qwerty vs dvorak vs colemak to edit Python code

02 Feb, 2009

Yesterday, I was intrigued by the idea of choosing a more efficient keyboard layout to work with everyday. As long as I type Python code 90% of my time, I decided to evaluate the efficiency of the first 3 most widespread keyboard layouts: QWERTY, Dvorak and Colemak. I used this excellent tool to compare the three layouts over the first 50000 characters of the webpy source code. Here are the results:

Overall effort

Layout	Effort	% improvement over worst layout
Qwerty	306,509.6	0.0 %
Dvorak	283,868.7	7.4 %
Colemak	275,347.6	10.2 %

Keys for each finger (stronger fingers should be used more often)

Layout	Thumbs	LPinky	LRing	LMiddle	LIndex	RIndex	RMiddle	RRing	RPinky	Total
Qwerty	25.9 %	12.4 %	5.3 %	9.5 %	11.6 %	7.6 %	5.6 %	8.9 %	13.2 %	54,237.0 keys
Dvorak	25.9 %	13.0 %	5.2 %	8.1 %	7.3 %	7.5 %	7.5 %	8.2 %	17.3 %	54,237.0 keys
Colemak	25.9 %	12.7 %	4.8 %	7.5 %	9.5 %	8.4 %	10.1 %	6.6 %	14.5 %	54,237.0 keys

Layout	Thumbs	Left hand	Right hand	Total
Qwerty	25.9 %	38.8 %	35.2 %	54,237.0 keys
Dvorak	25.9 %	33.6 %	40.5 %	54,237.0 keys
Colemak	25.9 %	34.5 %	39.6 %	54,237.0 keys

Finger Travel Distance (only the horizontal)

Layout	LPinky	LRing	LMiddle	LIndex	RIndex	RMiddle	RRing	RPinky	Total
Qwerty	18.1 %	2.0 %	10.5 %	15.5 %	12.1 %	8.6 %	9.9 %	23.4 %	1,441.5 m
Dvorak	21.1 %	4.1 %	3.5 %	10.0 %	12.5 %	7.6 %	10.8 %	30.4 %	1,210.3 m
Colemak	23.7 %	2.5 %	6.1 %	10.2 %	10.2 %	9.3 %	9.3 %	28.6 %	1,131.2 m

Layout	Left hand	Right hand	Total
Qwerty	46.0 %	54.0 %	1,441.5 m
Dvorak	38.8 %	61.2 %	1,210.3 m
Colemak	42.6 %	57.4 %	1,131.2 m

% home keys (out of all character keys plus SHIFT and ENTER, but excluding keys operated by thumbs)

Layout	Percentage
Qwerty	20.4 %
Dvorak	33.7 %
Colemak	38.7 %

% keys typed with the same finger as the previous key (excluding repeating keys like ss)

Layout	Percentage
Qwerty	4.5 %
Dvorak	3.8 %
Colemak	3.6 %

% keys typed with the same hand as the previous key (ex: in Qwerty sd or ss are included, but s s is not since you type the space with the other hand)

Layout	Percentage
Qwerty	26.8 %
Dvorak	20.0 %
Colemak	24.6 %

% keys typed with the same hand as the previous key and jumping a row (ex: in Qwerty ev is a row jump – you jump over the middle row – and it’s awkward to type; ef is not a row jump)

Layout	Percentage
Qwerty	10.3 %
Dvorak	5.7 %
Colemak	4.1 %

% keys typed with the same hand as the previous key and in reverse order (ex: in Qwerty df or kj are typed in the easier order pinky-ring-middle-index, whereas fd and jk are in reverse order index-middle-ring-pinky, and harder to type)

Layout	Percentage
Qwerty	15.4 %
Dvorak	11.9 %
Colemak	15.2 %

% keys that need the SHIFT modifier

Layout	Percentage
Qwerty	14.3 %
Dvorak	14.3 %
Colemak	14.3 %

Pairs of consecutive keys typed with the same finger in Qwerty

Keys	Frequency	Percentage
:/NewLine/	253 times	0.47 %
de	200 times	0.37 %
tr	158 times	0.29 %
rt	102 times	0.19 %
ol	99 times	0.18 %
un	98 times	0.18 %
q_LeftShift_	87 times	0.16 %
ce	86 times	0.16 %
“/NewLine/	81 times	0.15 %
ed	80 times	0.15 %
}/NewLine/	62 times	0.11 %

