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Dvorak: Dvorak Layout
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Dvorak is an improvement over Qwerty. But it is far from optimal. Since the invention of the Dvorak layout in the 1930s, more has been learned about typing, particularly on computers. The following is an excerpt from Lillian Malt's work in the 70's. -- RagnarScheuermann
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A discussion of the Dvorak layout is sometimes used as an exercise by management consultants to illustrate the difficulties of change. The Dvorak layout is often used as a standard example of network effects, particularly in economics textbooks, the other standard example being the competition between Betamax and VHS. These examples (particularly QWERTY) are used to demonstrate that inferior technologies sometimes succeed simply because they become customary.
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In the early 1970s, interest in the Dvorak Layout once again came into the public consciousness. Several magazines published articles dealing with the advantages and improvements that the Dvorak Layout could offer. Both the Saturday Review and Writer's Digest explored the subject in considerable detail. The typewriter manufacturer Smith-Corona was convinced that the Dvorak Layout's time had arrived and offered all of its typewriters in either QWERTY or Dvorak. Smith-Corona charged only $5 for Dvorak in its portable models, and no charge for the rest of its typewriter line. But interest in the Dvorak Layout waned and died.
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Dvorak was designed as a replacement and improvement over the traditonal QWERTY layout. QWERTY was designed for old typewriters and actually made to reduce typing speed and alternate between hands so that typewriter bars would not get stuck together. If you’ve ever typed on a typewriter before you’ll know exactly what this refers to - just try to hit a bunch of keys in a row without actually typing real words; it’s likely you’ll get a few to stick together. The QWERTY layout ... appears to be a marketing/sales dream too; you can type “typewriter” with only the top row - possibly made for demonstration purposes.
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Considerable data, collected by Dvorak, shows that a new typist learning the Dvorak layout, will learn that layout much faster than a new typist learning the Qwerty layout. The Navy investigated the Dvorak layout for this reason. They needed more and faster typists. But bureaucratic inertia prevented Dvorak from being adopted.
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Dvorak is counterproductive in quite a few cases. As you note, the layout is optimized for the letter frequencies. But those frequencies change depending on the language, so you need a separate - largely different - layout for every language. A layout optimized for one language would be less optimal for another language than Qwerty.
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Dvorak Layout