What is Dvorak?
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is an alternative keyboard layout, designed by Dr. August Dvorak and his team as an improvement over the QWERTY keyboard layout.
Why was it made?
While researching the QWERTY layout, Dvorak’s team determined that the placement of the keys hindered comfort and speed. Many letter combinations require awkward hand movements, some common words are entirely typed with the left hand, more than half of all letters typed are on the top row, etc.
Dvorak and his team wanted to reduce the overall distance that fingers had to move to type, while also improving comfort. They ultimately accomplished this by placing the most commonly used letters on the home row, the second most used keys on the top row, and the least most used keys on the bottom row. Additionally, the keys on each row were placed specifically to result in alternating each key between both hands.
Is it useful?
Absolutely! While claims about improved typing speed over the QWERTY layout is dubious, the vastly improved comfort of typing with a Dvorak layout is absolutely worth taking the time to learn — especially if you use a computer constantly at work or at home.
How do I use it?
All major operating systems and mobile devices have the option to use a Dvorak keyboard layout.
Note: I do not recommend the Dvorak layout for mobile devices if you like swipe typing. The alternating typing style of the Dvorak layout makes it uncomfortable to swipe words with a single thumb.
How can I get good at it?
I highly recommend quitting QWERTY cold turkey and committing yourself 100% to using Dvorak. It will feel a lot like trying to write with your non-dominant hand at first, but if you stick with it you’ll begin to get back up to speed in only a few weeks. The most important thing is that you practice!
The easiest way to practice is to find something fun to do that’ll make learning the Dvorak layout enjoyable. For example: commenting on social media forums, writing in a blog, typing pangrams as fast as possible (ex. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”), playing typing based video games (ex. “Typing of the Dead”), etc.