Mac Musings

The New Standard Keyboard: What Were They Thinking?

Dan Knight - 2005.01.26 - Tip Jar

If you know anything at all about the history of keyboards, you probably know that the QWERTY design - so named after the first six alphabetical keys - was deliberately designed to avoid jamming typewriters. Ideal or not, it's been the standard keyboard layout in the English-speaking world for 130 years.

The only alternative layout that has made even a little bit of headway against the QWERTY layout has been one designed by August Dvorak, which was intended to improve typing efficiency. Despite the "improved" design, neither side of the QWERTY-Dvorak debate has been able to conclusively demonstrate any superiority over the other layout.

That's because the QWERTY layout was never intended to slow down typists - a common accusation from Dvorak supporters - but to allow them to type quickly without jamming the keys in their typewriters. In other words, QWERTY was designed to be efficient, too.

Of course, computer users don't have to worry about keys jamming, but there was no reason to change something everyone was used to, so computers used the same key layout as typewriters. (This varies around the world. QWERTY was designed for English, and other layouts work better for other languages. Still, computer keyboards follow the dominant typewriter layout for a given language, adding whatever additional keys are deemed important to computer users.)

Perhaps someday we'll have a universal keyboard for languages that use the Western European character set, complete with accents, umlauts, cedillas, and a variety of currency symbols, but I don't expect that to happen any time soon.

Or maybe it will. The "New Standard Keyboard" addresses the issue of key layout by subsuming ergonomics and typing efficiency for the sake of the hunt-and-peck typist. The New Standard Keyboard puts the text keys in alphabetical order, frustrating QWERTY and Dvorak users alike.

If you think the concept of an alphabetical keyboard is lame, just check out the actual product. It looks like it was designed for preschoolers:

New Standard Keyboard

Despite the garish color scheme and the bizarre decision to put keys in alphabetical order, the New Standard Keyboard is innovative. It rethinks almost every aspect of the keyboard - other than the square shape of the keys.

This is a compact keyboard, because there are no function keys, navigation keys, number keys, or even a traditionally wide space bar. There's not even a standard numeric keypad. All 26 letters are there, along with punctuation, Shift and other modifier keys, and a centrally located set of arrow keys.

It's obvious that a lot of time, thought, and research went into this project. The keyboard has an ergonomic design without the odd humps and weird shapes seen in too many ergonomic designs. The keys are aligned to match the natural movements of fingers. And each of the modifier keys appears on both sides of the keyboard.

arrow keysMy favorite feature is the location of the arrow keys between the right and left hands - no more need to move your right hand to use them. Clever, and both more intuitive and space-efficient than the inverted T found on most extended keyboards.

Still, it's not going to fly simply because it's too different and over-designed. Typists might accept one or two changes in their keyboards, adding others over time, but a new key layout, the lack of number and function keys, no Home or End keys, and the childish color scheme are too much. (Update: New Standard Keyboards has since introduced a "professional" model with black keys.)

There's no way the New Standard Keyboard is going to become the standard anywhere. QWERTY isn't going away any time soon, and if people are going to accept the other improvements this keyboard may offer, they won't consider it worth the time required to learn and entirely new layout.

The keyboard has to function in the real world, where people use numbers, function keys, navigation keys, and even dedicated sleep, email, volume, and other keys. The New Standard Keyboard flies against the wind of more functions on the keyboard.

That said, perhaps others can learn from it. Many long for smaller keyboards, gladly dispensing with numeric keypads and a full complement of navigation keys to keep the mouse closer at hand.

The slightly angled keys make for a more ergonomic design than most of us have, and with the minimal curvature it might even be practical to apply some ergonomic design to laptop keyboards.

Overall, I give the New Standard Keyboard an A for effort, an A for execution, an F for use of color, and a D for practicality. I'll be sticking with my unergonomic QWERTY keyboards for a while longer. LEM

Join us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent articles by Dan Knight

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2012 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
  Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.

Custom Search

Share

Follow Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac on Facebook

Low End Mac Reader Specials

Quantcast

TypeStyler 11 is now in the Mac App Store!! -- Special Introductory Price of $59.95!! -- To Buy From The Mac App Store Click Here Now!! Or buy direct from Strider Software.

Quantcast

Quantcast

Quantcast

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker and Mac Casino applications in minutes.

Quantcast

Quantcast

Quantcast

Quantcast

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
Cult of Mac
Shrine of Apple
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac Museum
DealMac
Deal Brothers
Mac2Sell
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End Mac FAQ

Affiliates

Amazon.com
The Apple Store
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
GainSaver
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay

Low End Mac's Amazon.com store

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link