< Keyboarding Education

~rex

I get around 80 WPM with a QWERTY layout...but with only my 2 index fingers. Always struggled using all of my fingers for typing for some reason. I had typing classes in elementary and when they tried to make me use the "proper" qwerty layout, I was slowest in the class. But when I was able to just use my index fingers, top of the class. Weird, right?

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~contrarian wrote:

The layout should work for you and not the other way around. Qwerty is heavily dependent on the left hand, but that doesn't necessarily make it a left-hander's layout.

Most people probably shouldn't force themselves to try a way of typing that they only read somewhere is "the right way" without due consideration to their own physicality and just doing what comes naturally to them, so says Sean Wrona, the fastest typist in the world overall. Orient your hand to hover over keys in a position that feels natural to you, and one which lets you have control over the entirety of your alpha keys the best.

The columnar staggered design was born because of many people having either too short pinky phalanxes or metacarpals so the standard staggered ISO and also ANSI requires frequent movement from the home row or very cramped hand positioning.

Gamers have a resting hand position over WASD (shift + AWD) that differs from the typist's strictly adhering to the home row (ASDF) and yet this works for many when writing and programming. Proper "home row" technique with the 10 finger system may in fact bend the wrists too much. CS GO players even tilt their keyboard just a little bit to reduce pinky pain when running in game (or you could bind to caps lock).