Pairs of consecutive keys typed with the same finger in Dvorak

Keys	Frequency	Percentage
ct	196 times	0.36 %
s_RightShift_	169 times	0.31 %
db	152 times	0.28 %
l_RightShift_	137 times	0.25 %
‘/LeftShift/	133 times	0.25 %
rn	115 times	0.21 %
ls	100 times	0.18 %
}/NewLine/	62 times	0.11 %
=/RightShift/	59 times	0.11 %
“/LeftShift/	58 times	0.11 %
e.	58 times	0.11 %

Pairs of consecutive keys typed with the same finger in Colemak

Keys	Frequency	Percentage
:/NewLine/	253 times	0.47 %
ue	237 times	0.44 %
db	152 times	0.28 %
e,	89 times	0.16 %
q_LeftShift_	87 times	0.16 %
“/NewLine/	81 times	0.15 %
}/NewLine/	62 times	0.11 %
]/NewLine/	46 times	0.08 %
pt	44 times	0.08 %
‘/RightShift/	41 times	0.08 %
“/RightShift/	41 times	0.08 %

Key frequency in your text

Key	Frequency	Percentage
/Space/	14067 times	25.94 %
/LeftShift/	4391 times	8.10 %
e	3239 times	5.97 %
t	2184 times	4.03 %
s	2170 times	4.00 %
r	1890 times	3.48 %
a	1619 times	2.99 %
o	1557 times	2.87 %
l	1530 times	2.82 %
n	1519 times	2.80 %
/NewLine/	1511 times	2.79 %
i	1372 times	2.53 %
/RightShift/	1357 times	2.50 %
d	1014 times	1.87 %
f	971 times	1.79 %
c	855 times	1.58 %
u	851 times	1.57 %
m	716 times	1.32 %
p	715 times	1.32 %
(	674 times	1.24 %
)	673 times	1.24 %
.	658 times	1.21 %
‘	623 times	1.15 %
,	573 times	1.06 %
b	571 times	1.05 %
“	563 times	1.04 %
_	554 times	1.02 %
=	518 times	0.96 %
:	490 times	0.90 %
q	463 times	0.85 %
y	423 times	0.78 %
h	416 times	0.77 %
w	352 times	0.65 %
>	348 times	0.64 %
g	304 times	0.56 %
v	257 times	0.47 %
x	253 times	0.47 %
k	231 times	0.43 %
<	154 times	0.28 %
/	125 times	0.23 %
[]	119 times	0.22 %
;	113 times	0.21 %
0	86 times	0.16 %
`	85 times	0.16 %
+	84 times	0.15 %
1	81 times	0.15 %
{	80 times	0.15 %
}	79 times	0.15 %
-	78 times	0.14 %
j	76 times	0.14 %
*	72 times	0.13 %
#	69 times	0.13 %
2	67 times	0.12 %
%	55 times	0.10 %
$	52 times	0.10 %
3	31 times	0.06 %
6	29 times	0.05 %
8	18 times	0.03 %
@	17 times	0.03 %
	14 times	0.03 %
z	13 times	0.02 %
5	13 times	0.02 %
4	8 times	0.01 %
?	8 times	0.01 %
9	7 times	0.01 %

Frequent pairs of keys in your text

Key Pair	Frequency	Percentage
_Space__Space_	9243 times	17.04 %
_NewLine__Space_	1233 times	2.27 %
_Space__LeftShift_	805 times	1.48 %
/LeftShift/(	674 times	1.24 %
/LeftShift/)	673 times	1.24 %
/LeftShift/”	563 times	1.04 %
_LeftShift__	554 times	1.02 %
se	549 times	1.01 %
,/Space/	543 times	1.00 %
/LeftShift/:	490 times	0.90 %
el	405 times	0.75 %
er	377 times	0.70 %
in	364 times	0.67 %
_Space__RightShift_	362 times	0.67 %
or	352 times	0.65 %
/LeftShift/>	348 times	0.64 %
/Space/i	344 times	0.63 %
/Space/s	341 times	0.63 %
te	340 times	0.63 %
e_LeftShift_	338 times	0.62 %
=/Space/	332 times	0.61 %
/Space/=	321 times	0.59 %
re	306 times	0.56 %
lf	294 times	0.54 %
)/NewLine/	281 times	0.52 %
e_Space_	281 times	0.52 %

Actually, I was disappointed: there seem to be no clear advantage of Dvorak or Colemak, wrt QWERTY and, given the popularity of the latter, switching does not seem to be a good idea…

#Programming #Python