Dvorak Simplified Keyboard

The modern Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (US layout)

The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (ⁱ/dᵊˈvɔræk/ d-VOR-ak) is a keyboard layout patented in 1936 by Dr. August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, Dr. William Dealey. Over the years several slight variations were designed by the team led by Dvorak or by ANSI. These variations have been collectively or individually also called the Simplified Keyboard or American Simplified Keyboard but they all have come to be commonly known as the Dvorak keyboard or Dvorak layout. Dvorak proponents claim the Dvorak layout uses less finger motion, increases typing rate, and reduces errors compared to the standard QWERTY keyboard. This reduction in finger distance traveled is claimed to permit faster rates of typing while reducing repetitive strain injuries, though this has been called into question.

Although the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) has failed to replace the QWERTY keyboard, most major modern operating systems (such as Windows, OS X, GNU/Linux, and BSD) allow a user to switch to the Dvorak layout.

Overview

The Dvorak layout was designed to replace the QWERTY keyboard layout (the de facto standard keyboard layout, so named for the starting letters in the top row). The Dvorak layout significantly increases typing speeds by removing the issues with the QWERTY layout. The original QWERTY keyboard suffers from many problems that Dvorak himself identified:

• Many common letter combinations require awkward finger motions.
• Many common letter combinations require a finger to jump over the home row.
• Many common letter combinations are typed with one hand. (e.g. was, were)
• Most typing is done with the left hand, which for most people is the weaker hand.
• About 16% of typing is done on the lower row, 52% on the top row and only 32% on the home row.

Dvorak studied letter frequencies and the physiology of people's hands and created a layout to alleviate the problems he identified with the QWERTY layout. The layout he created adheres to these principles:

• Letters should be typed by alternating between hands (which makes typing more rhythmic, increases speed, reduces error, and reduces fatigue). On the Dvorak, vowels are all on the left home row, while the most used symbols are on the left, while the most used consonants are on the right.
• For maximum speed and efficiency, the most common letters and digraphs should be the easiest to type. This means that they should be on the home row, which is where the fingers rest, and under the strongest fingers (Thus, about 70% of keyboard strokes on the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard are done on the home row and only 22% and 8% on the top and bottom rows respectively).
• The least common letters should be on the bottom row which is the hardest row to reach.
• The right hand should do more of the typing because most people are right-handed.

The Dvorak layout is intended for the English language. In other European languages, letter frequencies, letter sequences, and digraphs differ from English. Also, many languages have letters that do not occur in English. For non-English use, these differences lessen the supposed advantages of the original Dvorak keyboard. However, the Dvorak principles have been applied to the design of keyboards for other languages.

The layout was completed in 1932 and was granted U.S. Patent 2,040,248 in 1936. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) designated the Dvorak keyboard as an alternative standard keyboard layout in 1982; the standard is INCITS 207-1991 (R2007) (previously X4.22-1983, X3.207:1991), "Alternate Keyboard Arrangement for Alphanumeric Machines". The original ANSI Dvorak layout was available as a factory-supplied option on the original IBM Selectric typewriter.

History

August Dvorak was an educational psychologist and professor of education at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Dvorak became interested in the keyboard layout while serving as an advisor to Gertrude Ford, who was writing her master's thesis on typing errors. Touch typing had come into wide use by that time, so when Dvorak studied the QWERTY layout he concluded that the QWERTY layout needed to be replaced. Dvorak was joined by his brother-in-law William Dealey, who was a professor of education at the then North Texas State Teacher's College in Denton, Texas.

Dvorak and Dealey's objective was to scientifically design a keyboard to decrease typing errors, speed up typing, and lessen typer fatigue. They engaged in extensive research while designing their keyboard layout. In 1914 and 1915, Dealey attended seminars on the science of motion and later reviewed slow-motion films of typists with Dvorak. Dvorak and Dealey meticulously studied the English language, researching the most used letters and letter combinations. They also studied the physiology of the hand. The result in 1932 was the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard.

In 1933, Dvorak started entering typists trained on his keyboard into the International Commercial Schools Contest, which were typing contests sponsored by typewriter manufacturers consisting of professional and amateur contests. The professional contests had typists sponsored by typewriter companies to advertise their machines. Ten times from 1934–41, Dvorak's typists won first in their class events. In the 1935 contest alone, nine Dvorak typists won twenty awards. Dvorak typists were so successful that in 1937 the Contest Committee barred Dvorak's typists for being "unfair competition" until Dvorak protested. In addition, QWERTY typists did not want to be placed near Dvorak typists because QWERTY typists were disconcerted by the noise produced from the fast typing speeds made by Dvorak typists.

