The keyboard layout project

Re:The keyboard layout project by dsego on Sunday October 28, 2012 @11:38AM (#4709155)

How about this - The Workman Keyboard Layout http://viralintrospection.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/a-differe...

But the layout is just one of the problems. The key staggering is also not very ergonomic. There are two cool keyboards featuring symmetric key positioning:

- Truly ergonomic keyboard http://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/index.php

- Type matrix http://typematrix.com

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Re:The keyboard layout project by mifrai on Sunday October 28, 2012 @02:50PM (#4709628)

I personally don't suggest the truly ergonomic. While it's well designed from the outset, the underpinnings are a bit lacking. The existing firmware is buggy and has issues with Mac; and the programmable software has been promised for a while now but was never delivered. To boot, the company's support is nearly non-existent, except for - thankfully - their return process.

As mentioned by gokfar, I really look forward to the ergodox group buy

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Re:The keyboard layout project by _kkcr on Sunday October 28, 2012 @12:03PM (#4709214)

- ErgoDox: split, non-staggered, programmable, mechanical, all-around awesome. http://ergodox.org/

It should roll around before the end of the year, group buy happens at http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=22780.0

As for layout, I suggest Colemak with a custom alt layer such as http://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?pid=5001#p5001

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Re:The keyboard layout project by MTGandP on Sunday October 28, 2012 @03:36PM (#4709749)

Author of The Keyboard Layout Project here. I'm familiar with Workman; it's a reasonably strong attempt, but I think it has a number of problems and fails to perform as well as Colemak or my own layouts.

If you compare Workman and MTGAP 3.14 (shown [here](http://mathematicalmulticore.wordpress.com/the-keyboard-layo...) using [my keyboard evaluator](https://github.com/MTGandP/Typing), MTGAP 3.14 performs better on every single statistic except finger work. (You can see all of the different statistics explained on [my GitHub page](https://github.com/MTGandP/Typing/blob/master/Fitness). I didn't post them all here because it takes up too much space, but if you want, you can pull the program and to the comparison yourself.)

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Re:The keyboard layout project by mistercow on Sunday October 28, 2012 @11:51AM (#4709195)

Out of curiosity, do you have any references to support non-staggered keys are superior? I ask because (100 - ε)% of claims about ergonomics are completely unsupported by scientific research.

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Re:The keyboard layout project by dsego on Sunday October 28, 2012 @03:05PM (#4709666)

Not really. But you can take a look at Maltron keyboards, which are non-staggered and also curved. From what I can find on the web it seems that they have done some research.

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Re:The keyboard layout project by MTGandP on Sunday October 28, 2012 @03:41PM (#4709759)

The [Kinesis](http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/) Advantage is a cheaper alternative to Maltron that follows the same design pattern. It's the keyboard I use, and it's definitely more comfortable than a typical staggered keyboard, or even a simpler ergonomic keyboard.

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Re:The keyboard layout project by blackRust on Sunday October 28, 2012 @01:03PM (#4709372)

(100 - ε)%

I like this very much. Another more accurate description that comes to mind is describing where you live: CountryA XOR CountryB

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