going to go through the various numbers and other aspects, and explain why I consider Dvorak a superior layout.

Keyboard statistics for QWERTY, Colemak and Dvorak
Statistics for qwerty, Colemak and Dvorak

In most comparisons, the ‘distance’ favors Colemak, with a 7.5% reduction on my test text (Data were generated in http://colemak.com/Compare tool using the full text of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and other texts where indicated.) but this varies (the reduction for The Fellowship of the Ring is 3.5%). The calculated Dvorak distance can get actually lower than Colemak by swapping the neighboring keys U and I (both typed with the same finger on the ‘home row’). I have seen suggestions for this modification but I advise against it:

The method used to calculate the ‘distance’ is flawed or misleading (The keys in home position are considered zero distance. This leads to calculating ‘hit’ (on Dvorak) as three times longer than ‘did’ although the distance your fingers travel is almost the same. (qwerty equivalent is ‘had’ and ‘lad’.)) — a phrase on home keys such as ‘eat the toast at ten to noon’ on Dvorak would be calculated as zero distance. Such ‘distance’ is not influencing the typing speed as much as one would think (otherwise the qwerty typists would be hopelessly slow). Dvorak’s ‘key’ considerations for the layout went far beyond single-letter frequencies, and the placement of keys balances other, often more important, criteria.

The other thing you will likely notice is that Colemak prioritizes having all the top-frequency letters on the home row. Dvorak opted differently (Dvorak kept the left side of the home row for vowels. The letter ‘U’ is the 12th most frequent letter, so on merits of frequency it does not deserve to be in the top ten.) and, as a result, Dvorak typists spend 67% of typing on the home row which Colemak bests with 71.5%; but they also spend one third less time on the bottom row and this is very good because it is the slowest row to reach.

On the test text, Colemak also achieves an 8% reduction in the “same-finger (Measured when different consecutive letters are typed using the same finger — a particularly slow combination.)” typing over Dvorak. Although it can do better (30% ‘same-finger’ typing reduction on The Fellowship of the Ring.) and combinations typed with the same finger are the slowest, this improves only 1% of all the typing. Dvorak over Colemak, on the other hand, improves by 32% the chance that the next letter will be typed by the ‘other hand’ than the current one; and this better hand alternation helps with the typing constantly. This also makes Dvorak ideal for using thumbs on hand-held devices.

Conclusion

Bear in mind that what is evaluated as the optimal keyboard layout inevitably depends on what criteria are used. Colemak is not different because it was designed in the computer age, it is different because it used different priorities and assumptions. If your criteria are in line with Colemak, it might work for you.

The criteria Dr. Dvorak and Dr. Dealey used for the Simplified Keyboard were based on research and investigation with scope that amazed me when I read their book Typewriting Behavior. Yet, despite all the advantages (especially over qwerty) it is amazing how little used and known the Simplified Keyboard is. It is not even supported by many devices at all: iPhone comes to mind — although, ironically, Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak is a Dvorak typist.

But this sad state is not surprising: One thing Dvorak does not have is an active, passionate community. It almost feels as if Dvorak users were content to have a little known and under-appreciated gem under their hands.

This is the final article in the series Of Keyboards and Men. The first, titled Childhood, described my encounter with the typewriters and was filed in the Life category. The second, The Inventors, explored the History before concluding with this one, Dvorak vs. Colemak, in the Technology category.

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10 Commments

  1. Pingback: Soukie's Place » Of Keyboards and Men: The Inventors
  2. WebCreationUK says:
    August 2, 2010 at 2:43 am

    Great history lesson mate! Thanks!

    Reply
  3. aaron says:
    September 29, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    You might find the Workman Layout interesting. It was designed as an improvement over Colemak.
    http://viralintrospection.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/a-different-philosophy-in-designing-keyboard-layouts/

    Reply
  4. Neil Thornock says:
    November 25, 2010 at 8:16 am

    I love Dvorak! Too bad it hasn’t gained a kind of standardized place in the computing world. For as much customization as computers allow, it seems this should be one of the easiest things to encourage.

    Reply
  5. Julian Pereira says:
    December 13, 2012 at 7:48 am

    I too prefer dvorak vs colemak

    Reply
  6. Julian Pereira says:
    December 14, 2012 at 11:21 am

    I think Dvorak feels more comfortable than Colemak..

    Reply
  7. Sean Quigley says:
    June 23, 2013 at 11:06 pm

    So is the opinion of the author that Dvorak is better? I hope so as I am opting for Dvorak over Colemak, which seems to be its only respectable contender, as I am learning it. After about 5 days I am at ~30wpm. I noticed that there are more fluid handroll combos in dvorak, which I think is good as the only real benefit I saw in Colemak was that there was a greater reduction in same finger letter frequency (via columns running up and down the home row) as well as typing distance being marginally less than dvorak.
    I can definitely feel and see there is more motion when I type dvorak than Colemak, but it feels more fluid to me. However one caveat is that when I was trying out Colemak I could tell it was going to be really easy to learn.
    I find capewell interesting as it keeps the right hand home row of Dvorak the same which I think is just butter! The handrolls off of HTNS are orgasmic. It is the perfect home base for the right hand IMO.
    C/V/I/W/Q/A/S/M – every command is really not that big of a deal in Dvorak. They are all close enough to my Com. keys on my Macbook. Plus I love the punctuation placement in Dv.

    Reply
  8. Lele says:
    December 5, 2013 at 5:03 pm

    Quote: “This also makes Dvorak ideal for using thumbs on hand-held devices.”
    Would you care to explain better? Thanks.

    Reply
  9. Lele says:
    December 24, 2013 at 6:36 pm

    Never mind. I have understood what you meant. Cheers.

    Reply
  10. Graig smith says:
    April 30, 2014 at 9:38 am

    They should make an improved dvorak. One thing I don’t like about these new layouts is that the hand alternation as seen in the dvorak layout doesn’t happen in the new layouts. I think it’s beneficial to have vowels on one side and consonants on the other. And I use dvorak. The L key does seem like its in a bad place. But it still removed most of my hand RSI symptoms.

    Reply

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