In the 1930s, the Tacoma, Washington, school district ran an experimental program in typing to determine whether to hold Dvorak layout classes. The experiment used 2,700 students to learn the Dvorak layout, and the district found that the Dvorak layout students learned the keyboard in one-third the time it took to learn QWERTY. When a new school board was elected, however, it chose to close the Dvorak layout classes.

Writer Barbara Blackburn was the fastest English language typist in the world, according to The Guinness Book of World Records. Using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, she was able to maintain 150 words per minute (wpm) for 50 minutes, and 170 wpm for shorter periods. She has been clocked at a peak speed of 212 wpm. Blackburn, who failed her QWERTY typing class in high school, first encountered the Dvorak keyboard in 1938, quickly learned to achieve very high speeds, and occasionally toured giving speed-typing demonstrations during her secretarial career. Blackburn died in April 2008.

Original Dvorak layout

The typewriter keyboard layout that Dvorak & Dealey patented

The Dvorak typewriter keyboard layout that was publicly promulgated

Over the decades, symbol keys were shifted around the keyboard leading to variations in the Dvorak layout. In 1982, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) implemented a standard for the Dvorak layout known as ANSI X4.22-1983. This standard gave the Dvorak layout official recognition as an alternative to the QWERTY keyboard.

The layout standardized by the ANSI differs from the original or "classic" layout devised and promulgated by Dvorak. Indeed, the layout promulgated publicly by Dvorak differed slightly from the layout for which Dvorak & Dealey applied for a patent in 1932—most notably in the placement of Z. Today's keyboards have more keys than the original typewriter did, and other significant differences existed:

• The numeric keys of the classic Dvorak layout are ordered: 7 5 3 1 9 0 2 4 6 8 (used today by the Programmer Dvorak layout)
• In the classic Dvorak layout, the question mark key [?] is in the leftmost position of the upper row, while the slash key [/] is in the rightmost position of the upper row.
• The following symbols share keys (the second symbol being printed when the SHIFT key is pressed):
  • colon [:] and question mark [?]
  • ampersand [&] and slash [/].

Modern U.S. keyboard layouts almost always place semicolon and colon together on a single key, and slash and question mark together on a single key. Thus, if the keycaps of a modern keyboard are rearranged so that the unshifted symbol characters match the classic Dvorak layout then, sensibly, the result is the ANSI layout.

Modern operating systems

The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) is included with all major operating systems (such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD).

Early PCs

Although some word processors could simulate alternative keyboard layouts through software, this was application-specific; if more than one program was commonly used (e.g., a word processor and a spreadsheet), the user could be forced to switch layouts depending on the application. Occasionally, stickers were provided to place over the keys for these layouts.

However, IBM-compatible PCs used an active, "smart" keyboard, where the keyboard was actually a peripheral device (powered by the keyboard port). Striking a key generated a key "code", which was sent to the computer. Thus, changing to an alternative keyboard layout was most easily accomplished by simply buying a keyboard with the new layout. Because the key codes were generated by the keyboard itself, all software would respond accordingly. In the mid- to late-1980s, a small cottage industry for replacement PC keyboards arose; although most of these were concerned with keyboard "feel" and/or programmable macros, there were several with alternative layouts, such as Dvorak.

Amiga

Some Amiga operating systems enable the user to modify the keyboard layout by opening up the keyboard input preference and selecting "Dvorak" or "usa2". Earlier Amiga systems also came with the Dvorak keymap available on the "Extras" disk that came with the computer. By copying the keymap to the Workbench disk, editing the startup scripts, and then rebooting, Dvorak was usable in many Workbench application programs.

Windows

Versions of the Windows operating system including Windows 95, Windows NT 3.51 and higher have shipped with support for the U.S. Dvorak layout. Free updates to use the layout on earlier Windows versions are available for download from Microsoft.

Earlier versions, such as DOS 6.2/Windows 3.1, included four keyboard layouts: QWERTY, two-handed Dvorak, right-hand Dvorak, and left-hand Dvorak.

In May 2004 Microsoft published an improved version of its Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC version 1.3 – current version is 1.4) that allows anyone to easily create any keyboard layout desired, thus allowing the creation and installation of any international Dvorak keyboard layout such as Dvorak Type II (for German), Svorak (for Swedish) etc.

