HENOCH TANG L6F
The History & Progression of Keyboard Layouts
Introduction
The standard keyboard layout (likely the one attached to the computed displaying this article should say):
Q W E R T Y U I O P
A S D F G H J K L ;
Z X C V B N M , . /
This is known as the QWERTY keyboard layout, and It is the default layout on every English computer. However, have you ever stopped and considered why the keys are positioned like that?
The true answer is that the QWERTY layout aims to solve a problem that is no longer present. The QWERTY layout, created by Christopher Sholes, was created for the typewriter in the 1880s. The QWERTY layout aimed to solve the problem of integrating typing into the 1880s. The layout was based on a modified version of an older layout, which had the letters organised alphabetically (traces of it are still visible in the homerow of QWERTY), and although the true reasons for Sholes’ changes are not exactly clear, Sholes successfully made QWERTY not too awful to type on, allowing him to sell his typewriter with much success. Thus every computer nowadays uses QWERTY because Sholes' typewriter was the most successful in the market, and the layout stuck ever since.
However, some people believe that they shouldn't settle for what history has forced upon them, and have decided to take it upon themselves to make and learn better layouts for comfort. These are AKLs (Alternate keyboard layouts), and this article will provide an entry point to the history and progression of keyboard layouts.
Chapter 0: Definitions
Firstly, definitions for keyboard layouts are required. To put all layouts on a level playing field, it will be assumed that all layouts use the same fingering method (unless specified), where it resembles:
0 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 7
0 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 7
0 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 7
LP LR LM LI RI RM RR RP
Where L means left and R means right, and PRMI refers to the pinky, ring, middle and index fingers. This is known as standard homerow touch-typing and it is widely considered the best way to type. Furthermore, most people find the index and middle fingers to be the strongest. Later we will see how the ideas of finger strength and letter frequency are not necessarily compatible with QWERTY.
It will also be assumed that we are typing on a keyboard, not a typewriter. The importance of this seemingly obvious assumption will become important later.
With the definitions done, we can start, all the way from the 1930s.
Chapter 1: Dvorak
What makes a good layout? For the early users of the typewriter, this was a layout that avoided mechanical failures - typewriters, being mechanical devices, are prone to mechanical faults. This is in the form of 'jams', where the typebars next to each other are struck too fast one after another, leading to them getting stuck on each other.
Typists quickly realised what was causing these jams, and they were rolls. This is when keys right next to each other are pressed in quick succession (e.g. 'rew' in QWERTY). In contrast, jams were much less frequent when you hit keys on opposite sides of the keyboard (e.g. 'ale'), and these are known as alternations (alts).
Not only were there not enough alternations for Dvorak’s liking, but QWERTY's abundance of words typed using only one hand was seen as uncomfortable (especially because you had to strike the keys quite hard on a typewriter). This meant he had to make his layout.
To make his layout he turned to frequency analysis - the measurement of the frequency of all letters in English. Here is the letters in English, in order of descending frequency:
e t a o i n s r h l d c u m f p g w y b v k x j q z (Norvig)
To improve comfort for typists using the standard homerow technique, he put the common letters on the homerow. To further increase alternation, he put all vowels on one hand and consonants on the other. This is because English syllables are often formed by combining consonants and vowels consecutively and alternatingly. Ultimately, he arrives at the layout:
' , . P Y F G C R L
A O E U I D H T N S
; Q J K X B M W V Z
Alt: 44.556% Roll: 38.924%
Homekey usage: 56.70%
Comparing with QWERTY:
Alt: 19.650% Roll: 37.243%
Homekey usage: 25.26%
The alternation stat for Dvorak's layout (which is conveniently called Dvorak) is much higher than that of QWERTY, and the homekey usage (the use of the keys directly under the fingers) is much higher. This reduces finger movements, thus improving comfort.
An important detail about Dvorak is that the top column is seen as more comfortable than the bottom column. This is also due to the typewriter - it was harder to reach the bottom of the keyboard due to how the keys were step-like. This idea influenced Dvorak to make the layout favour the top row, putting more uncommon letters in the bottom row.
This had an unintended but welcome effect of reducing hand-stretching, as concentrating the letters on certain rows can eliminate stretch bigrams that can feel uncomfortable (e.g. cr with standard fingering). This idea would be carried on into later layouts.
