1. Comfort of Popularity vs. Usability: Bucking the Trend
What would happen if a company came out with a better MP3 player than Apple? Better storage,
more functions, etc. for a better price? Well, it’s happened. Multiple times. Some competing
MP3 players offer all of these superiorities, but have failed to achieve the prestige of the Apple
iPod due to its ever-increasing popularity. There are multiple reasons why the iPod has managed
to own the competition, including – but not limited to – visual appeal of the product and the huge
advantage that Apple has developed in advertising. Even if a product comes out on the market
that is proven to be better than the iPod, there’s a good chance it won’t surpass Apple’s
stronghold on the consumer’s mind.
A parallel can be drawn to a keyboard you probably aren’t familiar with. The modern typist’s
layout was created before computers even existed so as to prevent typewriters jamming. While
the “QWERTY” layout (the common modern keyboard) did indeed solve this annoyance, there
was concern that only one vowel could be found on the home row, a feature that still exists
today. While effective in its purpose, the need for the layout of QWERTY was rendered moot by
computers, machines that don’t have to be concerned with jamming like typewriters. However,
consumers had gotten comfortable using the QWERTY, and it was perhaps inevitable that
electronic keyboards would have the same layout. Even today, the vast majority of the computer-
using population uses a very slight variation of the original QWERTY. Look down at your
hands, and there’s a good chance that on the home row (middle row of letters), you will find
exactly one vowel: “A.” One row up, the first six letters will probably be Q-W-E-R-T-Y. This
remnant of the typewriter-dominant past still exists.
Despite the fact that QWERTY prevented mechanical jamming on typewriters, there were
concerns about the layout of the letters and the strain that was placed on hands during the action
of typing. A different keyboard was created in the 1930s – the “DVORAK” – according to what
letters were utilized most often and the way that people physically type. The most common
characters are more accessible in DVORAK, and the lesser used are placed in more remote areas
of the board. A, O, E, U and I are all on the home row. Everything about the DVORAK points to
superiority over the QWERTY, but, although the DVORAK is easier to get a hold of now than it
was thirty years ago, the QWERTY still has the market by the throat. Yes, it would take you a bit
of time to get used to the DVORAK, but carpel tunnel would be much less of a concern for you
than it is now. Your efficiency would more than likely see a noticeable increase. But the
QWERTY is what we are, as a consumer market, most comfortable with. The QWERTY, like
the iPod, is what we use despite evidence that we should move on to the DVORAK, the usability
pioneer in the keyboard world.