Another advantage of the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator over third-party tools for installing an international Dvorak layout is that it allows creation of a keyboard layout that automatically switches to standard (QWERTY) after pressing the two hotkeys (SHIFT and CTRL).

Unix-based systems

Many operating systems based on UNIX, including OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris, Plan 9, and most Linux distributions, can be configured to use the U.S. Dvorak layout and a handful of variants. However, all current Unix-like systems with X.Org and appropriate keymaps installed (and virtually all systems meant for desktop use include them) are able to use any QWERTY-labeled keyboard as a Dvorak one without any problems or additional configuration. This removes the burden of producing additional keymaps for every variant of QWERTY provided. Runtime layout switching is also possible.

Apple computers

Apple had Dvorak advocates since the company's early (pre-IPO) days. Several engineers devised hardware and software to remap the keyboard, which were used inside the company and even sold commercially.

Apple II

The Apple IIe had a keyboard ROM that translated keystrokes into characters. The ROM contained both QWERTY and Dvorak layouts, but the QWERTY layout was enabled by default. A modification could be made by pulling out the ROM, bending up four pins, soldering a resistor between two pins, soldering two others to a pair of wires connected to a DIP switch, which was installed in a pre-existing hole in the back of the machine, then plugging the modified ROM back in its socket. The "hack" was reversible and did no damage. By flipping a switch on the machine's back panel, the user could switch from one layout to the other. This modification was entirely unofficial but was inadvertently demonstrated at the 1984 Comdex show, in Las Vegas, by an Apple employee whose mission was to demonstrate Apple Logo II. The employee had become accustomed to the Dvorak layout and brought the necessary parts to the show, installed them in a demo machine, then did his Logo demo. Viewers, curious that he always reached behind the machine before and after allowing other people to type, asked him about the modification. He spent as much time explaining the Dvorak keyboard as explaining Logo.^{[citation needed]}

Apple brought new interest to the Dvorak layout with the Apple IIc, which had a mechanical switch above the keyboard whereby the user could switch back and forth between the QWERTY layout and the Dvorak layout: this was the most official version of the IIe Dvorak mod. The IIc Dvorak layout was even mentioned in 1984 ads, which stated that the World's Fastest Typist, Barbara Blackburn, had set a record on an Apple IIc with the Dvorak layout.

The Dvorak layout was also selectable using the built-in control panel applet on the Apple IIGS.

Apple III

The Apple III used a keyboard-layout file loaded from a floppy disk: the standard system-software package included QWERTY and Dvorak layout files. Changing layouts required restarting the machine.

Apple Lisa

The Apple Lisa did not support the Dvorak keyboard mapping, though it was purportedly available through undocumented interfaces.

Mac OS

iBook with alpha and punctuation keys manually rearranged to the Dvorak layout

In its early days, the Macintosh could be converted to the Dvorak layout by making changes to the "System" file: this was not easily reversible and required restarting the machine. This modification was highly unofficial, but it was comparable to many other user-modifications and customizations that Mac users made. Using the "resource editor", ResEdit, users could create keyboard layouts, icons, and other useful items. A few years later, a third-party developer offered a utility program called MacKeymeleon, which put a menu on the menu bar that allowed on-the-fly switching of keyboard layouts. Eventually, Apple Macintosh engineers built the functionality of this utility into the standard System Software, along with a few layouts: QWERTY, Dvorak, French (AZERTY), and other foreign-language layouts.

2010 Apple Wireless Keyboard in Dvorak Layout

Since about 1998, beginning with Mac OS 8.6, Apple has included the Dvorak layout. It can be activated with the Keyboard Control Panel and selecting "Dvorak". The setting is applied once the Control Panel is closed out. Keyboard layouts can be switched back and forth by firmly pressing ⌘ + Space or ⌘ + Option + Space. Apple also includes a Dvorak variant they call "Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘". With this layout, the keyboard temporarily becomes QWERTY when the Command (⌘/Apple) key is held down. By keeping familiar keyboard shortcuts like "close" or "copy" on the same keys as ordinary QWERTY, this lets some people use their well-practiced muscle memory and may make the transition easier. Mac OS and subsequently Mac OS X allows additional "on-the-fly" switching between layouts: a menu-bar icon (by default, a national flag that matches the current language, a 'DV' represents Dvorak and a 'DQ' represents Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘) brings up a drop-down menu, allowing the user to choose the desired layout. Subsequent keystrokes will reflect the choice, which can be reversed the same way.