Dvorak wrote down his life’s work in his publication “Typewriting Behaviour”, where he analysed the Dvorak and QWERTY layouts as well as he could have without the aid of computers. However, we will soon see how Dvorak is still a flawed layout.
Chapter 2: Colemak
Dvorak was designed for the typewriter, and this layout was ported into computers with no consideration of the original design principles (MacOS was one of the first OSs to introduce Dvorak into its layout choice). Whilst the principle that the bottom row is still the more difficult row to reach for, and frequency analysis still holds, there are some differences, namely:
The force required to type on a keyboard is much lower
The keyboard never jams
This means that Dvorak's focus on alternation may need some re-examination. On a keyboard, the force required to depress a key is much lower, thus rolls reign supreme over alternations (for most people, some people still prefer alternations). Another important change is the introduction of a new metric in layout evaluation, the same finger bigram frequency (or SFB for short). This refers to two letter sequences that require you to use the same finger twice in a row on different keys (e.g. 'decided' on standard homerow QWERTY). On the typewriter, SFBs were less significant because jams may be prevented in SFBs. However, on the keyboard, the SFB stops being a minor nuisance and becomes a large source of discomfort.
This is what Shai Coleman realised in the early 2000s. These were his requirements for his layout:
High roll, low SFB
Minimal number of key changes from QWERTY to ease relearning
Comfortable key placements
He was less than happy with the Dvorak layout, which he saw as outdated and high in SFB. Thus he came up with his layout through bigram analysis (2 letter sequences). He named his layout Colemak, referencing his surname Coleman plus the last syllable of Dvorak.
Q W F P G J L U Y ;
A R S T D H N E I O
Z X C V B K M , . /
Alt: 30.375% Roll: 46.113%
Homekey usage: 62.31% SFB: 1.367%
Compared with Dvorak's 2.779% SFB and QWERTY's 6.600%, this was a huge leap in SFB reduction that holds up surprisingly well even today. There is also an increase in roll (at the cost of less alternation), and an increase in homekey usage. However, the most appealing part of Colemak is that it had many keys in common with QWERTY (unlike Dvorak), which eased relearning and made the layout easier for QWERTY users to pick up and learn. This layout was swiftly picked up in favour of Dvorak within the AKL community, which needed a modern layout. This layout pioneered the 'roll-focused' layout paradigm which has greatly shaped the AKL community.
Chapter 3: Workman
Previously we have looked at how SFBs were emphasised in Colemak to create a layout with high roll, fit for the modern keyboard. Despite all the advantages Colemak provides, there are still some flaws.
Firstly, it puts many common letters on the index finger. Whilst Coleman was careful to position these letters to not cause unnecessary SFBs, he couldn't avoid overloading the index finger, leading to an index usage too high for some people. In particular, due to wanting to preserve the general position of QWERTY's g and h, he resorted to placing them in the centre column.
This meant Colemak users often had to stretch their hands sideways to access these keys, which was seen as a source of discomfort (e.g. the word ‘hodgepodge’).
O.J. Bucao had gripes with both QWERTY and Colemak, leading to him making his layout, named Workman (as it is meant for the working man):
Q D R W B J F U P ;
A S H T G Y N E O I
Z X M C V K L , . /
Alt: 29.574% Roll: 43.636%
Homekey usage: 60.91% Middle usage: 7.491%
SFB: 2.933%
This is a subpar layout. The layout has fewer rolls than Colemak and more SFBs than Dvorak. The only gain from this layout is reducing middle column usage by about half (Colemak had a middle column usage of 12.764%, and QWERTY 25.696%).
A better example of reducing middle column usage would be one of Workman’s contemporaries, Engram.
B Y O U ' " L D W V
C I E A , . H S T N
G X J K - ? R M F P
Alt: 40.668% Roll: 42.180%
Homekey usage: 56.37% Middle usage: 2.876%
SFB: 1.485%
This is a layout that properly reduces middle column usage by stuffing all the punctuation in the middle, meaning you will rarely have to reach for the middle. However, it isn't without flaws. The layout’s insistence on not using the middle column (a philosophy that many do not subscribe to) forces the overloading of the pinky and ring fingers. Secondly, due to not using the middle columns, the SFB count isn't as low as it should be with a layout of its calibre.
Thus this acted as a catalyst for change, leading to the Renaissance of AKL as the layouts of the time were inadequate.
