Alternate layouts and on-screen keyboards
Posted: 11 Feb 2014, 21:18
Have been playing around with SwiftKey on Android and just discovered that it has the Dvorak layout on it! Since I type Dvorak on a daily basis (I get about 70wpm), I thought I'd give it a whirl. And as it turns out, it is absolutely awful! Here's why:
The very things that make Dvorak such a treat to use on a physical keyboard, like putting everything common on the home row, make little sense on screen, especially when you're trying to use the "flow" feature (like Swype); it can't figure out the difference between a lot of words because all the letters are on the same row!
Also, I discovered that my mental mapping for Dvorak is largely confined to my fingers: I didn't even know where to look a lot of the time! This might have something to do with the fact that I've never had Dvorak labels on my keys and so have always relied on muscle memory.
Anyway, have any of you tried alternate layouts for your on-screen keyboards?
The very things that make Dvorak such a treat to use on a physical keyboard, like putting everything common on the home row, make little sense on screen, especially when you're trying to use the "flow" feature (like Swype); it can't figure out the difference between a lot of words because all the letters are on the same row!
Also, I discovered that my mental mapping for Dvorak is largely confined to my fingers: I didn't even know where to look a lot of the time! This might have something to do with the fact that I've never had Dvorak labels on my keys and so have always relied on muscle memory.
Anyway, have any of you tried alternate layouts for your on-screen keyboards?