ATMac

Several years ago, I was having significant trouble with wrist and hand pain so I taught myself to use the Dvorak keyboard layout for touch typing. It was frustrating to do, but paid off handsomely in the end. I also switched from using an ordinary keyboard to using the Kinesis Advantage ergonomic keyboard which offers Dvorak built in, but you can use the Dvorak layout without getting a new keyboard or spending any money.

This is what the Dvorak keyboard layout looks like:

It looks strange to those who are only used to a QWERTY keyboard, but if you’re an English user the Dvorak layout in more logical. The keys used most commonly in English are, in order, E T A O I N. The Dvorak layout puts them much closer to where your fingers rest on the home keys so less finger movement is required. I don’t know the exact statistics but you can generally type more text with less finger movement on a Dvorak keyboard than the equivalent QWERTY keyboard. Dvorak won’t be very helpful if you use “hunt and peck” typing - its benefits are really only for touch typing.

So how can you try this without shelling out money for a physical Dvorak keyboard? The answer is built right into OS X! Open “System Preferences” and select the “International” icon on the top row. Then open the “Input Menu” pane on the right.

If you scroll down the list, you’ll find that “Dvorak” is actually listed as a language! Tick the box in the left column of that row, and also tick the box down the bottom labeled “Show Input In Menu Bar”. You should see a tiny flag pop up on the right side of your menu bar as you tick it - it’ll probably be the flag of your country.

Now don’t panic - your keyboard isn’t typing in Dvorak yet! To start using the Dvorak layout, click on the flag in your menu bar and then on the Dvorak line. You can easily go back to your usual keyboard layout by clicking on the flag again (it’ll be showing the DV Dvorak “flag” now) and selecting your original language.

As for how to learn to use this new layout, there are a few typing tutors available which understand the Dvorak layout - Powertyping Online Dvorak Typing Tutor is great for using right from your web browser, and the multilingual aTypeTrainer4Mac can be used to train in Dvorak.

Something else that helped me greatly when I was learning was printing out a picture of the keyboard layout, colour-coding it to show which finger hits which keys, and attaching it to the top of the monitor so I could see it easily - that way I learned to look up to check my finger placement rather than looking down at the keyboard and my fingers. Dvorak is a layout designed for touch-typing without watching your fingers, so this helps you get into good habits.

The first month I was learning to type again was insanely frustrating! I couldn’t do as much, I couldn’t do anything without thinking about each letter, and I couldn’t do anything fast. My technique was to set my computer to start up in Dvorak mode and I would use that layout until I couldn’t stand it any more and then switch back to QWERTY for the rest of the day. Gradually the time until frustration meltdown lengthened and by the end of a month I could get to lunch time before my frustration boiled over. At that point I decided that using QWERTY was just making it harder for me to learn and I have used Dvorak full time ever since.

I suggest reading through these web resources for more hints and tips:

• Sean Bourke’s Tips On Learning Dvorak

• M W Brooks’ Introducing the Dvorak Keyboard
• Chimoosoft has a great page on the Dvorak Keyboard Layout including Mac OS X relevant resources. They list a few programs known to give problems with Dvorak layouts but I don’t use any of them so I can’t comment on their accuracy.

Best of luck!

- Ricky Buchanan, ATMac