From: owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu on behalf of Ivan Poupyrev [poup@csl.sony.co.jp] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 6:32 AM To: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu Subject: Re: text/number input in VEs > From: "Boris Mansencal" > It is noteworthy that the QWERTY (or AZERTY in France) character layout > was "intentionally designed to slow down typist on the original mechanical > designs". This is actually a very persistent myth. I am attaching 2 messages from an ACM public mailing list that detail some of the issues of designing QWERTY keyboards (with references on literature) ivan ---------------------------------------------------------- From: "David Kieras" To: Sent: Thursday, July 22, 1999 12:49 PM Subject: Re: NYT Reporter seeks keyboard experts/designers > The actual history of how Sholes developed the QWERTY keyboard and the > first commercially viable typewriter is that he engaged in systematic > iterative user testing of prototype machines, with the design goal being to > support court recording. The "conventional wisdom" that the keyboard was > deliberately designed to slow people down couldn't be further from the > truth. It's remarkable how many human factors textbooks repeat this myth, > when the facts are an early human factors success story. > > At 9:49 AM -0400 7/20/99, Brian Shackel wrote: > >Dear Jenny Lee, > > > >Like so many you are convinced by hearsay and chitter-chatter "standard > >QWERTY inefficiency story". Oh dear! :-) Why not write up the facts? > > > >The latest good summary is by a former Doctoral student of mine Jan Noyes > >'Keyboards' Chapter 1 in 'Interface Technology - the Leading Edge' 1999, > >Research Studies Press, Baldock UK, and at 325 Chestnut Street, > >Philadelphia, PA 19106 (ISBN 0-86380-233-8). > > > >I quote from her chapter - > >"Despite these criticisms, the QWERTY layout has been shown to be nearly > >optimal in terms of typing speed; this is primarily because it allows > >almost all keystrokes to be made by alternate hands (Kinkead, 1975). > >Thomas (1972) and others reinforced this point." > > > >Also you might wish to refer to Norman & Fisher in Human Factors (journal) > >1982, vol 24, pp. 509-519, where they showed by extensive computer > >simulated tests that even the generally suggested best keyboard (the > >Dvorak) has never been shown, and could not by computer simulation be > >shown, to be more than 6% better than QWERTY - which is nowhere near enough > >to be worth learning to changeover to it. > > > >Yours, Brian Shackel.