Sunday Support Group: Yflcbi! (OT)

I'm typing this on my new keyboard in Dvorak (I love typing the word "keyboard" in Dvorak), so this is probably going to be short. Only touch-typing could make a MOFW* out of me!

On Tuesday it will be one month, and I have to admit it's not going well. Despite a lot of practice, I'm only typing at about 20 WPM with 95% accuracy when I'm copying and about half that speed, with more errors, when I'm composing, probably because I don't practice the latter as much. Continually switching keyboards and layouts ("Yflcbi" is "Typing" when typed in Dvorak on a U.S. keyboard, by the way) is probably not helping.

I've converted the keycaps of my Kinesis to Dvorak
layout markings. This is the left-hand keywell.

But I made a commitment, so I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.

I truly feel that most of my difficulty is really "just me" as they say. I'm uncoördinated both mentally and in terms of manual dexterity. In short I suspect I have an unusually low aptitude for this. Not debilitatingly low, but below the average or normal range.

However, I believe that typing, like reading, falls into the class of skills that "most anyone can master" if they work at it hard enough and long enough. Some people just have to work harder and longer is all. And might never reach an exceptional level. I'll doubtless never be a speed demon or a champion typist. But competence doesn't require talent in this case, is my guess...just work, and perseverance.

By the way, if anyone out there is contemplating learning Dvorak (now there's a small subset of TOP readers!), I recommend starting with learn.dvorak.nl and not typingclub.com. I believe the latter created some problems for me. I would explain, but it would take too long to type!

I'll report on this experiment again at the two-month mark. For now, I'm not giving up. As Tom Duffy said, "Much of success in life comes from endurance and not much more. As important as thinking is, I'd make the case that after defining a goal, it's often more productive to simply endure." Maybe I'll go type that ten times!

Anyway, I've modified my ambitions: rather than give this experiment two months, I'm going to give it three. At this point my guess is that it might take all of that.

Mike

P.S. This is interesting...key frequency heatmaps for the most common keyboard layouts. The biggest mistake in Dvorak is the "L" position if you ask me.

*All right, all right, I'll type it out: man of few words.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Michael J. Perini: "I would think that switching between the two types of keyboards has got to add a considerable degree of difficulty—but whatever happens the process is probably building a few brain cells and that has to be good."

Joseph Reid: "If this is something you really want to learn, maybe give it more than three months. I took two semesters of typing in high school, and it was the single most useful course I took in those four years. But think of that—an hour a day, September through December and January through May. It takes some real time, not a few weeks."

JimH: "Personally, I think you are making a mistake, Mike. Trying to do the same thing two very different ways is only going to confuse the connections you already have in your brain. After you started this thread, I decided to try an ergonomic keyboard. It took only a few minutes trying to use it to see how it confused me—slowed me down—and less than 30 minutes to see my typing was getting worse. Back in the box and off to return to you-know-who.

"My philosophy is don't waste time trying to do something you are not good at. I never could throw or catch a football, dribble or hit a basket, so I didn't. But I could heel-and-toe and drift a car intuitively, and I did a nice snap-roll in airplanes. And, as I demonstrate right now, I type fast enough to put thoughts down as I compose, so I'm not wasting time trying to do it differently. To add a camera analogy, after years of using Oly Micro 4/3 cameras up to the Pen F, which I found so trying to use I didn't use it much at all, I bought an old OM-D EM-10 and found it and my brain clicked. Wish I had done that years ago...."

Moose: "'I am feeling a bit like Don Quixote.' —Mike Johnston, Tuesday, 24 September 2013. 'But I made a commitment, so I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.'

"I can imagine various less-than-ideal outcomes from this experiment. Assuming the goal is to become more productive in creating content, not becoming proficient at two different typing systems as a goal in itself, I can't imagine an outcome that is superior to simply learning to touch-type on QWERTY. I also find it difficult to understand how reassessment of commitment to a course of action that has no impact on anyone else, in light of what is learned along the way, is somehow bad. In fact, it strikes me as rather sensible."

Mike replies: Dvorak was a solution, not a complication. My sense after some experimentation was that on QWERTY, my old and new ways of typing would become hopelessly confused and I'd get mired in the confusion. But that's just me; others would doubtless have a very different experience.

By the way, I slowly but successfully moderated all these comments and put up the Edwin Land post using the new keyboard!

Kye Wood: "If you make your living typing code (as an example) or as a writer (I'm looking at you Mike)—then the extra productivity that you eventually get from Dvorak makes it one of the best investments you can make in yourself. To quote my daughter when she was 16, 'suck it up, princess.' Aren't teenagers a joy?

"For me (former code monkey), I couldn't go Dvorak—because Thinkpads keys were uniquely shaped, so you couldn't rearrange them. Dang and dang again. Cursed be my Thinkpad propensities says I."

