My purpose in discussing the Dvorak layout is not to recommend that every computer athlete learn an entirely new typing layout based on its benefits. Instead, I believe that it inspires us to challenge the conventional standard, realizing that initial standards can be extremely difficult to overcome. Another example of this phenomenon can be found in the fact that the United States, Liberia, and Burma (Myanmar) are the only countries left that use the English system of measurement as their official standard. Even England has officially chosen the metric system over the English system! In the 1970s, a large group of stakeholders from the public and private sectors in the U.S. deliberated and determined that it would be best for the U.S. to move officially over to the metric system, as well. However, as of 2008, the U.S. still, inexplicably, uses the English system. One could similarly argue that the QWERTY standard should be replaced as the de facto keyboard standard, since several superior keyboard layouts exist— including Colemak, Dvorak, and the like.

Although learning another layout can take several weeks and make using keyboards on QWERTY workstations more difficult, it can be worth the effort. If you spend the majority of your time on your own workstation, the fact that using other workstations could be more difficult may not affect you significantly. It is also possible to be bi-layout. I know both QWERTY and Dvorak well, and can switch between them when necessary. I will say, though, that while I am pretty adept at Dvorak, my QWERTY typing has suffered a bit.

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