What a terrible article. First off, I was frustrated by how they quoted research but did not actually cite it. For example:
>For example, A. Miller and J Thomas, two researchers at the IBM Research Laboratory, writing in the International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, conclude that "no alternative has shown a realistically significant advantage over the QWERTY for general purpose typing."
OK, great. What was the name of the paper? Was it even in a peer reviewed article, or was it an op-ed? And when did they say it? The rate of research into keyboard layouts has been a trickle. If they said that in 1975, then it's not particularly useful today.
In fact, there have been a few studies that have in one way or another demonstrated superior qualities of Dvorak:
(admittedly both of those were published after the Reason article, but I'm not going to spend all night looking for pre-1996 articles)
The article also claims that studies show only "a few percentage points" difference between QWERTY and Dvorak. How can this be, when the total typing distance for QWERTY was nearly twice that of Dvorak on Don Quixote?
So why are we seeing quote and number mining, more typical of political discussions, in an article about keyboard layouts? Well, to understand that, we need to understand Reason's bias, and then read the last paragraph.
And then all becomes clear. This isn't about uncovering the truth about ergonomics and keyboard layouts. It's about scoring a few points for the ol' free market. My guess is that one of the authors was having an argument at a party, and someone drunkenly suggested that QWERTY vs. Dvorak was a great example of the free market failing. "This will not stand!" the writer shouted at the sky, and then proceeded to write a five page article about how "nuh uh".
Of course I'm interested in reading it, or at least the parts relevant to ergonomics. And I did.
As it turns out, my suspicion was correct: the quote mentioned was from 1977. Unfortunately, that paper's brief mention of keyboard layouts is then based entirely on "Human factors in international keyboard arrangement", which was published in 1975 and does not seem to be available online.
The Fable authors mention fatigue early in the paper, but fail to provide any evidence on this point. Their section on ergonomics focuses exclusively on the question of whether Dvorak is faster.
>For example, A. Miller and J Thomas, two researchers at the IBM Research Laboratory, writing in the International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, conclude that "no alternative has shown a realistically significant advantage over the QWERTY for general purpose typing."
OK, great. What was the name of the paper? Was it even in a peer reviewed article, or was it an op-ed? And when did they say it? The rate of research into keyboard layouts has been a trickle. If they said that in 1975, then it's not particularly useful today.
In fact, there have been a few studies that have in one way or another demonstrated superior qualities of Dvorak:
http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~buzing/Articles/keyboards.pdf
http://atri.misericordia.edu/Papers/Dvorak.php
(admittedly both of those were published after the Reason article, but I'm not going to spend all night looking for pre-1996 articles)
The article also claims that studies show only "a few percentage points" difference between QWERTY and Dvorak. How can this be, when the total typing distance for QWERTY was nearly twice that of Dvorak on Don Quixote?
So why are we seeing quote and number mining, more typical of political discussions, in an article about keyboard layouts? Well, to understand that, we need to understand Reason's bias, and then read the last paragraph.
And then all becomes clear. This isn't about uncovering the truth about ergonomics and keyboard layouts. It's about scoring a few points for the ol' free market. My guess is that one of the authors was having an argument at a party, and someone drunkenly suggested that QWERTY vs. Dvorak was a great example of the free market failing. "This will not stand!" the writer shouted at the sky, and then proceeded to write a five page article about how "nuh uh".