Typing Proficiency on a QWERTY Keyboard Affects the Learning of Using a Dvorak Keyboard
The design of a Dvorak keyboard has been shown to offer ergonomic benefits over the traditional QWERTY keyboard design. The mechanism behind this advantage is that the layout of the alphabet (or keys) on a Dvorak keyboard differs from a QWERTY keyboard. Such a difference in the Dvorak keyboard allows better use of the more dominant fingers (2nd and 3rd digits) and minimizes finger motions. However, the QWERTY keyboard remains the more popular design in workplace as well as in everyday life. This can be attributed to the prevalent concern over the short-term impact on productivity from a Dvorak keyboard, especially to users who are already proficient QWERTY typists. Quantification of such impact on users with different levels of QWERTY typing skills can help alleviate some of these concerns or uncertainties in users as well as on the management level in the workplace. The main goal of this study is to investigate how different levels in typing proficiency on a QWERTY keyboard may affect the learning percentages and error rates in learning to type on a Dvorak keyboard. Twenty one subjects with no prior Dvorak typing experience were recruited and divided into three groups (slow, average and fast typists) according to their QWERTY typing speed. Each subject typed a three-sentence passage ten times on both a QWERTY and a Dvorak keyboard with the order of keyboard presentation (QWERTY before Dvorak vs. Dvorak before QWERTY) being randomized. The results showed that fast and average typists suffered steeper drop in typing speed (91.8％ and 89.1％ respectively) when switching from a QWERTY keyboard to the first trial on a Dvorak keyboard than slow typists (80.4％). Although no statistical significance was found, the results show that fast and average typists tend to learn faster in adapting to the Dvorak keyboard (with an average learning percentage of 0.801 and 0.804 respectively) than slow typists (0.847). The average error rates during the following three experimental phases were also examined: the second half of the QWERTY trials (Q), the first half of the Dvorak trials (D1), and the second half of the Dvorak trials (D2). The results show that fast typists made more errors as they transitioned from QWERTY to Dvorak (with an average error rate of 3.10％ for Q compared with 6.03％ and 5.53％ for D1 and D2 respectively), whereas average and slow typists made fewer errors as the transition occurred. For average typists, the average error rates were 5.63％, 5.42％ and 3.94％ for Q, D1 and D2 respectively. For slow typists, the average error rates were 4.61％, 3.18％ and 3.04％ for Q, D1 and D2 respectively.
Zongliang Jiang
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC 27411, USA
国际会议
17th World Congress on Ergonomics(第十七届国际人类工效学大会)
北京
英文
1-5
2009-08-09（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）