Layouts / latin · ANSI
Dvorak
Patented in 1936 to put the most common English letters on the home row under your strongest fingers.
Is Dvorak worth learning?
There's no reliable evidence that switching to Dvorak makes you type faster. The honest reason to learn it is hand comfort, not a speed edge. Typists willing to fully relearn touch typing from zero in exchange for a home-row-centric layout, and who don't mind remapping editor shortcuts.
How long does Dvorak take to learn?
Real alternative-layout timelines converge on roughly 8 WPM by day 1, 53 WPM by day 30, and parity with your old speed by around day 90 of consistent daily practice. For Dvorak specifically: Long: most people report 1–3 months to reach their old QWERTY speed, since essentially the whole keyboard is new. Expect a real productivity dip during the first few weeks.
History
Designed by Dr. August Dvorak and William Dealey, patented in 1936, and built around English letter and bigram frequency: the home row alone (a o e u i d h t n s) can type a large share of common English words. A widely repeated 1944 US Navy study claiming huge speed gains was later found to be compromised (Dvorak himself was involved in overseeing it), and a more carefully controlled 1956 GSA study found no speed advantage over well-trained QWERTY typists. The honest modern take: Dvorak can reduce finger travel and feel more comfortable for some people, but the dramatic "X% faster" claims don't hold up.
Strengths
- Home row alone covers a large fraction of common English letters, so a lot of typing never leaves it
- Reduces finger travel and same-hand alternation compared to QWERTY in most analyses
- Nearly a century of use and native OS support, the most "battle-tested" alternative layout that exists
Honest tradeoffs
- The original speed-superiority claims are not well supported by controlled research, despite being widely repeated
- Almost every letter moves, unlike Colemak, so keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Z/X/C/V) land on different keys and either need remapping or relearning
- Smallest software/gaming ecosystem assumption of any layout here: some tools hard-code QWERTY key positions