Chapter 4: Renaissance of AKL
The devastating COVID-19 outbreak of 2020 had an interesting effect on the development and progression of the AKL community. Namely, a lot more people started working from home or attending school from home, leading to more people caring about the ergonomics of typing. This meant a lot more attention was drawn to keyboard layouts, resulting in a rapid increase in AKL users and AKL innovations. The main bulk of these are developments in new metrics for evaluating layouts, and increased coding talent within the community.
One such early pioneer in keyboard layout analysers was Semi, otherwise known as Semilin, and Whorf, otherwise known as Whorfian. They are generally credited with many of the innovations in AKL.
Notably, Semi was inspired by an older keyboard layout analyser (CarpalX) and decided to code her take on keyboard layout analysing, introducing many other stats and metrics of layouts while also adding an auto-optimisation function which could reliably generate layouts that were comfortable to many people.
This program is called Genkey, and it paved the way for future AKL innovations, notably birthing the Semimak and Canary layouts. Both of these layouts brought publicity to the community through the speed-learning tournaments that were hosted by Semi. This expanded the community as many non-AKL users learnt Semimak and Canary in hopes of obtaining the prizes for the tournaments but ultimately stuck with the layouts due to their comfort.
Semi and Whorf also started the AKL discord server, where layout creators and enthusiasts discuss layout ideas and cheer each other along as they achieve new speed goals.
The analyser that has been used to generate all the stats for the layouts in this article (Oxeylyzer) was also inspired by GenKey, and contains many stats that were introduced in Genkey, namely:
Redirects
Single finger skipgrams
Redirects refer to when you change the direction of rolling in a one-handed trigram (e.g. 'sad' in QWERTY), and are generally considered uncomfortable.
Secondly, single-finger skipgrams. This is also often abbreviated as SFS (or DSFB, which refers to an older name for SFSs). SFS is an SFB that is sandwiched between another letter (e.g. 'tor' in QWERTY). With these new metrics, we can take a second look at QWERTY:
Q W E R T Y U I O P
A S D F G H J K L ;
Z X C V B N M , . /
Alt: 19.650% Roll: 37.243% Red: 13.187%
Homekey usage: 25.26% Middle usage: 25.696%
SFB: 6.600% SFS: 11.182%
The abundance of SFBs and SFS and the high usage of the middle row coupled with the low usage of home keys results in low comfort.
For the newcomers in the AKL community, the existing layouts were unsatisfactory. The choice between Dvorak (high SFB), Colemak-DH (slightly outdated), Workman (high SFB), and Engram (heavy pinky load) was inadequate. Thus with the help of new analysers like the Oxeylyzer, the layout creator Oxey created his layout, Sturdy.
V M L C P Q F O U J
S T R D Y . N A E I
Z K X G W B H ' ; ,
Alt: 35.972% Roll: 47.964% Red: 5.048%
Homekey usage: 58.37% Middle usage: 8.510%
SFB: 0.927% SFS: 6.214%
Compared with the layouts that we've seen before, it has:
Lower SFB, SFS, redirect and roll than Colemak
Higher homekey usage than Engram
Letter placements that follow the idea of frequency analysis very well
This was made possible through innovations which took place before Sturdy's creation, namely the vowel block, which places vowels in grouped columns. It had already been used in Engram out of necessity (there simply isn’t enough space to fit the vowels) and was also used in many older layouts like MTGAP, but Sturdy used a new vowel setup, one that had stacks ‘ao’ and ‘eu’. These stacks were found to lead to minimal SFBs and SFSs while allowing for high roll.
Another effect of using a vowel block was higher alternation and lower redirects. This calls back to the idea that August Dvorak had about English syllables - that having vowels on the same hand and consonants on the other could increase alternation. Furthermore, if syllables frequently changed hands, there wouldn't be enough time for there to be redirects.
However, the Sturdy layout isn’t without its shortcomings. Although it is a good layout, there are still a few issues with it. Firstly, the placement of the k key is uncomfortable, and the bigram 'sk' requires the typist to contort their hand to type, which isn’t very comfortable. Secondly, the relatively high SFS. Although it is lower than Colemak and Workman (8.767% and 8.185% respectively), it was still high enough to be uncomfortable at speed (e.g. the word ‘large’).
