Why the Iphone 11 has an outdated keyboard dating back to 1875
Most of us believe that once new and clearly advanced technology becomes available, this will inevitably lead to a widespread adoption. The truth is, everyone of us is working with mediocre or even clearly inferior technology despite better alternatives available. One extreme example is the keyboard layout, which I used to write these lines and which is pre-installed on nearly every digital device today, from the latest Iphone 11 to the all laptop computers and tablets.
The QWERTY keyboard layout, named after the first six keys on the upper row of letters, was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1875. The keyboard layout was designed to intentionally slow typists down. In the early days of typewriters, the metal type-bars were shot up to hit the paper and then dropped back by gravity. If you hit two adjacent bars two quickly, the machine will jam. Therefore, Sholes anti-engineered the arrangement of letters to make the most commonly used letter sequences hard to reach.
Obviously, as the typewriter got more advanced the need for this sort of slowdown was no longer existent and the search for an improved keyboard design started. The most promising design was developed by August Dvorak, a professor of the University of Washington, using time-and-motion studies of actual typers in early 1932.The resulting Dvorak keyboard layout arranged the most frequently used letters at the center, so that the amount of work assigned to each finger is proportionate to its skill and strength. Since you need to stretch and move your fingers less, typing is much faster and easier. In a study, commissioned by the U.S. Navy, typist using the new layout were about 75% faster than on a QUERTY layout. Barbara Blackburn, the current typing record holder, uses only the Dvorak keyboard layout. There is little doubt that the Dvorak keyboard layout is clearly superior to the old QUERTY version. So why haven’t I used a Dvorak keyboard to write these lines? It’s not a matter of availability, as you might think. The Dvorak keyboard layout is available in all Operating Systems, including Microsoft Windows and Apple OS. You can buy a physical Dvorak keyboard on Amazon at a price tag comparable to other keyboards. The reason, why people still use the outdated layout is deeply rooted in the psychology of technology adoption. As the founder of this distinctive research field puts it:
“Changing people’s customs is an even more delicate responsibility than surgery in many cases”
Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 2003, p.436.
By using some products repeatedly over a long period of time, consumers form habits and routines. In general, they aim to preserve these habits and strive for consistency and status quo rather than to continuously search for and embrace new behaviors. If a new technology is not compatible with existing behavior, the perceived relative advantage of the new idea must be large enough to offset the perceived complexity of adopting to a new behavior. Put in simpler words, the new technology must offer so much Advantages to offset the “changing costs” to learn to use a new technology. It is important to note, though, that this is a highly subjective evaluation. If you calculate rationally, the benefit of writing only 30–50 percent faster, which is easily achievable with a Dvorak layout, will pay-off the learning costs within a very short period of time. Humans, however, are not always rational, objective and utility-maximising. Instead, they tend to base their decisions on other more subjective beliefs about the technology in question. This explains why I still type this lines on a QUERTY keyboard, despite knowing better.
What we can learn:
The fact that we use a totally outdated and unnecessary slow keyboard layout on our latest smartphone shows that we should never underestimate the psychological aspects of innovation. In order for a superior technology to succeed in conquering the masses, you need to fully understand the reasons for adoption or rejection. May they be rational or not. This is important news for all engineers, developers and product managers. No matter how advanced your product is compared to everything users already have, this will not ensure a market success. To increase the chance of acceptance, human needs and desires need to be incorporated from the earliest point possible into the technological development. I believe that any new idea and technology should ultimately serve us — the humans. Therefore, we have to move post the product-centered area of the last decade towards a customer-centered development of technology.
