More DVORAK
Tuesday, January 25th, 2005
Coincidence has it that after my post on the DVORAK keyboard layout (sorry, can’t link to it. BBcode is broken), a discussion about the same topic has now emerged on slashdot. I’ll quote some of the more interesting posts: (some contents stripped)
Ironically, QWERTY was actually designed to slow down the typist to prevent jamming the keys, and we’ve been stuck with that layout since.
All the “evidence” to support that theory comes from a single paper (all three links point to it). If you are will to read a reasoned rebuttal to it then read this.
Short version. The two authors are economists who don’t know crap about typing. Dvorak wrote a 500 page book about just typing of which only a small part was about his alternative keyboard. So, believe the suits or believe somebody who actually knows what he’s talking about.
In reply to the post about the rebutal. I don’t really find the rebutal all that reasonable. First of all, it’s highly unscientific and reads more as a rant than any really thought-out rebutal. (much like this post) I mean, with captions like this “Claim: Dr. Dvorak Was a Mercenary Huckster”, who will take you seriously?
The rebutal tries to smoothen out the bumps that the “fabel” artcile has made in the claim that DVORAK is superiour. For instance:
The “Fable” article takes a direct swipe at Dvorak’s motives; pointedly mentioning that he owned the patent for his keyboard, and, in the same breath, that he received at least $130,000 for “studies.” The clear implication is that Dvorak was out for profit and used grant money for his marketing R&D.
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What about Dvorak’s patent? The article’s authors might like us to think anybody who holds a patent is a fraud. I doubt it. The article doesn’t mention that Dvorak sank a good deal of his own money into building Dvorak typewriters (Cassingham). On the face of it, that does show vested interest, but it also shows that Dvorak believed in his invention!
So what? He may or may not have been after monetary gains, who cares? That’s not the point of the “Fable” article, it’s a mere example. The point is that there is no scientific evidence of DVORAK’s superiority other than the studies done by Dvorak himself, and those were biased. You can’t change the facts. Maybe Dvorak actually is a better layout (whatever that means), but it’ll have to be proven by independant back-up studies, not by perpetuating a myth for which there is no evidence. The rebutal article contains tons of this kind of flawed reasoning.
Really, some people just don’t seem to understand how science works.
The Fable article does not attack the superiority of DVORAK. It attacks the methods with which that fact was established.
My oppinion on the whole matter is quite easy: I don’t care if QWERTY is better or worse than DVORAK. Really, if you can point out some good evidence of the fact that either one is better, I’ll probably agree. (don’t forget to define ‘better’). However, do not keep perpetuating myths just because you heard someone else claim DVORAK was faster.