Mobile phones and PDAs

A number of mobile phones today are built with either full QWERTY keyboards or software implementations of them on a touch screen. Sometimes the keyboard layout can be changed by means of a freeware third-party utility, such as Hacker's Keyboard for Android, AE Keyboard Mapper for Windows Mobile, or KeybLayout for Symbian OS.

The RIM BlackBerry lines support only QWERTY and its localized variants AZERTY and QWERTZ. Apple's iOS 4.0 supports external Dvorak keyboards. Google's Android OS touchscreen keyboard supports Dvorak and other nonstandard layouts natively as of version 4.1.

Comparison of the QWERTY and Dvorak layouts

Keyboard strokes

Touch typing requires a typist to rest their fingers in the home row (QWERTY row starting with "ASDF"). The more strokes there are in the home row, the less movement the fingers must do, thus allowing a typist to type faster, more accurately, and with less strain to the hand and fingers. Motion picture studies prove not only that typing is done fastest in the home row, but also typing is the slowest on the bottom row. If the fingers must move, it is easier to move them up to the top row (QWERTY row starting with "QWERTY") rather than down to the bottom row (QWERTY row starting with "ZXCV").

It is notable that the vast majority of the Dvorak layout's key strokes (70%) are done in the home row (the easiest row to type because the fingers rest there). In addition, the Dvorak layout requires the fewest strokes on the bottom row (the most difficult row to type). On the other hand, QWERTY requires typists to move their fingers to the top row for a majority of strokes and has only 32% of the strokes done in the home row.

Because the Dvorak layout concentrates the vast majority of key strokes to the home row, the Dvorak layout uses about 63% of the finger motion required by QWERTY, thus making the Dvorak layout more ergonomic. Because the Dvorak layout requires less finger motion from the typist compared to QWERTY, many users with repetitive strain injuries have reported that switching from QWERTY to Dvorak alleviated or even eliminated their repetitive strain injuries.

The typing loads between hands differs for each of the keyboard layouts. On QWERTY keyboards, 56% of the typing strokes are done by the left hand. As the left hand is weaker for the majority of people, the Dvorak keyboard puts the more often used keys on the right hand side, thereby having 56% of the typing strokes done by the right hand.

Awkward strokes

Awkward strokes are undesirable because they slow down typing, increase typing errors, and increase finger strain. Hurdling is an awkward stroke requiring a single finger to jump directly from one row, over the home row to another row (e.g., typing "minimum" (which often comes out as "minimun" or "mimimum") on the QWERTY keyboard). In the English language, there are about 1,200 words that require a hurdle on the QWERTY layout. In contrast, there is only a handful of words requiring a hurdle on the Dvorak layout and even fewer requiring a double hurdle.

Hand alternation

Alternating hands while typing is a desirable trait because while one hand is typing a letter, the other hand can get in position to type the next letter. Thus, a typist may fall into a steady rhythm and type quickly. However, when a string of letters is done with the same hand, the chances of stuttering are increased and a rhythm can be broken, thus decreasing speed and increasing errors and fatigue. The QWERTY layout has more than 3,000 words that are typed on the left hand alone and about 300 words that are typed on the right hand alone (the aforementioned word "minimum" is a right-hand-only word). In contrast, with the Dvorak layout, only a few words are typed using only the left hand and even fewer with the right hand. This is because a syllable requires at least one vowel, and all the vowels (and "y") fall on the left side of the keyboard.

Standard keyboard

QWERTY enjoys advantages over the Dvorak layout due to its position as the de facto standard keyboard:

• Keyboard shortcuts in most major operating systems, including Windows, are designed for QWERTY users and can be awkward for Dvorak users, such as Ctrl-C (Copy) and Ctrl-V (Paste). However this problem is addressed on Apple computers by the "Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘" setting, which temporarily changes the keyboard mapping to QWERTY when the command (⌘) key is held.
• Some public computers (such as in libraries) will not allow users to change the keyboard to the Dvorak layout
• Some standardized exams will not allow test takers to use the Dvorak layout (e.g. Graduate Record Examination)
• Games can prove nearly impossible to play with the default keyboard mapping, especially those which use W,A,S,D as controls.
• People who can touch type with a QWERTY keyboard may be less productive with alternative layouts even if these are closer to the optimum.

