oozey mess
Claire Keane
macklin celebrini has autism
YOU ARE THE REASON
Jules of Nature
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Kiana Khansmith
Origami Around
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Janaina Medeiros
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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ellievsbear
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almost home
will byers stan first human second
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shark vs the universe
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@peaceoutqwerty
Scrabble tile point values are based on the frequency with which the letters appear in the English language. When arranged on the keyboard, you can really get a feel for the two keyboard's design: the randomness of QWERTY and intentionality of Dvorak.
Keyboard Conquered.
I've made it through all the tutorials (finally), and I am now fully acquainted with the Dvorak layout. Now, for some immersion time.
Peace out QWERTY.
(This is my first post typed completely in Dvorak!!!)
QWERTY/Dvorak Poetry Remix
Created with the help of random numbers and this awesome tool.
Keyboard Quiz
So I wanted to test myself on how well I knew the two different keyboard layouts after I realized how bad my mental map of the QWERTY layout was. So I drew out two blank keyboards and attempted to fill both of them in from memory. Below are the results!
Black letters are the ones whose locations I knew explicitly.
Gray letters are ones I had to mock type to figure out where they were.
Red keys are ones that I got wrong.
It's really crazy that I don't know explicitly where many of the keys on the QWERTY keyboard are located, but that I can type words and my fingers know where to go automatically. This is totally different from my experience in learning Dvorak. My mental keyboard map for this new layout is really strong. (Oh, and I bet you tell which lesson I've made it through by the keys that I have filled in...)
More Impressions
So I've done more typing lessons, and I've now made it through Lesson 8. It feels like I'm making progress! Here are some more reflections on things that I have noticed while doing my learning/unlearning:
It seems like I have a rhythm and movement pattern that I associate with different words or letter patterns in QWERTY. This rhythm and sense of motion pops up automatically in my mind when I am typing certain letter combinations, but I've never realized this before I started trying to type those same letter combinations in Dvorak. For example, the ending "-uous" has a very distinct rhythm connected to it in my head, as well as a definite sense of a right to left movement pattern. This rhythm corresponds to the way that I typically hit these keys while typing in QWERTY, and this movement corresponds to the location of the keys in this pattern. HOWEVER, in Dvorak this pattern is totally backwards. Check it out:
Hence, when I encountered this letter combination in Dvorak it felt SO TOTALLY AWKWARD and like my rhythm was completely off (which is quite a strange feeling). I wonder if other people have these typing rhythms/movements in their heads...
It's really hard to force myself not to look down. But I'm giving it my best effort. I've noticed that because I'm not looking down, I'm developing a really good mental map of the Dvorak keyboard. I could definitely draw out for you where the keys that I have learned thus far are located. But thinking about this made me realize that I have a HORRIBLE mental map of the QWERTY keyboard. I can type without looking at my hands in QWERTY, but I don't think I could draw you an accurate picture of it's layout. Weird? It's like my brain just automatically knows where to make my fingers go to type the words that I want in QWERTY, but I don't have conscious access to that information. I think I'm going to try to test myself on this...coming soon.
Some Initial Reflections
So I started learning to type Dvorak today. I made it through Lesson 5, and I can now type (slowly) with the keys on the home row.
Here's what I thought about it:
I realized that I never use the right Shift key when I type in QWERTY. I’ve had my computer for three months now, and it is very likely that today was the first day I actually pressed the right Shift key. In my QWERTY typing, when I want a capital ‘A’, I use my pinky for shift and my ring finger for the ‘a’ (and my entire left hand moves to the left). But in learning the Dvorak layout, I have really been focusing on keeping my fingers on the home row. So, leaving my index and middle fingers in place makes the pinky/ring-finger jump much more difficult and awkward. Hence, my first attempts to properly use the right Shift key (which also felt incredibly awkward).
From my observation in (1), I also came to realize that I do not use the proper typing technique for QWERTY. I never had enough keyboarding class to have a real impact on my typing skills, so my personal QWERTY typing style emerged from me looking at the keys while typing and eventually getting good enough at this that I didn’t need to look down anymore.
When working through the real word phrase/sentence tutorials, I found myself having to concentrate a lot on my mental map of the keys. It was very hard to resist the urge to look down when frustrated. I ended up saying the words out loud, very slowly, and I typed the words along with my speaking them. I think this helped me to maintain my attention on my mental key map and to not get distracted (which was happening quite often before I starting talking to myself). After I spend about an hour on these tutorials, I felt very mentally drained.
Overall, I felt very helpless. Once I closed out of the tutor website, I attempted to navigate to this blog without switching my keyboard back to QWERTY, and it was a big struggle. I felt like my computer was totally useless to me, which is a really bizarre and slightly terrifying feeling. It made me appreciate (in a way that I’ve never really experienced before) how very dependent I am on my computer.
I typed this post in QWERTY, and man, was it a relief.
my keyboard transformation
I've been using this typing tutor as a way to start learning Dvorak. Thus far I've made it through Lesson 5, meaning I can type using the home row!
A reflection on this experience to come.
The most concise and entertaining explanation of QWERTY and Dvorak I've found.
Read it. It's funny and informative!
Free and easy online typing test to time how fast you type. Features random word, short story, and custom text options as well as 30 seconds, 1, and 5 minute tests.
I averaged about 58 words per minute in QWERTY. Here is one of the typing test sites that I used.
There is a tendency for the first usable, but still primitive, product of a new technology to dig itself in. I have called this phenomenon the QWERTY phenomenon.
Seymour Papert, Mindstorms, Chapter 1, page 32
The Gist of it All
I will be teaching myself the Dvorak keyboard.
This is something that I have always wanted to do, and I was recently re-inspired to start this process by a passage from Seymour Papert's Mindstorms.
I will be documenting my progress, struggles, and reflections here.
Hopefully, it will be an interesting ride.