Sturdy’s high-roll paradigm was opposed by a family of layouts named NRTS HAEI, which favoured alternation over rolls. It used a different homerow, which allowed for more alternations but fewer rolls. One take on the NRTS HAEI layout is Graphite:
B L D W Z ' F O U J
N R T S G Y H A E I
Q X M C V K P . - /
Alt: 41.440% Roll: 43.702% Red: 2.583%
Homekey usage: 59.33% Middle usage: 6.407%
SFB: 1.043% SFS: 6.260%
This layout optimises for alternations, showing that there is still a place for high alternation layouts even in the modern age. Graphite is widely praised as one of the best layouts and one of the most suitable for newcomers to AKL to use.
Chapter 5: The cutting edge
The AKL community has hardly stopped since Sturdy and NRTS HAEI. There are thousands of other layouts being used, each with its own gimmicks and unique optimisations. A layout that epitomises the optimisation of a certain metric will be introduced below.
SFB: Whorf (Whorfian)
F L H D M V W O U ,
S R N T K G Y A E I
X J B Z Q P C ' ; .
Alt: 37.710% Roll: 44.257% Red: 5.988%
Homekey usage: 56.65% Middle usage: 8.503%
SFB: 0.620% SFS: 6.068%
Whorf was created alongside Semimak in the early days of the renaissance of AKL and was created by one of the founding fathers of the modern AKL scene, Whorf.
SFS: Kuntum (adi.lela)
V L N D K J W O U ,
T S R H F G C A E I
Z X P B ' M Y Q / .
Alt: 36.803% Roll: 44.599% Red: 5.079%
Homekey usage: 55.62% Middle usage: 9.049%
SFB: 1.154% SFS: 5.501%
An important note is that this layout does not use standard fingering. Instead, it uses a fingering called angle-mod:
0 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 7
0 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 7
1 2 3 3 3 4 4 5 6 7
LP LR LM LI RI RM RR RP
This takes the load off of the left pinky while making the left index have to press an extra key. This is to reduce stretching by taking advantage of the natural stagger of the keyboard. The stats for this layout can be obtained by transposing parts of the layout to the right like so:
Roll: Rain (Ibrahimabab000)
F D L G V Q R U O ,
S T H C Y B N E A I
Z K M P W X J ; ' .
Alt: 23.659% Roll: 50.050% Red: 7.689%
Homekey usage: 56.37% Middle usage: 6.596%
SFB: 0.809% SFS: 5.952%
Notably, Rain favours inrolls (e.g. 'lkj' instead of 'jkl' in QWERTY), resulting in a very rolly typing style. The creator of Rain has taken the layout to a speed of ~150 wpm, proving that the layout is viable at high speeds.
Alternation: Graphite (StronglyTyped)
As previously seen, this is one of many layouts in the NRTS HAEI layout family. They are popular and widely used, being frequently recommended to newcomers in the community.
Conclusion
This article has hopefully provided a surface-level but engaging introduction to the history and progression of alternate keyboard layouts. This article does not go into some crucial parts of layout history/theory, namely thumb alpha layouts, magic, stenography, details on vowel block choice and many other interesting but esoteric topics (due to constraints about length). To learn more about layouts, self-conducted research is recommended as layouts are very subjective.
Resources to learn more can be found in the footnotes.
Footnotes
Analyser used in the article: Oxey's layout playground (https://oxey.dev/playground/)
Special thanks to:
Oxey (creator of Oxeylyzer and layout playground)
Kharlmakoff (guidance regarding history)
Eristocrates, Vivan Bakshi, Ant and other community members (writing help and support)
Ec0vid (layout theory doc creator)
RusDoomer (inspiration)
Shai Coleman (Creation of the Shai Corpus)
Peter Norvig (Creating the Norvig dataset)
My top speed in layouts that I’ve used (English 200 most common words, 60 seconds):
Workman: 103
Sturdy: 127
Kuntum: 122
Qwerty: ~80, never measured properly
Speeds measured in MonkeyType: https://monkeytype.com/
More information about layout theory: https://bit.ly/layout-doc-v2
Guide to quick relearning: https://youtu.be/BAYc2Oo6_pA?si=lTMprf9cb7vJLfSb
Link to the AKL discord server (created by Whorf and Semi): https://discord.gg/2qq8qmDtFf
Sources: Norvig (https://norvig.com/mayzner.html)
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