The Reason of the Letters Position on the Keyboard

06.31 in Unique

Do you ever ask, why the order of letters in a typewriter keyboard, computer, PDA, etc are "QWERTYUIOP" and so on? Why don’t they make a sequence like "ABCDEFGH" and so on? Maybe some of you already know the story, but in case if you’re not, I will tell you right here.

It is said that, the keyboard has been created since 1860 by Sholes and Dunsmore. Originally they were made sequentially in alphabetical order. However, gradually with increasing capabilities (custom) user, typing speed becomes faster while the mechanism of the engine is still simple. As a result, certain keys got jammed and hinder the work.

Based on their experience, finally they made the keyboard deliberately complicated and inefficient so it won’t jam easily. Typewriter design was then sold to the Remington for mass production in 1873. The structure is divided into four rows, the top line of "23456789 -" second line "QWE.TYIUOP", third line "XDFGHJKLM", and the bottom line "AX & CVBN?; R".

Over time, technology developed rapidly and the problems that often jammed keyboard button has been overcome with a better mechanical design. A number of alternative keyboard design also appeared on the market. One of the quite popular is the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) made by August Dvorak in 1936. The design is claimed to be a more efficient, and faster.

QWERTY actually has many shortcomings such as making your left hand overloaded, especially when writing in English (the same thing I felt when writing in some other languages). QWERTY also makes your pinkie overloaded. Research shows that the uneven distribution of the letter so that your fingers must be crossed from line to line - when measured finger typists will typically run more than 20 miles per day, compared with the DSK that only run 1 mile.

Unfortunately, people still refuse to turn away from the design of "QWERTY" although the design is not the best design. Although technology can solve the key problem of jamming, people stick with the design "QWERTY" design rather than other, more superior. Instead, the QWERTY crowned as the international standard in 1966.

The same thing also happens in Microsoft Windows. We certainly know that Windows is not the best operating system, whether it is in terms of safety, convenience, performance, and the matter of beauty. However, because the market penetration of Windows has been so swift, people got used to using Windows and operating systems become standardized.

Is it nothing better than Windows? Of course not. But people need to think about it a few times before turning away from the standard. They have to face barriers such as cost factor, compatibility issues, the learning process, the time factor, and many more. As a result the number of those who are faithful to much larger than the apostate. This is what makes Windows or QWERTY became the standard - even though they are not the best.

In the scientific world, this phenomenon is explained as the concept of path dependency and network externality. In essence, innovation does not produce outcomes that out of the blue, but it is a development that could be predicted from a has-been. In addition, the value of innovation will be higher when it is used by more people. At a certain stage, these innovations will become the standard used by the public.