After having finished the basic course in Dvorak and touch typing for a few weeks now, here is an update on my results: I spent a total of 30 hours learning to touch type, but even once I could touch type properly, I was still really slow, at about 20 wpm immediately after finishing the lessons, half of my original speed. Ten days later, after forcing myself to avoid the QWERTY layout which resulted in some inconvenience, in particular with keyboard shortcuts, I am now typing at about 30 wpm in Dvorak, which is still significantly slower than my previous, unconventional but obviously not so bad, typing in QWERTY.
The idea that I will probably spend tens of thousands of hours typing in my life still stands, though, and the touch typing is getting more and more natural each day, I’ll try to update my results again after several months to see if there is actually a significant increase in typing speed over the long run.
On a side note, comfort is definitely better when touch typing “properly” in Dvorak than when typing “improperly” but faster in QWERTY, however this may be related to the way I positioned my hands on the keyboard rather than to the initial keyboard layout.
After having finished the basic course in Dvorak and touch typing for a few weeks now, here is an update on my results: I spent a total of 30 hours learning to touch type, but even once I could touch type properly, I was still really slow, at about 20 wpm immediately after finishing the lessons, half of my original speed. Ten days later, after forcing myself to avoid the QWERTY layout which resulted in some inconvenience, in particular with keyboard shortcuts, I am now typing at about 30 wpm in Dvorak, which is still significantly slower than my previous, unconventional but obviously not so bad, typing in QWERTY.
The idea that I will probably spend tens of thousands of hours typing in my life still stands, though, and the touch typing is getting more and more natural each day, I’ll try to update my results again after several months to see if there is actually a significant increase in typing speed over the long run.
On a side note, comfort is definitely better when touch typing “properly” in Dvorak than when typing “improperly” but faster in QWERTY, however this may be related to the way I positioned my hands on the keyboard rather than to the initial keyboard layout.