I did not realize this was a thing until I just switched to AZERTY which… despite being marketed as being “similar” to QWERTY, is still tripping me up
Edit: since this came up twice: I’m switching since I’m relocating to the French-speaking part of the world & I just happened to want to learn the language/culture, so yeah
I’ve been using Dvorak for maybe like 5 years now. There’s like a 2 or 3 day period whenever you’re learning a new keyboard layout in which you can’t type at all lmao. QWERTY or Dvorak or whatever. Just takes a bit for your brain to adjust.
The interesting thing is tho, if I sit down at a computer I don’t use every day and start typing, I can type QWERTY no problem, but if I ever have to type QWERTY on my personal computer (lookin at you RDP), its really hard.
I’ve been meaning to try out a Colemak layout, since it tries to keep a lot of the common computer shortcuts in the same place. (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V on Dvorak are in kind of an odd place and its a pain if you ever need to use them 1 handed, like if you’re holding a tablet pen)
How long did it take you to get back up to your old speed? It took me 1-3 mo. after switching. I think it helped that I used to look at the keys and when I converted I learned 100% touch typing.
about 1 month maybe to get back to full speed? I never really measured my typing speed before or right after switching so I don’t really know. I think nowadays i can type faster in Dvorak than I ever could in QWERTY, but thats probably just from using it a lot and generally needing to type more nowadays lol.
I went from 40-45wpm on Qwerty to 65-75wpm on Dvorak, but after I stopped practicing, I settled somewhere in the high 50s low 60s. I specifically measured because I wanted to be able to quantify the changes. Speed wasn’t my only concern, but it’s the biggest change. There’s no need to learn an alternative layout, but even people who don’t may benefit from a small adjustment like making caps lock a left backspace and learning to touch type. In retrospect, I would consider more of the alternative layouts before jumping to Dvorak, but I don’t regret it at all, even at work or with games.