WPM (words per minute) is how we measure typing speed, and the title isn't wrong- calling the fall from 65 to 40 WPM over two and a half months an "improvement". It felt necessary to look into and invest effort in an alternative keyboard layout, given my situation with hand and finger pain. I will try to summarize what I have learned from this journey and provide a little guidance for anyone interested in exploring alternative keyboard layouts.

Alternative Layouts?

Layout is the arrangement of letters and symbols in the keyboard. Most of us learn to type on QWERTY, a layout designed in the 1870s which helped to standardize layout for mechanical typewriters (and according to most sources, to prevent typewriter jams). But according to layout analysis, QWERTY is the least efficient among the popular keyboard layouts which also means lesser comfort.

Modern alternatives try to minimize finger travel distance, and other metrics (like Same Finger Bigram/Skipgram (SFB, SFS)) depending on statistics derived from an available or selected set for a language by placing keys based on finger strength and frequent letter, bigram, trigram in mind. Here is an interesting watch about keyboard designing. Some alternatives to QWERTY include:

Dvorak(1930s):

Designed with common letters and bigrams at Home Row (~70%) and least used keys at Bottom row

Vowel(left)-consonant(most used to right) separation by hand and stroking from edge to center for comfort

Colemak(2000s):

Based on QWERTY with most bottom row keys (and shortcuts) in place changing just 17 other keys
Keeps frequently used keys closer and Home Row (71+%) focused

Colemak-DH mod reduces lateral movement of index finger replacing some characters.

Workman (2010):

Focuses on reducing lateral finger movements
Puts emphasis on middle (tallest) and stronger finger usage

Engram (2021):

Optimized for bigram, trigram
Punctuation keys are placed in the middle rows

Some other notable options include the Carpalx project, Halmak. To dig deeper, read the following document (or comparatively compact blog) and analysis.

Things to consider before deciding to switch

The shortcuts (For gaming, vim and others) will require some learning or initial long investment of remapping
The improvement will have to be measured in long term comfort rather than speed(most of world’s fastest using QWERTY)
It would require at least two months to gain a reasonable level of productivity, so deciding to switch with some stress/deadline pressure would not be the wisest decision. Leaving the accumulated muscle memory may feel like running with a bag heavy as your weight (or a multiple of that depending on the QWERTY speed). And the brain would make sure to inject the feeling that you have a train to catch.
It would require quite some use and consistent pressure on the conscious part of the brain before the ergonomic benefits start to appear followed by muscle memory. So the willingness to go through that is a requirement

However, I would suggest you to explore the options If you are

Learning to touch type or trying to build habit with better typing practices
Already experiencing pain in finger/wrist/hand despite using ergonomic practices
Allowed to have/can cover temporary productivity drop for 2-3 months

Compilation of recommendations from internet:

For pain, trying to switch to an ergonomic (alice/split) keyboard with thumb cluster(ideally 6, at least 4 keys) is wiser call as in most of the cases, pain appears because of shoulder position and stretching of corner fingers. Do not use heavy switches in case you are feeling pain
Using a different type of keyboard for the new to the alternative layout. Usual recommendation is learning in a split ortholinear keyboard (the extreme opposite of regular keyboard as you may still have to use QWERTY in some situations) or any form of ergonomic keyboard (or at least mechanical-membrane). The difference makes it easier to retain muscle memory and respectable speed while switching between both layouts. Most of the people fail to retain efficiency with both layouts with the same type of keyboard.
Practice at the end of day, after the regular typing tasks are done
Forgetting or mixing between two layouts (specially while learning/training) may happen sometimes, usually taking a short break helps to retain the speed.

Here is a video with step by step suggestions which may be helpful.