Controversy

Through its history the Dvorak layout and the benefits it claims have come under much scrutiny. Many claim that the experiments determining its superiority in terms of speed of typing are biased, with the most famous being conducted by Dvorak himself, and insufficiently rigorous. In 1956, a study with a sample of 10 people in each group conducted by the U.S. General Service Administration found Dvorak no more efficient than QWERTY. The study has been criticized as being unfairly biased in favor of the QWERTY control group.

Economists Stan Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis have written articles in the Journal of Law and Economics and Reason magazine where they reject Dvorak proponents' claims that the dominance of the QWERTY is due to market failure brought on by QWERTY's early adoption, writing, "[T]he evidence in the standard history of Qwerty versus Dvorak is flawed and incomplete. [..] The most dramatic claims are traceable to Dvorak himself, and the best-documented experiments, as well as recent ergonomic studies, suggest little or no advantage for the Dvorak keyboard."

Resistance to adoption

Although the Dvorak layout is the only other keyboard layout registered with ANSI and is provided with all major operating systems, attempts to convert universally to the Dvorak layout have not succeeded. The failure of the Dvorak layout to displace the QWERTY layout has been the subject of some studies.

In 1956, a General Services Administration study by Earle Strong, which included an experiment involving ten experienced government typists, concluded that the benefits of Dvorak training would never be able to justify its costs. The study was a large obstacle for the wide adoption of Dvorak for many firms and government agencies. One criticism of the experiment is that it did not involve any beginning typists; however, Liebowitz notes that it parallels the decision that a real firm or government agency would need to make: Is it worthwhile to retrain its present typists?

A discussion of the Dvorak layout is sometimes used as an exercise by management consultants to illustrate the difficulties of change. The Dvorak layout is often used in economics textbooks as a standard example of network effects.

One-handed versions

Left-handed Dvorak layout

Right-handed Dvorak layout

In the 1960s, Dvorak designed the left- and right-handed Dvorak layouts for touch-typing with only one hand. He tried to minimize the need to move the hand from side to side (lateral travel), as well as to minimize finger movement. Each layout has the hand resting near the center of the keyboard, rather than on one side.

Because the layouts require less hand movement than layouts designed for two hands, they can be more accessible to single-handed users. The layouts are also used by people with full use of two hands, who enjoy having one hand free while they type with the other.

The left-handed Dvorak and right-handed Dvorak keyboard layouts are mostly each other's mirror image, with the exception of some punctuation keys, some of the less-used letters, and the ‘wide keys’ (Enter, Shift, etc.). Dvorak arranged the parentheses ")(" on his left-handed keyboard, but some keyboards place them in the typical "()" reading order order. Illustrated here is Dvorak's original ")(" placement, above; it is the more widely-distributed layout, not least because it is the one that ships with Windows.

Other languages

The Svorak keyboard layout

Although DSK is implemented in many languages other than English, there are still potential issues. Every Dvorak implementation in other languages leaves the Roman characters in the same position as the English DSK. However, other (occidental) language orthographies can clearly have other typing needs for optimization (many are very different from English). Because Dvorak Simplified Keyboard was optimized for the statistical distribution of letters in English text, keyboards for other languages would likely have drastically different distributions of letter frequencies. Hence, non-QWERTY-derived keyboards for such languages would need a keyboard layout that might look quite different from the Dvorak layout for English.

An implementation for Swedish, known as Svorak, places the three extra Swedish vowels (å, ä and ö) on the leftmost three keys of the upper row, which correspond to punctuation symbols on the English Dvorak layout. These punctuation symbols are then juggled with other keys, and the Alt-Gr key is required to access some of them.

Another Swedish version, Svdvorak by Gunnar Parment, keeps the punctuation symbols as they were in the English version; the first extra vowel (å) is placed in the far left of the top row while the other two (ä and ö) are placed at the far left of the bottom row.

The Swedish variant that most closely resembles the American Dvorak layout is Thomas Lundqvist's sv_dvorak, which places å, ä and ö like Parment's layout, but keeps the American placement of most special characters.

The Norwegian implementation (known as "Norsk Dvorak") is similar to Parment's layout, with "æ" and "ø" replacing "ä" and "ö".

The Danish layout DanskDvorak is similar to the Norwegian.

An Icelandic Dvorak layout exists, created by a student at Reykjavik University. It retains the same basic layout as the standard Dvorak but features special Alt-Gr functions to allow easy usage for common characters such as "þ", "æ", "ö" and dead-keys to allow the writing of characters such as "å" and "ü".