Susan Eilenberg: "The Kinesis Advantage keyboard has been my steady love since some time in the 1990s. I've been using the Dvorak layout on it for nearly as long. I had no particular need to learn Dvorak—the fabulous Kinesis had already eliminated all my wrist pain—but I imagined one idle summer day that the layout would be fun to learn and a defensible way to put off beginning an essay that had me intimidated; and I believed I would be back to my old typing speeds within a month of beginning to learn it. That did not happen. I was slow and clumsy for nearly a year, and frantic, too, because learning Dvorak pushed QWERTY out of my memory. I don't now regret knowing it, but that year was painful."

Mike replies: I'm glad to read your thoughts about it. I feel very strangely about the whole enterprise—I'm nowhere near mastery but somehow I think I know just how it's going to be once I get there. My slow progress has not dimmed my desire to reach the goal.

Dave: "Mike, Something to look at during your 'off-time'—whenever that may be. Basic Typing Lessons from 1944—Part 1 (4:45 to the end.) (Typewriter pr0n from 3:40 to 4:30.) This old typing training film from WWII is still applicable to today's typing. Good posture in a good chair, hitting the keys correctly (not the very tips of the fingers), etc. Notice how she pushes the keys down, rather than hitting them from above. Less wasted effort and you keep your fingers on 'home row.' Notice also the L.C. Smith typewriter, before it became Smith-Corona. If she can type that fast without jamming the keys, you can get up to your old 'hunt and peck' speed on an electronic keyboard.

"Good luck. We're all counting on you.  :>)  (I don't know how you can keep Dvorak and standard keyboard layouts separate in your mind.)"

Mike replies: Thanks, that was actually very helpful. Especially her recommendation to hit every key like you will when you are trained but to take a pause between keystrokes, then increase speed by shortening the pauses. That instantly changed the way I practice, and it actually increased my speed right away, too! Our Navy was all business in 1944.

Comments

[Peter]

I taught both of my kids several things that I thought were essential to know before going off to college - how to drive a shift car (both learned on one), how to do wash and how to cook a few simple, basic dishes. They were taught typing in school, but not very well. While my son was in college PC's started to appear and typewriters went away. He taught himself how to type by having to write long papers. My daughter also taught herself how to type at a fairly high rate. Although I was taught how to type in HS I was never good at it. In later life I got pretty good at typing with two/three fingers - not that fast, but very accurate. Once I rose to the job level where someone took dictation (remember that?)I never got any better at typing.

[c.d.embrey]

Having to use Acronym Finder to decipher obscure acronyms is a turn-off, id est too cute by half.

You do not need to get RSI 8-)

[Are you going to make me type it out? --Mike]

[robert e]

I wish you better luck with Dvorak than I had, Mike. I had more obstacles then, like having to use other peoples' keyboards often, and having already learned to touch-type pretty well on QWERTY, though it sounds like you're doing a pretty good job of creating similar obstacles for yourself ;)

Immersion would be necessary if I were to attempt it, but that's just me.

I wonder if there are people out there rolling their own keyboards? I imagine software and stickers would make that relatively easy these days. There must be layouts more suitable for hunting-and-pecking, for instance, though I wouldn't be surprised if the gains aren't worth the trouble or the downsides.

[SteveW]

IDK. I'd probably stick with only the one keyboard.

OKOCOY.

[Herman Krieger]

The old keyboard may be 'qwer', but I think I'll stick to it.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Not, I take it, the Ministry Of Fish Wealth!

[robert e]

You seem to have pushed me down a keyboard rabbit hole against my will, Mike. But that plunge was fruitful, and may interest other of your readers as well:

- There is a very handy keyboard layout that I didn't know I'd been searching for, and it's called (in Windows, at least) "English US-International". It's a standard QWERTY keyboard with a few tricks that make typing letters from other Latin-alphabet languages, such as "á ë and ñ", quick and easy, and even touch-typeable.

Here's how it works (and I would add that Windows 10 lets you customize any layout to your liking and save it as a new layout):

http://www.techlanguage.com/tips/us_international.html

- There are one-handed QWERTY touch-typing methods, as well as alternative Dvorak layouts for one-handed typists. The latter are even available in Windows OS (not sure about Mac). There are specialized physical keyboards meant for one handed use, but I assume that's common knowledge, and obviously they demand a different level of resources and commitment.

Thanks for the push, Mike! Climbing out now.

[Bill Tyler]

20 WPM is good progress. Keep at it and I'm sure you'll get to a point where you don't want to go back. Coincidentally, I'm trying to learn Morse Code. (I'm a licensed ham, AJ6CQ, but they dropped the code requirement for licensure years back.) Out of curiosity, I looked up speed records for Morse. There doesn't seem to be consensus on how to exactly to measure for a record, but speeds of over 60 WPM have been. 30 WPM is not unusual for experienced operators. And that's at multiple motions per character.

