“QWERTY” means the first six letters found on the boards of nearly all American computers and typewriters. It’s a nineteenth-century legacy—a bad one. The early typewriters couldn’t keep up with the nimbler typists, so the machines’ designers thwarted the humans. QWERTY isn’t alphabetical, it doesn’t bring together commonly used letters like “t,” “h,” and “e,” nor does it use finger muscles properly. The Dvorak board and other latecomers should work better. In practice, though, they might confuse typists, so here’s a solution. Let us old-fashioned people QWERTY away. But think about buying machines you can switch over for people trained on more efficient layouts. A program like Smartkey—which electronically changes the keyboard—might be the answer if you also relabel keys on machines used by Dvorak typists. The Apple II(c) even has a switch on the top of the machine to go from QWERTY to Dvorak. Some say the Dvorak improvement is dramatic. Waters isn’t so sure. He says some studies have indicated that the Dvorak board offers as little as a 5 percent increase in speed and little reduction of errors. “So in the end,” says Waters, “most people in the industry have decided not to tinker with the key arrangement.”
No matter how they’re arranged, your keys shouldn’t be shiny; a matte surface is good. So are neutral colors rather than black and white, except, says Eisen, for function keys. My Kaypro sins. Its keys, like those on Digital Equipment’s VT100, are a gleaming black, which, however, doesn’t matter that much to me, since I can control my lighting and normally don’t look down at the board when I’m typing. (Some other Kaypros have black matte keys.)
Function keys—the ones that let the operator delete a word or add a paragraph with a single touch—should ideally be a different color from the main keyboard’s. The same for number pads. The function keys if possible should have labels indicating their purpose. If not, a chart near the function keys might show, for instance, that “P1” “Deletes Word.”
Some people, however, say that function keys really slow you down, that they make you take your fingers off the main keyboard. I basically agree. The same would hold true for the use of Macintosh-style mice.
SPECIAL ERGONOMIC FEATURES
A dream VDT tilts. It swivels. It can move up and down on a pedestal. It helps you avoid back strain, stiff necks, glare, and headaches. It adjusts, so you don’t have to. A good VDT can help compensate somewhat if you lack ...
Good Furniture
“People will adapt very nicely to automation,” an IBM official once said, “if their arms are broken, and we’re in the twisting stage now.”
That was in 1975. Since then, however, in a literal way, some computer makers have been gentler with people’s arms—and wrists and backs.
A variety of good computer furniture exists now, some in walnut, some in formica. With all the trimmings, you can vary: