Is a dvorak keyboard different form a standard keyboard?

That depends on what you mean by "different".

If you are not thinking about the position of the letters on the keys, the keyboard is just alike the standard layout, called QWERTY. However, the position of the letters on the keyboard is different, because of the way the two were designed.

The QWERTY-layout was designed to prevent the letter printing arms on the typewriters from getting stuck. The arms got stuck because people typed too fast, due to keys being placed near each other, and the QWERTY layout got rid of this by making the layout hard to type on. This was a correct solution at the time.

However, the Dvorak layout is in every way better. Dvorak was designed so that it would be the fastest, most ergonomic and most easy to learn keyboard ever, and the design took 12 years of hard studies to make. The Dvorak keyboard is also intended to be touch typed on, and QWERTY is not.

Some of the main principles of Dvorak are:

1. The most used keys should be on the home row (the one starting with A on the left side), the next most on the top row, and the least used on the bottom row.
   
2. The vowels and consonants should be on each side, so that one will type less letters consecutively with one hand, resulting in greater typing speed (you can check this by yourself; press the space bar two times with a finger on your right hand, and then on the left, continue this for a while, and press it one time with each hand alternately)
3. When typing more letters on one hand, you should type in direction from your little to you index finger, to increase speed and ergonomy.

Switching is easy, English drivers are built into most operating systems, and drivers for other languages are available. Or, you could make one yourself. You don't need to buy a new keyboard to switch, in fact, it is better not to even switch around your keys when learning to type.

The US Navy found out that switching to Dvorak was benefiting a person in every way, because it is easier to learn, and has higher typing speed. The only problem with it, is that only a small minority uses Dvorak as their main keyboard. Of course, if you switch, we're one step closer to getting the best design to its right.

First answer by ID3472279034. Last edit by Eirik. Contributor trust: 16 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 16 [recommend question]