I am not after any particular response. As far as I know, the claims about the advantages of the Dvorak keyboard are controversial (see e.g. this) and there are no rigorous universally-accepted studies which show it has a clear advantage.
As to you getting rid of RSI, I am glad it worked for you, but I don’t see why your experience should generalize to everyone. As a counterpoint, I touch-type on a regular (QWERTY, non-ergonomic) keyboard and my fingers don’t hurt. Instead, I get RSI from the mouse (I deal with it via more keyboard commands and a trackball) -- but I don’t post “get rid of your mouse” as a general advice.
“I use layout X and don’t have RSI”
vs
“I had RSI with layout Y then switched to layout Z and stopped having RSI”
I would be inclined to say that the latter is strong evidence that layout Z is better than layout Y for avoiding RSI, whereas the former is only weak evidence for layout X
Like I said—there is weak evidence for the former.
However—if you don’t have RSI, then it may not be because the layout is not optimal… it might be because you are less prone to RSI, or because you’re young and able to bounce back from RSI easily, or because you just haven’t been typing long enough to develop RSI yet.
Whereas somebody that already has RSI… already has it, so if you change layout and the RSI goes away—that’s pretty good evidence that the layout-change has had a direct effect on the RSI.
I am not after any particular response. As far as I know, the claims about the advantages of the Dvorak keyboard are controversial (see e.g. this) and there are no rigorous universally-accepted studies which show it has a clear advantage.
As to you getting rid of RSI, I am glad it worked for you, but I don’t see why your experience should generalize to everyone. As a counterpoint, I touch-type on a regular (QWERTY, non-ergonomic) keyboard and my fingers don’t hurt. Instead, I get RSI from the mouse (I deal with it via more keyboard commands and a trackball) -- but I don’t post “get rid of your mouse” as a general advice.
There is a big differences between:
“I use layout X and don’t have RSI” vs “I had RSI with layout Y then switched to layout Z and stopped having RSI”
I would be inclined to say that the latter is strong evidence that layout Z is better than layout Y for avoiding RSI, whereas the former is only weak evidence for layout X
Don’t think so. RSI is Repetitive Strain Injury, so any change in the pattern of use will make it better.
Like I said—there is weak evidence for the former.
However—if you don’t have RSI, then it may not be because the layout is not optimal… it might be because you are less prone to RSI, or because you’re young and able to bounce back from RSI easily, or because you just haven’t been typing long enough to develop RSI yet.
Whereas somebody that already has RSI… already has it, so if you change layout and the RSI goes away—that’s pretty good evidence that the layout-change has had a direct effect on the RSI.
Correct. What it’s NOT good evidence for is the claim that the new layout is better. It’s sufficient for it to be only different.