[Jamie Pillers]

An column by Ezra Klein in today's NYTimes described the State of Oregon's movement toward allowing use of psilocybins (from 'magic mushrooms') for therapeutic uses. Maybe for old dogs learning new tricks? :-)

[Aaron]

Dragon voice dictation has been revolutionary for me. Specifically, Version 13 home edition is cost effective and simple. Pick up a cheap USB headset and your typing woes are behind you.

[Ben]

Learning touch typing and a new keyboard layout at once seems like a lot.

I’m a firm believer in not biting off more than you can chew. Simple goals staged well will get you farther, faster.

[John Camp]

Didn't have time to do much research on this, but as you know, I bought a Kinesis keyboard like yours. I decided to stick with qwerty because I have to go back and forth between an iMac and a MacBook Pro (for travel.) Now I've learned (or have read) that a MacBook can be changed to Dvorak. A Dvorak key set can be ordered from Kinesis and apparently the change is fairly simple even for a simpleton. Not so with the MacBook keys -- apparently you can damage the machine fairly easily -- but I've now read that key stickers are available from third-party vendors for the MacBook and I may look into that. That heat map of the Dvorak has me interested -- it seems to much less awkward than qwerty. (I've now misspelled qwerty twice in this comment, and had to go back to correct.) Another comment, about Dragon Voice, has renewed my interest in that technology -- my hands are beginning to suffer a bit from typing-induced arthritis. I don't know if I can create with Dragon Voice, though. Can you edit in Dragon Voice? More research is needed.

[The keycaps are very easy to change out. The new keycap set is expensive at $39 and you actually only need a few of them, because many are reused. So each new keycap costs about $3! But that's the only downside. --Mike]

[Phil]

Every day I thank whoever is responsible for me taking typing in high school. I think it might have been my older sister, or maybe my Dad, as he regretted that he couldn't type. This article reminded me that we typed to band music, starting out with a very slow beat, and gradually raising the speed. It forced us to gradually improve our speed.

[Dave Millier]

Years ago, my partner decided to do some contracting work. To get on the agency books, she needed to be able to touch type at 60 wpm. At the time she didn't touch type at all. She taught herself to touch type over the weekend and passed the test on the Monday.

I have been an IT worker for 35 years. I can't touch type at all. I can manage to type 3 or 4 words without looking, sometimes. But not often. By looking at the keyboard, my fingers can manage to type in bursts. But I make so many mistakes and produce gibberish so often, my most used key is the backspace.

I have no idea what my consistent typing speed is, but I suspect it it more like 10 wpm than 60!

It would be very helpful to be able to touch type, I think, simply because constantly having to hit backspace not only interrupts the production of letters but also the thought process.

Not everyone has the same level of physical dexterity, sadly, so it is difficult for some.

Like me.

[Michael Matthews]

To the contrary re above advice: try learning Morse code and Dvorak at the same time. Find a program which will sound out the Morse with each keystroke. Then you can learn to type by ear. No interim translation from qwerty to Dvorak placement needed

[Bob Kopf]

World's Fastest Typist on Letterman, and the following controversy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3OlsQL1rYs

[scott kirkpatrick]

Challenge for its own sake can be taken too far. My current book describes a Microsoft exec who decided to learn to ride a bicycle in which the handlebars were somehow made to work in reverse, in order to demonstrate to his stuck-in-its-ways company the virtues of learning new things and forgetting the old. After great effort but little progress, he fell off, broke his hip, and was out of action for so long that instead of returning to his old job he returned to China and became the head of Google's competitor, Baidu.

[Alan Fairley]

I am curious to know if anyone is "bilingual" in QWERTY and Dvorak? The thing that held me back from checking out Dvorak was knowing that I would frequently have to type on QWERTY layouts.

[Michael J. Perini]

What do people who switch to Dvorak Keyboards do about buying Laptops? Are all Laptops software configurable to Dvorak ? Are replacement keyboards available? Or do you use a keyboard with mis-matched keys? Carry a portable Dvorak keyboard?
I've never thought about it until now.

[Well, if you touch-type you're fine, because you can switch the layout in Settings, on both PCs (so I hear) and Macs. But if you need keycap labels to guide you visually, that could be a problem. Personally, I don't use a laptop, so it's not really an issue for me. --Mike]

[JohnMFlores]

I've always admired Dvorak keyboards from afar. But after writing professionally for 15+ years, I know all too well that the speed limit to my writing is in my mind, not my fingers.

Still, it must be a good exercise to keep the mind pliable and young. Best of luck.