Using a mixture of cases, characters, numbers, and symbols, I type about 80 wpm with the QWERTY layout. My goal this year is to achieve at least 3/4 of that speed in Dvorak and I hope to surpass it next year. I now know the layout with the exception of about half a dozen symbols (which I know placement of, but am not yet practiced and speedy). The threshold I have used in the typing software for advancement is 35 wpm. (Originally, I tried 45 but quickly realized this was not realistic at the outset and throttled it down.) In most cases, I could hit 30 wpm after learning a few more keys in just one session, but those next 5 wpm sometimes took several days or longer providing the repetition and practice needed. With letters only, I’m now averaging over 40 wpm, again with only about 15 minutes a day.

I am just now beginning the next phase of learning as I become practiced in the final few symbols (that differ in layout from qwerty), and am starting to type an hour or two for general purpose using dvorak for some applications and qwerty for other applications. For example, I might type a chat in a window mapped to dvorak and enter search terms on the browser using the conventional layout. As I am only two days into this phase, I do often find I’ll get confused between layouts…I’ll try to hit “r” in qwerty and I keep tapping its dvorak location…then a few nearby locations as I question, “Where’d the qwerty R go?” I’ll also often hit j for h and h for j (more commonly mistaken on qwerty). It’s rather fascinating, actually, as I can feel my brain reprogramming for the two layouts and learning how to switch between them.

With this next phase, I would expect my speed to begin to pick up more quickly over the next few weeks, so I’ll leave a follow-up in the near future. I am very curious to see if and when I get to the point of matching or exceeding my qwerty speed…hoping to reach 90 – 100 eventually but it will certainly take time for the brain to fully transition.

Other than occasional qwerty confusion (which I believe has more to do with the threshold of learning I am currently crossing), my qwerty speed appears not to be impacted, either favorably or adversely.

Phone should not have Dvorak keyboards IMO. The Dvorak layout was designed so typing is spread between hands evenly. On a phone that means more moving from one side to the other (in portrait mode at least). I believe a layout should be designed for phones separetely from the desktop layout because typing with one or two thumbs is much different than typing with all fingers.

I needed the additional letters ÅÄÖ so I started to look at the Swedish variants. I liked that Svorak A5 placed special symbols on the letter keys, but I preferred Svdvorak’s placement of ÅÄÖ since it kept the punctuation keys (, and .) in the original Dvorak positions. From there I just went with feeling, putting the special symbols I use the most (mostly for Vim, programming and LaTeX) easily accessible. I also had to move Q since there wasn’t enough space for it in the regular place on my unstaggered keyboard.

* Are there others you would recommend I check out?

Depends on your primary language and if you want to go standard or customized.

* Can you talk about what I’d have to do to be able to use others’ computers easily if I don’t use U.S. Dvorak? Would I need to keep a thumb drive with me?

You would probably need to do something like that yes. Personally I don’t bother to change layout when I’m using another computer since I can type QWERTY quite well, and it’s good to train from time to time.

As for training programs, I used KTouch (shown in the blog post) and the Dvorak ABCD lesson. When you get more proficient I recommend the game Typing of the Dead, it’s very fun but quite stressful if you’re still struggling with finding the keys! If you like typing games you can also try Z-Type, an online game.

http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer/ will develop a customized keyboard just for you. It doesn’t take digraphs, the windows command keys, or the balance of hands into account, but it is pretty neat!

Congratulations @Thomas! What training program(s) are you using? Has it affected your QWERTY skills?

I most often use my own computer, but I do use other peoples’ computers from time to time. I imagine that some of the time on other computers I would just be on for a couple of minutes, so hunt and peck would work, the other times I’d want to switch layouts for longer use.

@Hans, Thank you so much for all of the feedback!
I have several questions:
* How did you pick/make your custom variant?
* Are there others you would recommend I check out?
* Can you talk about what I’d have to do to be able to use others’ computers easily if I don’t use U.S. Dvorak? Would I need to keep a thumb drive with me?

It would be so neat to have an application that monitored all of my typing for 6 months and then made me a custom layout!

Thank you again for all of the help!

As with QWERTY there are many Dvorak variants. I don’t know which one is the most “standard”, but it seems like the U.S. Dvorak layout is usually shipped with operative systems. I personally use my own layout that’s based on the Swedish variants Svorak A5 and Svdvorak. Since I only plan to use Dvorak on my own computer, which I use most of the time anyway, this works out just fine.

As mentioned in this article, my concern is to make sure I do not loose my qwerty typing skills. Also, I have seen several variations of the dvorak keyboard, is there one that is more ‘standard’, among this family?