Dvorak Zine Comic

Boing Boing linked to a Dvorak Zine comic today. I've used the Dvorak keyboard layout since 2002. Here's how my personal experience compares to claims in the Dvorak Zine Comic:

1. It takes 52 hours to retrain
1. Mostly true--it took me about three eight-hour days, only 24 working hours, before I felt comfortable using Dvorak. I don't remember how long it took to reach my previous typing speed.
2. 50% increased accuracy
1. Somewhat true--although I doubt I've increased by 50%, and I have no data to back this up, I think I'm somewhat more accurate with Dvorak.
3. 20% increased typing speed
1. Somewhat true--I'm a bit faster now compared to QWERTY. I typed pretty fast with QWERTY though.
4. Increased comfort and decreased likelihood of Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI)
1. True--Again anecdotal, but I think I've had fewer RSI issues since I adopted Dvorak.

Your mileage may vary--for me, the main advantages came with increased comfort and reduced RSI, something critical for someone spending 8-10 hours per day writing software.

Some tips if you're willing and able to learn Dvorak:

• Commit to at least three days of learning Dvorak. It will try your patience while you retrain your muscle memory. Emotions may include frustration and fatigue.
• Use Dvorak at home and at work while learning. I've found attempting to use different keyboard layouts during the initial phase counter-productive.
• On Windows: Ctrl-Shift to switch between QWERTY and Dvorak. This isn't well publicized, regrettably.
• Expect to regress to hunt and peck on QWERTY keyboards you encounter in the wild after retraining. E.g., the public library, your friend's home, your significant other's PC, your co-worker's PC, your college computer lab. This is the biggest negative for me. I find I use Dvorak 99% of the time on a computer I have administrative control over, and these 1% cases don't matter much--again, your mileage may vary.

I learned something I didn't know from reading the comic this evening: on Linux, the command to set the keyboard map is: setxkbmap dvorak. Cool!
UPDATE: What I didn't realize until I read through the comments on Boing Boing was how defensive people seem to feel about QWERTY versus Dvorak, probably because they feel judged.

I think until keyboards come with letters that can be easily changed, QWERTY's here to stay.