Why The QWERTY Keyboard Actually Sucks

Quick Overview

The QWERTY keyboard layout is highly inefficient for modern typing, contrary to popular belief. Its design originated from early telegraph machines and typewriters, specifically to facilitate the transcription of Morse code and to prevent mechanical jams in early typewriters, rather than to optimize typing speed or hand alternation. This historical legacy, combined with market inertia, explains its widespread but suboptimal use today.

Key Points: The QWERTY keyboard is one of the least efficient layouts for typing, contrary to popular belief. Typing on QWERTY minimizes hand alternation, forcing one hand to type multiple consecutive letters for common words like 'was' and 'were'. Only 32% of typing strokes on a QWERTY keyboard occur on the home row, requiring frequent hand movements. The QWERTY layout was originally designed to help telegraph operators transcribe Morse code more efficiently, by placing easily confused Morse code characters close together. Early typewriters, sold by Remington, adopted this layout, and its widespread use became entrenched due to market inertia. More efficient keyboard layouts like Dvorak and Colemak exist, allowing 70% and 74% of typing strokes, respectively, to remain on the home row. Despite the existence of more efficient alternatives, QWERTY remains dominant due to the impracticality of retraining billions of users and the lack of alternative layouts on most commercial keyboards.

Context: The QWERTY keyboard layout is the standard for nearly all keyboards today, leading many to assume it's the most efficient design for typing. However, this video challenges that assumption, revealing that QWERTY's origins are rooted in the mechanical limitations of early typewriters and the specific needs of telegraph operators, not in optimizing modern typing speed.

Detailed Analysis

The QWERTY keyboard, despite its ubiquity, is one of the least efficient layouts for typing, primarily because it minimizes hand alternation and places common letters off the home row. Early keyboard designs, like those for telegraph machines in the 1840s, were alphabetically arranged and limited to about 40 words per minute due to technical constraints. When typewriters emerged, they initially adopted similar alphabetical layouts. The significant shift to the QWERTY layout occurred when Remington, an arms manufacturer, entered the typewriter business after the American Civil War. Remington's revised keyboard, which became the early QWERTY, was not designed for typing efficiency but rather to aid telegraph operators in transcribing Morse code. Morse code often has similar-sounding letter combinations (like 'Z' and 'SE'), requiring operators to wait for subsequent signals to confirm the letter. The QWERTY layout strategically placed these confusing Morse code pairs (like 'Z' and 'S/E') close together on the keyboard, allowing operators to quickly correct errors without significant hand movement. This design, while efficient for Morse code transcription, is inefficient for standard English typing. Later theories suggesting QWERTY was designed to slow typists down to prevent jams are largely disproven, as many common letter pairs are still close together. More efficient layouts like Dvorak (70% of strokes on home row) and Colemak (74% of strokes on home row) exist, but QWERTY's dominance is due to historical adoption and market entrenchment, making it impractical for most users to switch.