Computers have become so firmly established in our everyday life that people do not pay attention to seemingly trifles like the arrangement of letters on the keyboard. All over the world, users use the so-called QWERTY layout, which has nothing to do with the alphabet.
Scholes letter chaos
The letters on the keyboard, at first sight of the uninitiated, are arranged in a chaotic order, not alphabetically. If you go deeper into history and remember the distant 19th century, when typewriters existed, the developers were not worried about the location of letters on the keyboard, they thought only about the process of transferring letters to paper. But soon they saw that the letters began to sink, clinging to each other from the frequency of use. And in 1868 mathematician Christopher Scholes decided to come up with a new letter layout. He simply placed frequently used letters further apart.
By scattering the letters in different rows, he solved the problem of key dropping, and this is how an ingenious layout was born - the so-called QWERTY. It is named after the first letters of the first row on the keyboard. It is this arrangement of letter signs that is commonly used on 98% of keyboards in the world.
McGurrin Method
Further, the forensic stenographer Frank McGurrin continued to develop the topic of convenient letter layout, he introduced the blind ten-finger method, which gained immense popularity.
The blind method made it possible not to look at the keyboard, but to type with all fingers (index fingers were more often used).
The ten-finger method on an ergonomic keyboard took typing speed to new heights and increased productivity for typists and secretaries.
For many years of research in mathematics, scientists, stenographers have tried to improve the keyboard layout, it is clear that the alphabetical arrangement of letters was extremely inconvenient to work with. Carrying out their measurements, they all, in fact, came to an ingenious discovery that simplified the life of mankind for many centuries to come.
QWERTY keyboards are so popular and ergonomic that they are actively used by mobile phone manufacturers today. In addition, the habit of using the letter row of the keyboard saves time when typing SMS.
Two percent balance
What keyboard layout do the other 2% of users use? American psychologist and professor at the University of Washington August Dvorak, based on the original layout, invented his convenient arrangement of letters. But his teachings were ridiculed, and soon forgotten altogether. Yet his work on ergonomics, science, which is based on the adaptation of the workplace, objects and objects of labor to a person, was not forgotten and taken into account in the version of Windows OS.
This layout is named after its creator "Dvorak layout". Based on scientifically proven facts, it follows that the layout is not alphabetical, is the most convenient for users.
