5 Steps To Stop Using QWERTY

In this video I'm looking at 5 simple steps you can follow to get started with using alternative keyboard layouts on your existing keyboard or a custom keyboard.

# Tools from the video:

# Switch layouts on your existing keyboard:

## Mac:

## Windows:

## Linux:

## Cross-platform:

# Learning

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Contents:
0:00 Intro
0:29 Sponsor
0:50 My experience and how bad Qwerty is
2:31 Step 1: Choosing a new layout
4:42 Step 2: Previewing a new layout
5:26 Step 3: Using a new layout on your existing keyboard
5:53 Step 4: Using a new layout on a custom keyboard
6:39 Step 5: Learning a new layout

[lodyb]

Next we can fix English to make it more ergonomic to type too!

[nickgoogle]

I use a custom layout myself (ENDe), but I think before going that route you should first make the other improvements (split KB, nav-layer, easy to access often used symbols and characters). There the real gain is made. The non-qwerty layout is just nice to have, but comes with a high cost timewise!

[AlexMercadoGo]

It's the keyboard shortcuts that make leaving QWERTY so difficult. They're *designed* with certain hand configurations in mind. And even if I could technically customize them, configuring that—and maintaining those configurations—in every app is so much work I'd never get my normal job done.

[Ruhrpottpatriot]

I want to add a small caveat: If you're a user who isn't writing most of their work in English, be careful with the alternative layouts out there. Depending on your language *and* usecase, the alternatives might not be optimal, or even downright harmful. Most popular alternative layouts are built with the English word corpus in mind and arrange the keys so that the most used letters in English are the ones typed by your strongest fingers. This might or might not work with your locale.
For example: Standard Dvorak doesn't work with German simply because it's missing the special characters like ä, ß, etc. Even the changed Typ-II version isn't really that well made because German and English have different letter commonness.

[vaorance]

You should give layouts using a letter on thumb a try :D (current modern layout-wise, there's Night - My own, Dusk, Bunya - Gallium port, and a few more stat-focused ones). Night has near minimum SFBs (nearly 1/3 SFBs of Graphite) and focuses on alternation; Dusk is every so slightly worse on SFBs (a little under 1/2 of Graphite) but has more rolls, and Bunya is a port of Gallium that avoids the C-index of the other two (sitting also a little under 1/2 SFBs of Graphite).

Currently, 185 WPM on Night so it's tried and tested :D (making website for it soon™). As for Dusk, I'm not sure who's the fastest at the moment, but it's around 120-140 WPM. Bunya I'm not sure if there have been any users yet.

For those who are curious, multi-thumb layouts have been considered, but haven't really found merit. The thumb is rather complicated, being strong, but rather slow. Unlike other fingers, techniques such as sliding and alt-fingering aren't as viable so avoiding SFBs and SFSs are a must - unfortunately it's hard to use any good letter parings with these requirements. Statistic wise, it hasn't proven to beat single-thumb in any statistics yet, but maybe we'll see in the future.

Also, as a reference point, current SFB floor is 0.22% (1/4 of Graphite) but is compromised with ridiculous SFSs.

*all of these stats are based off Keysolve like the document, if you are from the AKL discord, that is why the stats may look a bit off.

[didgineil]

Thanks for sharing the links and tools great ideas to test different layouts, good to see you back on the productive keyboard layout 👍

[bricecarpentier]

ahah, qwerty being the worst layout is a myth. I dare you to try the french azerty!

[PalashBackup]

I don't mind qwerty that much. I am happy to not look at the keyboard while typing, I could use better placement for symbols though.

Love your videos Ben. Your videos are fun to watch and I learn a lot hearing your perspective.

[janmagtoast]

For me it was just a friend who didn't believe I could learn a new layout and me wanting to prove him wrong. Worked wonders for the motivation :)
And I'm still typing on it to this day! As of now even on a custom, handwired 40% that I build on top of cardboard (and also a cardboard case around it).

[Kamadrion]

As always, thank you for the great video, content and helpful links. I feel like I learn a lot from your videos and they are are always precise and to the point. I appreciate that!

[CodingWithAuryn]

As usual, amazing video!!! This highly motivates me to move away from qwerty as well and learn a new layout. You are the reason, I started building my first custom keyboards from scratch and document the process. What a lovely hobby!!

Going to a split keyboard ortholinear already made typing so much better. lets see if a new layout does improve it even further

[marcin.sobocinski]

You nailed it! It's a very good video and now the sponsor segment is very much OK! Thank you! And thanks for attaching all the resources!

[azizinanc]

You need a discord for your community!

[ck]

That layout try out site is a brilliant idea, had a 10 minute typing session with DVORAK and the comfort factor for an extended typing session became very apparent.
I'm on the fence about throwing out my QWERTY muscle memory when I'm comfortably typing in the 115 wpm range. Not really looking to go faster, and my fatigue concerns have largely been addressed with the split tented keyboard.

[tw]

I love your videos!
I now have a 16 key split-keyboard using a modified ISRT layout. Your videos were my inspiration for this - thank you. Tim

[RyanTuller]

Can't believe you left the piano layout! Cheers for going that deep into design and testing

[Jjop]

The layout I switched to is "RSTLNE" layout from the video "Using AI to create the perfect keyboard" it was pretty easy to learn and the changes weren't so drastic, it swapped E with D, R with F, I with K, and there are still many letters from QWERTY that are in the same place. This wasn't the best result from the algorithm but it was much better than QWERTY anyway. Graphite looks interesting to me but there are things I prefer from RSTLNE, maybe I'll try to combine them into one.

[areksaata]

How to check layouts for a different languages? Like German, Polish or other? Great video! I really admire your dedication and work you put in these videos.

[keyserxx]

I'm back on my Iris with Colemak dh, I had a 2 year break. I'm back to square one but I like the challenge though and the split keyboard world. I've recently been rewatching your great videos.
There are plenty of rabbit holes with this hobby, like 1u spacebars :)

[redhotvengeance]

Having watched your keyboard videos many times each, I’d like to hear more about why you’ve switched back to a single layer layout.