A Finnish DAS keyboard layout follows many of Dvorak's design principles, but the layout is an original design based on the most common letters and letter combinations in the Finnish language. Matti Airas has also made another layout for Finnish. Finnish can also be typed reasonably well with the English Dvorak layout if the letters ä and ö are added. The Finnish ArkkuDvorak keyboard layout adds both on a single key and keeps the American placement for each other character. As with DAS, the SuoRak keyboard is designed by the same principles as the Dvorak keyboard, but with the most common letters of the Finnish language taken into account. Contrary to DAS, it keeps the vowels on the left side of the keyboard and most consonants on the right hand side.

The Turkish F keyboard layout (link) is also an original design with Dvorak's design principles, however it's not clear if it is inspired by Dvorak or not. Turkish F keyboard was standardized in 1955 and the layout has been a requirement for imported typewriters since 1963.

There are some non standard Brazilian Dvorak keyboard layouts currently in development. The simpler design (also called BRDK) is just a Dvorak layout plus some keys from the Brazilian ABNT2 keyboard layout. Another design, however, was specifically designed for writing Brazilian Portuguese, by means of a study that optimized typing statistics, like frequent letters, trigraphs and words.

The most common German Dvorak layout is the German Type II layout. It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. There is also the Neo layout and the de ergo layout, both original layouts that also follow many of Dvorak's design principles. Because of the similarity of both languages, even the standard Dvorak layout (with minor modifications) is an ergonomic improvement over the common QWERTZ layout. One such modification puts ß at the shift+comma position and the umlaut dots as a dead key accessible via shift+period (standard German keyboards have a separate less/greater key to the right of the left shift key).

Dvorak, with a French BÉPO layout

For French, there is a Dvorak layout and the Bépo layout, which is founded on Dvorak's method of analysing key frequency. Although Bépo's placement of keys is optimised for French, the scheme also facilitates key combinations for typing characters of other European languages, Esperanto and various symbols.

Three Spanish layouts exist and an Esperanto version has been proposed.

A Greek version of the Dvorak layout was released on Saint Valentine's Day 2007. This layout, unlike other Greek Dvorak layouts, preserves the spirit of Dvorak wherein the vowel keys are all placed on the left side of the keyboard. Currently this version is for Mac OS X.

An Italian Mac layout, optimized for this language and with all the accented vowels on the left, is being developed by Paolo Tramannoni. Several PC versions, consisting in the original layout with accented vowels added, are also being developed.

A Romanian version of the Dvorak layout was released in October 2008. It is available for both Windows and Linux.

United Kingdom (British) layouts

Whether Dvorak or QWERTY, a United Kingdom (British) keyboard differs from the U.S. equivalent in these ways: the " and @ are swapped; the backslash/pipe [\ |] key is in an extra position (to the right of the lower left shift key); there is a taller return/enter key, which places the hash/tilde [# ~] key to its lower left corner (see picture).

The most notable difference between the U.S. and UK Dvorak layouts is the [2 "] key remains on the top row, whereas the U.S. [' "] key moves. This means that the query [/ ?] key retains its classic Dvorak location, top left, albeit shifted.

Interchanging the [/ ?] and [' @] keys more closely matches the U.S. layout, and the use of "@" has increased in the information technology age. These variations, plus keeping the numerals in Dvorak's idealised order, appear in the Classic Dvorak and Dvorak for the Left Hand and Right Hand varieties.

Notable users

• Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth novels, often wrote in the 1980s author's notes in the books about how his Dvorak use prevented him from converting to a word processor. This was made even more difficult because he uses an alternative Dvorak layout (swapping the hyphen and apostrophe keys – the apostrophe key on his keyboard is where the hyphen key is on a standard U.S. keyboard (and vice-versa).
• Barbara Blackburn, world typing speed record holder
• Bram Cohen, inventor of BitTorrent
• Terry Goodkind, author of The Sword of Truth
• Holly Lisle, American author
• Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress
• Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO of Microsoft
• Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc.

See also

• Dvorak encoding
• Keyboard layout
• Kinesis contoured keyboard
• Maltron keyboard
• Path dependence
• TypeMatrix keyboard
• Velotype

External links

• DvZine.org – A print and webcomic zine advocating the Dvorak Keyboard and teaching its history.
• A Basic Course in Dvorak – by Dan Wood
• Dvorak your way with by Dan Wood and Marcus Hayward
• LinkedIn group of Dvorak users
• Dvorak vs Qwerty – Online tool that compares the efficiency of the Dvorak layout and the standard Qwerty layout.
• [4] – Comparison of common optimal keyboard layouts, including Dvorak.