QWERTY
QWERTY, (pronounced ) is the most common modern-day
keyboard layout on
English language computer and
typewriter keyboards. It takes its name from the first six
letters seen in the keyboard's top first row of letters. The QWERTY design was
patented by
Christopher Sholes in
1868 and sold to
Remington in
1873, when it first appeared in
typewriters.
Frequently used pairs of letters were separated in an attempt to stop the
typebars from intertwining and becoming stuck, thus forcing the typist to manually unstick the typebars and also frequently blotting the document[
1]. The
home row (ASDFGHJKL) of the QWERTY layout is thought to be a remnant of the old alphabetical layout that QWERTY replaced. QWERTY also attempted to alternate keys between
hands, allowing one hand to move into position while the other hand strikes home a key. This sped up both the original double-handed
hunt-and-peck technique and the later
touch typing technique; however, single-handed words such as
stewardesses and
monopoly show flaws in the alternation.
Minor changes to the arrangement are made for other languages; for example,
German keyboards add
umlauts to the right of "P" and "L", and interchange the "Z" and "Y" keys both because "Z" is a much more common letter than "Y" in German (the letter seldom appearing except in borrowed words), and because "T" and "Z" often appear next to each other in the
German language; consequently, they are known as
QWERTZ keyboards. French keyboards interchange both "Q" and "W" with "A" and "Z", and move "M" to the right of "L"; they are known as
AZERTY keyboards. Italian typewriter keyboards (but not most computer keyboards) use a
QZERTY layout where "Z" is swapped with "W" and "M" is at the right of "L".
Portuguese keyboards maintain the QWERTY layout but add an extra key: the letter "C" with
cedilla (
Ç) after the "L" key. In this place, the
Spanish version has the letter "N" with
tilde (
Ñ) and the "Ç" (which is not used in Spanish, but is part of sibling languages like
French,
Portuguese and
Catalan) is placed at the rightmost position of the home line, beyond the
diacritical dead keys.Norwegian keyboards inserts "
Å" to the right of "P", "
Ø" to the right of "L", and "
Æ" to the right of "Ø", thus not changing the appearance of the rest of the keyboard. The
Danish layout is like the
Norwegian, only switching "
Æ" and "
Ø", and
Swedish has their
umlaut letters "
Ä" and "
Ö" in those places. Some keyboards for
Lithuanian used a layout known as ĄŽERTY, where "
Ą" appears in place of "Q" above "A",
Ž in place of "W" above "S", with "Q" and "W" being available either on the far right-hand side or by use of the
Alt Gr key.
Because modern keyboards do not suffer from the problems of older mechanical keyboards, the QWERTY layout's separation of frequently used letter pairs is no longer strictly necessary. Several alternative keyboard layouts, such as
Dvorak Simplified Keyboard arrangement (designed by Drs.
August Dvorak and William Dealey and patented in
1936), have been designed to increase a typist's speed and comfort, largely by moving the most common letters to the home row and maximizing hand alternation. The effectiveness of these layouts is disputed. Some studies [
2] have shown that alternative methods are more efficient, but Dvorak and other alternative typists most often cite comfort as the greatest advantage. QWERTY's inventor, Christopher Scholes, patented a key arrangement similar to Dvorak's, but it never became popular.
Some researchers, such as economists Stan Liebowitz at the
University of Texas at
Dallas, Texas, and Stephen E. Margolis of
North Carolina State University, claim that QWERTY is really no less efficient than other layouts. Some believe that there is evidence to support the claim that DVORAK is faster. The world record for typing speed was made on a DVORAK keyboard. Opponents point out that August Dvorak stood to gain from the success of his layout, and that he may have perpetuated his "efficiency myth" to increase his financial gains. Other QWERTY advocates claim that for a QWERTY typist to switch to Dvorak or another layout requires more effort than initially learning to
touch-type, because of having to retrain the
fingers'
muscle memory. Computer users also need to unlearn the habit of pressing key shortcuts (for example: Ctrl-C for copy, Ctrl-X for cut, Ctrl-V for paste, on
Microsoft Windows), though some programs and operating systems allow the use of alternate layouts combined with QWERTY shortcuts.
Opponents of alternative keyboard designs most often point to QWERTY's ubiquity as a deciding factor, because the costs incurred by using the supposedly inefficient layout are much less than those of retraining typists. It is not unusual to find Dvorak typists who also touch-type the QWERTY layout for convenience, since QWERTY dominates the keyboard market. The tension between the Dvorak efficiency and the QWERTY ubiquity illustrates the problem of
collective switching costs, assuming QWERTY's relative inefficiency.
Besides the Dvorak layout, there are many other newer
alternative keyboard layouts, but those layouts have not gained widespread use.
* The longest common
English word that can be typed using only the left hand (using conventional hand placement) is
stewardesses. The words
sweaterdresses and
aftercataracts are longer and can also be typed with only the left hand, but they are not in all
dictionaries.
* The longest
English word that can be typed with the right hand only (using conventional hand placement) is
johnny-jump-up, or alternatively
polyphony.
* The word
typewriter can be typed entirely using the top row of the QWERTY keyboard; it has been speculated that this may have been a factor in the choice of keys for ease of demonstration, although this is unlikely.
* Long
English words that can be typed with the keys of one row only include
typewriter and
rupturewort.
* The word Qwerty is used as a codename for illegal pornography on the internet.
* The average person is expected to type 30-40
words per minute using the
touch typing technique on a QWERTY keyboard. 40-50 words per minute is considered excellent, and some have been clocked at over 90 words per minute.
* In the video series
Veggie Tales the computer used to look up Bible verses is named Qwerty.
* There is a
Pogo.com Club Pogo-Exclusive online word game called "QWERTY" similar to
Scrabble. As it uses a Q but not a u, 'qwerty' is a popular word in Scrabble and similar word games.\
*On the Sonic Summer Set list alternative powerhouse rockband
Linkin Park is said to play a new song called "Qwerty". However that is not the proper name it was mearly the japanese characters in English.
*
Keyboard layout*
Dvorak Simplified Keyboard*
Colemak*
Ergonomics*
Fitts' law*
Path dependence*
Blickensderfer typewriter*
ASDF (sequence of letters)*
WASD*
Typing*
Article on QWERTY and Path Dependence from EH.NET's Encyclopedia*
Dvorak vs QWERTY Tool A tool to compare the efficiency of
Dvorak, QWERTY and
Colemak*
The Curse of Qwerty by Jared Diamond.
*
The Fable of the Keys Refutes
The Curse of Qwerty**
Article disputing the validity of The Fable of the Keys*
The QWERTY myth*
The QWERTY Connection, historical information*
Introducing the Dvorak Keyboard*
A study on the theoretical efficiency of keyboard layouts*
Typewriter Words*
"Why QWERTY was Invented"*
Where Once was a Comma Designer Artemy Lebedev's take on keyboard layout and the history of QWERTY
