My typing was really slow on qwerty to begin with and I found it super awkward when trying to learn it. I really did try but gave up multiple times.
One day I just decided enough was enough and wanted to start from scratch. I added stickers to all my keys for dworark and used a training program (cannot remember what, but it was old school and worked great going step by step) and during my summer vacation one year I just sat in my hammock relaxing and just kept training with the program. After two weeks I was fast enough to write to friends in chats without it taking ages (still slow af.) after about a month I was faster than qwerty and have never looked back since. Dvoark is for me much more comfortable and intuitive for my fingers. Linux has exelent support for dvoark out of the box. Windows not so much for other than english.
Dont bother changing your smart phone keyboard too. It has 0% transferable skills or benefits and just so confusing.
Dont bother changing your smart phone keyboard too. It has 0% transferable skills or benefits and just so confusing.
How so? When I switched from QWERTY to Colemak, I felt like having the ability to switch my phone keyboard as well really helped ease the transition. Having different layouts in different places just seems like it would be confusing.
10 finger touch typing without looking at the keyboard which is what I did, is very different from using two fat thumbs on a phone where you are forced to look (at least for me) in order to have any chance of hitting the right keys. On a PC I never look at the keys because they are qwerty anyway. I just use a software setting in my OS to change it to Dvorak so I must be able to type without looking. On a keyboard my fingers just know what to push intuitively so I only need to think of a letter or word and my fingers just types it from muscle memory. This is what I mean when I say 0% transferable skills because the same muscle memory does not work on a phone anyway.
It may not involve 1:1 muscle movements, but it still helps. Having those rough key positions in mind helps both ways. Even using a Svalboard, which is even further from a traditional keyboard, I felt that using a Colemak keyboard on my phone still helped me learn Colemak on my Svalboard.
Fair enough. If or works for you. Colemark is also more similar to qwerty so maybe the experience is different. Tbh. I actually like qwerty for phone use because the most used lettered are spread out making words more destinct. But writing on a phone is always annoying to me.
Basically I learned to completely touch type without looking at the keyboard so the stickers were just there for training and as they wore out over the following months I basically didn’t need them ever again. Numbers and symbols stay in place except a few where the Danish æøå are placed but I just memorized those…
I just use a standard keyboard and have a shortcut to change between normal qwerty and dvoark.
Qwerty is just for whenever someone needs to borrow my PC for a while. I can still write qwerty in a pinch but it’s as slow/fast as its always been and I have to look at the keyboard while typing.
I still need to look at the keyboard while typing some things. Text is fine, symbols and accents not so much. Especially because I switched layouts recently so i’m still getting used to it.
I’d say if you are bothered to change and already working on it my best tip is to commit and learn touch typing correctly with fingeres on the home row and train the muscle memory. If you don’t, then I’d say there’s no real reason to learn Dvorak. The benefits only really shine when touch typing.
BTW for symbols I also Still have to look, but they never moved so even with qwerty layout visible I can just look ans find what I need. If you are using US Dvorak layout I’d highly recommend investigating if you can find and install a layout for your native language leaving the symbols alone makes things much easier
What’s the learning curve like to switch keyboard layouts. I had enough problems switching from English (US) QWERTY to Spanish (ES?) QWERTY.
My typing was really slow on qwerty to begin with and I found it super awkward when trying to learn it. I really did try but gave up multiple times.
One day I just decided enough was enough and wanted to start from scratch. I added stickers to all my keys for dworark and used a training program (cannot remember what, but it was old school and worked great going step by step) and during my summer vacation one year I just sat in my hammock relaxing and just kept training with the program. After two weeks I was fast enough to write to friends in chats without it taking ages (still slow af.) after about a month I was faster than qwerty and have never looked back since. Dvoark is for me much more comfortable and intuitive for my fingers. Linux has exelent support for dvoark out of the box. Windows not so much for other than english.
Dont bother changing your smart phone keyboard too. It has 0% transferable skills or benefits and just so confusing.
How so? When I switched from QWERTY to Colemak, I felt like having the ability to switch my phone keyboard as well really helped ease the transition. Having different layouts in different places just seems like it would be confusing.
10 finger touch typing without looking at the keyboard which is what I did, is very different from using two fat thumbs on a phone where you are forced to look (at least for me) in order to have any chance of hitting the right keys. On a PC I never look at the keys because they are qwerty anyway. I just use a software setting in my OS to change it to Dvorak so I must be able to type without looking. On a keyboard my fingers just know what to push intuitively so I only need to think of a letter or word and my fingers just types it from muscle memory. This is what I mean when I say 0% transferable skills because the same muscle memory does not work on a phone anyway.
It may not involve 1:1 muscle movements, but it still helps. Having those rough key positions in mind helps both ways. Even using a Svalboard, which is even further from a traditional keyboard, I felt that using a Colemak keyboard on my phone still helped me learn Colemak on my Svalboard.
Fair enough. If or works for you. Colemark is also more similar to qwerty so maybe the experience is different. Tbh. I actually like qwerty for phone use because the most used lettered are spread out making words more destinct. But writing on a phone is always annoying to me.
Is your current keyboard a dvorak? I mean did it come that way from the factory or did you have to modify it?
Basically I learned to completely touch type without looking at the keyboard so the stickers were just there for training and as they wore out over the following months I basically didn’t need them ever again. Numbers and symbols stay in place except a few where the Danish æøå are placed but I just memorized those…
I just use a standard keyboard and have a shortcut to change between normal qwerty and dvoark. Qwerty is just for whenever someone needs to borrow my PC for a while. I can still write qwerty in a pinch but it’s as slow/fast as its always been and I have to look at the keyboard while typing.
I still need to look at the keyboard while typing some things. Text is fine, symbols and accents not so much. Especially because I switched layouts recently so i’m still getting used to it.
I’d say if you are bothered to change and already working on it my best tip is to commit and learn touch typing correctly with fingeres on the home row and train the muscle memory. If you don’t, then I’d say there’s no real reason to learn Dvorak. The benefits only really shine when touch typing. BTW for symbols I also Still have to look, but they never moved so even with qwerty layout visible I can just look ans find what I need. If you are using US Dvorak layout I’d highly recommend investigating if you can find and install a layout for your native language leaving the symbols alone makes things much easier
They said
That sounds like it was a standard QWERTY or something and they just used stickers to make it Dvorak.