6 Non-QWERTY Keyboard Layouts

How did the keys on your keyboard wind up in the QWERTY configuration? You can thank
Christopher Latham Sholes. He was a typewriter inventor who used a top row layout of
letters eerily similar to todays QWERTY set-up for his Sholes & Gilden Typewriter. That
design was sold to the Remington Typewriter company in 1873, which tweaked the design
slightly to one we largely see today.
But not everyone uses QWERTY keyboards! Here are six alternative layouts.
1. AZERTY

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There are some quirky QWERTY layouts that use largely the same base as Sholes original
keyboard adapted by Remington, but switch a few keys. AZERTY, used in French-speaking
countries across Europe and Africa, is one such version.
As its name suggests, it switches Q for A and W for Z in the top line. On the right hand side
of the second line of letters, the semi colon key is swapped for the M key. In Englishspeaking western countries using the QWERTY layout, the numbers row on the top of the
keyboard are used predominately as numbers (with symbols made by holding down the shift
key), but in France the idea is reversed: Thats primarily your accent row, while holding down
shift and hitting a key will give you a number.

2. QWERTZ

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QWERTZ is another slight tweak on the tried-and-tested QWERTY layout. Used
predominately in central Europe (Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and other nearby
nations), QWERTZ is not necessarily one single layout: country-by-country variations exist
that are tailored to better match the needs of that areas particular linguistic nuances.
3. Dvorak

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Though Dvorak may sound like another string of letters, its in fact the surname of this
keyboard layouts inventor, August Dvorak. The inventor felt, when he patented his design in
1936, that QWERTY was uneconomical and uncomfortableand therefore wasnt the perfect
layout. Dvorak believed that his layout was more efficient, and studies seem to agree.
People using QWERTY keyboards only make 32 percent of strokes on the home row
(where your fingers naturally rest on a keyboard). For Dvorak, that rises to 70 percent. And
likewise, most people are right handed: Dvorak accounts for that, making more than half the
strokes right handed. QWERTY calls on people to use their left hands more. But save for a
few eager practitioners, Dvorak is the lesser-known layout.

4. Colemak

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The Colemak keyboard layout is meant to appease those who are uncomfortable with
QWERTY but dont feel like adopting a whole new layout. Instead, it makes 17 changes to
key layout, and also does away with the Caps Lock key. It's replaced with a second backspace
key, for those of you who make double the amount of mistakes.
5. Maltron

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The Maltron keyboard may, at first, seem utterly daunting. Rather than a single rectangular
grouping of letter-based keys, Maltron produces two square sets of letters, both of which
flank a number pad in the middle. The left hand square of letters has the unusual combination
of ANISF as its home row, while the right hand squares home row is set out in the DTHOR
combination.

6. JCUKEN

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For some countriesand some languagesQWERTY just wont cut it. Russian, for
example, uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which is wholly different from the Latin-based English
alphabet. Since 1917 (when Russia reformed its alphabet to remove some letters), JCUKEN
has been the default layout for Russian keyboards. Its wholly memorable, for those of you
keen to try it out: its home row reads FYWAPROLDV.