Dvorak vs. QWERTY typing

By now most people know that stories about the origin of the QWERTY layout are a myth, exposed a few years ago by S. J. LIEBOWITZ and STEPHEN E. MARGOLIS. Many economists pointed to QWERTY as an example of the idea of "path dependence", attempting to show among other things that sometimes a poor technical design can gain hold at the expense of better options because people become "locked in" to the tyranny of the status quo. Some people have used the same argument against Microsoft's dominance in operating systems, claiming that an inferior technology flourished at the expense of better options, but that now things are so entrenched it's impossible to go back without government intervention. Liebowitz and Margolis showed how path independence is false, at least as applied to QWERTY, and they later extrapolated it to refute many anti-Microsoft arguments as well.

But wait! Dvorak really is better than QWERTY! I've always believed that, and still do. It's only marginally better, not enough to overcome the ubiquity of QWERTY, but it is better by several interesting metrics. Today I saw a web site by Jon A. Maxwell that shows you in real time how much better: enter a text string and see how much less work you need to exert in order to type on DKS versus QWERTY. [via Slashdot]