Just an anecdote, but after I read ‘The Fable of the Keys’ I decided to try Dvorak, just out of curiosity towards the economic arguments, and also in the hope of speed improvements. (I’m a programmer and I type a lot. At that point I’d never had any kind of RSI)
It was a while ago, but as I remember it was quite fun to switch, and after about six months I was completely happy with it, and had at some point in those six months comfortably regained my original Qwerty typing speed, but I never got any faster than I had been and it was obvious that there weren’t any more improvements coming. I also remember finding that Dvorak felt a bit cramped, your fingers don’t move so much and that actually feels like a drawback for some reason.
Eventually I decided that the occasional inconvenience of using a computer which hadn’t been set up for Dvorak outweighed the (non-existent) benefits of Dvorak and tried switching back.
Switching back was no trouble, my Qwerty skills came back very quickly and I don’t remember any difficulty. I haven’t used Dvorak since.
As far as I know, I’ve never got RSI or any kind of strain from typing on a proper keyboard (for some reason it’s more comfortable for me to type with my wrists straight, i.e. not resting the base of my palms on the table, so standard typing doesn’t produce any strain for me).
But I am currently suffering (mild) RSI in my right hand, it developed over the course of the pandemic.
I think that’s either:
a result of using a laptop for long periods awkwardly on my knees (and bracing it with my right hand in an awkward position) during the pandemic;
or equally possibly:
buying a new recorder with a thumb rest and playing it excessively (again, there was a pandemic..), which seems to put my right hand in an odd position.
Both those things put a strain on the right side of right wrist which was becoming increasingly painful and seemed to be turning into a long term problem. I’ve stopped doing them (all the recorder needed was the thumb rest removing) and it seems to be clearing up.
I also had it in my right shoulder some years ago, which I think came from using a mouse. Replacing my mouse with a trackball seems to have fixed that completely.
Just an anecdote, but after I read ‘The Fable of the Keys’ I decided to try Dvorak, just out of curiosity towards the economic arguments, and also in the hope of speed improvements. (I’m a programmer and I type a lot. At that point I’d never had any kind of RSI)
It was a while ago, but as I remember it was quite fun to switch, and after about six months I was completely happy with it, and had at some point in those six months comfortably regained my original Qwerty typing speed, but I never got any faster than I had been and it was obvious that there weren’t any more improvements coming. I also remember finding that Dvorak felt a bit cramped, your fingers don’t move so much and that actually feels like a drawback for some reason.
Eventually I decided that the occasional inconvenience of using a computer which hadn’t been set up for Dvorak outweighed the (non-existent) benefits of Dvorak and tried switching back.
Switching back was no trouble, my Qwerty skills came back very quickly and I don’t remember any difficulty. I haven’t used Dvorak since.
As far as I know, I’ve never got RSI or any kind of strain from typing on a proper keyboard (for some reason it’s more comfortable for me to type with my wrists straight, i.e. not resting the base of my palms on the table, so standard typing doesn’t produce any strain for me).
But I am currently suffering (mild) RSI in my right hand, it developed over the course of the pandemic.
I think that’s either:
a result of using a laptop for long periods awkwardly on my knees (and bracing it with my right hand in an awkward position) during the pandemic;
or equally possibly:
buying a new recorder with a thumb rest and playing it excessively (again, there was a pandemic..), which seems to put my right hand in an odd position.
Both those things put a strain on the right side of right wrist which was becoming increasingly painful and seemed to be turning into a long term problem. I’ve stopped doing them (all the recorder needed was the thumb rest removing) and it seems to be clearing up.
I also had it in my right shoulder some years ago, which I think came from using a mouse. Replacing my mouse with a trackball seems to have fixed that completely.