The document provides a brief history of keyboards, beginning with the creation of the first typewriter keyboard layout by Christopher Sholes in the 1870s. It then discusses how the QWERTY layout was designed to prevent jamming on mechanical typewriters. In the 1930s, August Dvorak analyzed keyboard layouts and created an alternative, more efficient Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout, though it never gained widespread adoption. The summary concludes that modern keyboards still use the QWERTY design despite being used on non-mechanical devices, and that more ergonomic solutions exist but remain expensive and difficult to find.

1. A brief history of keyboards
Sylvain Fankhauser, Liip
June 2013

2. If bikes evolved the same way keyboards did, here's
how you'd be doing Bike to Work…

4. In the 1870s, Christopher Latham Sholes created the
first typewriter

6. Its first layout looked like this…

7. 3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M

8. It worked, but typewriters had a big flaw…

9. Jamming

10. The qwerty layout was created to prevent jams by
increasing the distance between frequent letters

11. In the 1930s, August Dvorak analyzed this layout

12. WTF?
August Dvorak

13. He came to the conclusion that qwerty is highly
inefficient

14. > 7%
5 – 7%
2 – 5%
< 2%
32%
52%
16%

15. So he created the Dvorak layout, aka Dvorak
Simplified Keyboard (DSK)

16. > 7%
5 – 7%
2 – 5%
< 2%
70%
22%
8%

17. This layout focuses on usage of the home row,
hands alternance, and n-grams (mostly bigrams)

18. The Dvorak layout does not require any special
keyboard

19. Today we're using a keyboard layout that was
designed for mechanical limitations that don't
exist anymore

20. Even on non-mechanical devices

21. Keyboards are like 1870s bicycles not only
because of their layout

22. Right hand

23. Right handLeft hand

24. WTF?

25. Today's keyboards are designed to overcome
limitations of 1870s typewriters

26. Ergonomic solutions exist

28. They're still expensive and not easy to find

29. “I'm tired of trying to do something worthwhile
for the human race, they simply don't want to
change”
August Dvorak

30. Thank you
More reading: dvzine.org