Your keyboard is working against you!
4 things you didn’t know about your keyboard
At any given second here on this beautiful earth, the spacebar is being pressed 6 million times! 6 million spaces in 1 second. That means when you hit the spacebar, over half a million people in the world just did the same thing.
Ever wonder how many times you type the same letter in your name, your login, your password? This fun heat map shows you your typing patterns for any phrase or sentence.
Newsflash: The QWERTY layout slows us down.
Wait, what? But don’t most people use this layout? Why would we want to slow ourselves down?
All thanks to Christopher Sholes (inventor of the typewriter) who, in 1872, designed the QWERTY layout to purposely slow down typing speeds. You see, back then typing fast would jam the hammers in the typewriters and neighbouring keystrokes also caused jams. Instead of working on the mechanical design, Scholes became preoccupied with arranging the keys to slow typists down.
And so, the QWERTY was designed specifically to mess with you.
Fast forward 60 years.
Professor August Dvorak attempted to put an end to this madness by designing the ultimate keyboard that would be easier to use. His idea was to arrange the letters according to frequency; a very rational approach.
The keyboard had all five vowels and the five most common consonants on the middle row which are: AOEUIDHTNS. The letters on the middle row, also known as the home row, do a total of 70% of the work. On QWERTY they do only 32%. Naturally, the least common letters were placed on the bottom row as it’s hardest to reach.
Imagine if you could write 20% faster with 50% more accuracy.
By switching to Dvorak you’re average of 10 emails an hour just got boosted to 12. BINGO. Get the Dvorak layout with your Orée Board, and ask your boss for a raise.
The ultimate Facebook keyboard shortcuts
On a lighter note, here are some fun keyboard tips you can make use of everyday.
J to scroll
K to select
L to like once selected
C to comment
S to share
/ to search