You are likely sitting before a computer, and therefore a keyboard. Due to the mechanical limitations of Christopher Sholes' 1874 machine, it is probably a QWERTY keyboard. The QWERTY layout was originally designed with some kind of logic, but evolved over six years to minimize typebar clashes. Nineteen years later Blickensderfer's typewriter used a supposedly superior layout, but it never caught on. Today there is a small movement towards the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. The beauty of the Dvorak design was that without the mechanical limitations of the QWERTY design, August Dvorak studied letter frequencies and hand physiology to create a keyboard that minimized hand fatigue and increased efficiency. In a society that increasingly values productivity, yet suffers from repetitive stress injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, why have we not changed to a more efficient model?
For exactly the same reasons that we have not undergone mandatory metrication. Show me a person who believes that the Imperial System, also known as the United States Customary System, is superior to the metric system, and I will show you an idiot. The United States is slowly undergoing voluntary metrication, but outside the food, medical and scientific communities, it is rare. At what point to speed limit signs get posted in km/hr?
The answer is that it is easier to keep doing things the wrong way than it is to put out the initial investment to make long term improvements. There is the part of me that wants to adopt the Dvorak as my preferred keyboard. Our computers already have the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout a few strokes away. I'll keep you posted.
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