Why I Decided to switch and My choice

To describe my situation, I had a fairly decent typing habit- using 9 fingers (all 10 fingers with my alice layout keyboard- Keychorn k15) with a speed of 65 WPM(with 100% accuracy and 70-80 with 90%+ accuracy). But as my old job required me to use the keyboard for longer (10+) hours, I started to notice pain in my right wrist and hand in earlier hours after most work days. And after my alice keyboard with thumb cluster (Keychron k15 with linear switch) could not fully fix the pain in my fingers when I was typing faster (use of thumb keys improved the hand pain), then I had to decide to switch.

And about the layout choice, I ended up choosing Colemak-DH because:

A less steep learning curve because of similarity to QWERTY
Less friction while switching back to QWERTY when necessary
Availability across all major Operating system

Current Benefits and Ongoing Challenges

I'm typing at 35-50 WPM now after 2.5 months of practice (1.5 months of daily use), I will try to describe the checkpoints and my observation from there:

0. Make your decisive choice:

The worst piece of advice I heard or followed about this was to try out different layouts before choosing. Consciously tracking each key demands much more effort because the number of times that has to be done each day.

Even if you want to try out multiple layouts, that has to be done with considerable gaps so the brain has the time to adjust. I made the mistake of trying 3 layouts in 3 weeks and that created cognitive chaos which forced me to take a keyboard break for 2-3 weeks. During one interview in this period, I literally forgot how to type.

1. Getting familiar with keys:

I used keybr for the initial learning to get a hold of the key positions for the whole layout, Because .

They have keys emulator, allowing to practice without a systemwide layout change
Learning key by key over trying whole layout at once helps a lot to ease off the initial learning curve
Ability to customize the target speed in a way that it contain enough friction that helps to gain some familiarity and falls short of making it frustrating.

I ended up targeting 18 WPM speed for most of the keys to gain familiarity as introduction of each new key was slowing down (up to 10 WPM) the overall speed (specially the keys assigned for the same finger) and it was harder to achieve and regain the higher per key target speed (~25 WPM). And most importantly full focus while typing is a must, otherwise the progression will be really slow (could be a good practice for anyone trying to work on focus and patience).

2. Getting towards Higher speeds and the switch

I had to start practicing the last thing of the day as the higher familiarity was causing confusion/mix up while typing in QWERTY. I was increasing 2-3 WPM to the previous speed for practice, and decided to make the switch at 20-25 WPM.

The feeling was crippling right after the switch. The “Feel good” part while practicing disappeared when I had to adjust with a significantly lower speed with higher focus requirement. That is possibly even more frustrating and challenging than holding patience after mistakes while practicing and may last 2-4 weeks depending on how quick you can adjust.

3. Current situation

I definitely think colemak-dh is way more comfortable, and it might have some speed benefit as well, as it is possible to type 2-5 characters in the flow (because characters are placed with consideration for their usage in the alternative layouts)- rather than character by character fetching for QWERTY. But for the same reason it felt easier to make mistakes because I often end up misplacing my fingers while typing at a faster speed. Possibly an ortholinear (keys are aligned in perfect grid across rows as opposed to the diagonal layout for regular keyboards) keyboard might help to improve that.

I am still struggling with shortcuts, especially for vim navigation. Now there is a whole new debate about remapping vs adjusting (or position based shortcuts vs key based shortcuts). I am yet to try the switch and form an opinion about this. However, if I have to speculate- it would depend heavily on how keyboard centric your workflow is. If you are using a handful of shortcuts, remapping might just be a better approach. But the higher number of shortcuts you use less feasible remapping would be (and mixing may work if you rarely have to use other people’s computers who probably are using QWERTY anyways). I am using layers for navigation and few shortcuts before I decide to commit to one path.

Conclusion

As already discussed, the journey to a new keyboard layout isn't for everyone, because of all the inconveniences it brings and the struggle to switch. But for someone starting out or curious or struggling with pain caused by repetitive strain injury (RSI), it may range from a worthwhile investment to necessity.

Have you experimented with alternative keyboard layouts? I'd be interested to hear about your experiences in the comments.

The Improvement from 65 WPM to 40 WPM

Table of contents