Wikipedia: QWERTY/Talk

was:

QWERTY is by no means the fastest key layout system -- a side effect of its design actually hindered typing speed -- but it remains in use on computers today simply because typists converting from typewriter to computer keyboard did not want to learn a new typing style to take advantage of keys that could not get stuck.

Very impressive table. :-) --Larry Sanger, but it crashes the Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition; I would suggest a gif file instead. -- Hannes Hirzel

It was actually easier to make the table than it would have been for me to make an image. Perhaps a screenshot of the table from a browser that works could be substituted? :) -Bryan Derksen

 In fact there is no good data proving those claims, and quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

That's not true. See http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/

I was taught many years ago that the keyboard was arranged the way it was in order to reduce the collisions of keys during typing. This, and the fact that most of the commonly used keys are not in the "home row" or necessate the extended use of the left hand, are designs to reduce the speed to that of the machine. -- mike dill

Please keep this text factually accurate. Any claim that Sholes intended to slow down typists is false. The second paragraph's claim that the arrangement helped him avoid stuck hammers is true. --LDC

I think the fable of the keys may be a bad link to have. The article was written by economists, with the aim of proving that capitalism does not leave good alternatives behind, and its data is massaged to that end. If anything we could link to a wiki page explaining with NeutralPointOfView that the study is controversial. As it stands, it's kind of like an article about biology linking to articles by Popper and Kuhn.

The claim that other layouts produce faster typing speeds is vague. Today most references give that the QWERTY layout was developed to stop collisions, not to slow the typing speed artificially. There is a good discussion about typewriter design in Donald Norman's "The Psychology of Everyday Things" usability design book. The previous assumption that the layout was constructed to avoid collisions is also not really backed up, and generally there is no consensus. For example, note that the word "typewriter" is made up of letters in the first row only, and the first devices were sold - first of their kind - as "typewriter"s. -sc.

Younger people may not have seen a mechanical typewriter with the hammers that swing towards the paper. IBM's interchangable ball shaped type heads for electrical typewriters and Computer printers are the reasons why some people don't even know what you meant by key collisions. Perhaps older folks can add some explanation in the article. Do people still remember those days when a carriage return was a lever?