ASERT is a new layout for your QWERTY keyboard. It is intended for people which have been typing in QWERTY keyboards for years and wants to speed it up.
An easy learning curve, and the fact that you already know the distribution, will let you type on ASERT within minutes.
QWERTY is the default layout of nearly every keyboard available, and, while is not even close of being perfect, for most of people is the only layout they ever knew. Over the years, you have learned a keyboard layout that has been reinforced in your brain by repetitions.
Other layouts like Dvorak or Colemak, which improved speed, accuracy and ergonomics, failed to convince the user to re-learn again to type day by day. This cannot be undone easily. This fact has been ignored by all who wanted to implement a new keyboard layout, forgetting the users which had to learn over the years to write in a certain way.
Using other alternative keyboards, each time you try to write a letter, your muscle memory will force you to write it as you did before, and you'll have to repress your instinct and recalibrate the chain of movements that your brain automatically performs to write that letter. This is frustrating and stressful, especially if you've spent years writing on a QWERTY keyboard, and it's the main reason for abandoning alternative keyboard layouts.
The human being has "Resistance to adoption" feature by design. In fact, according to Wikipedia:
Although the Dvorak layout is the only other keyboard layout registered with ANSI and is provided with all major operating systems, attempts to convert universally to the Dvorak layout have not succeeded. The failure of the Dvorak layout to displace the QWERTY layout has been the subject of some studies.
A discussion of the Dvorak layout is sometimes used as an exercise by management consultants to illustrate the difficulties of change. The Dvorak layout is often used in economics textbooks as a standard example of network effects, though this approach has been criticized.
ASERT takes a diferent approach. We assume the user is always right. Instead of re-arrange the whole keyboard layout, only 14 have been changed. These keys have been changed in pairs, one by another. In addition, those keys that have been switched vertically, and are clicked by the same finger as before. If you used to press the letter [E] with your middle finger of the left hand, it will remain so, but in a different row.
This golden rules are the core idea of the ASERT layout. The first time you use it, is like met an old friend. You know exactly what happened every time you miss a key. In fact, if you are a trained typer, you'll probably will start typing ASERT flawlessly in matter of minutes.
So, after some researching, and being inspired by Colemak and Workman layouts philosophy, I realized that with a minor changes QWERTY could be an actually great layout.
Facts:
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People are afraid to change their layout (Resistance to adoption).
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The most used letters in english are, in this particular order: etaoinshrdlcumwfgypbvkjxqz
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The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists claims that the first 25 words make up about one-third of all printed material in English, and that the first 100 make up about one-half of all written material.
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I made an frecuency analysis of that 25 words, this are the results:
t : 10 o : 8 h : 7 a : 6 i : 6 e : 4 n : 4 s : 3 f : 3 b : 3 y : 2 d : 2 r : 2 u : 2 v : 1 w : 1 m : 1 x : 0 c : 0 z : 0 g : 0 j : 0 p : 0 l : 0 k : 0 q : 0
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Top 10 most used keys are on the middle and upper row in Qwerty layout, and the are not mutual exclusive for any finger.
So, if you take a look a the top of this list, most of those keys are actually in the middle of the keyboard. In fact, most of the upper row in QWERTY are the top of the most used letter of the most used words. We already have a good layout, but we have the wrong sorting for that rows!!
What I did is just to change one-by-one a 7 pairs of keys, BUT those key are PRESSED BY THE SAME FINGER. so you can easily remember where is the desired letter by heart from the very first minute practicing.
So, finally, TL;DR:
I made a few minor changes in QWERTY layout, which I'm flawlessly using right now, and I'm proud to share with you. Introducing:
The ASERT layout, a better QWERTY layout.
As you may see, the green keys have been lowed to the middle row, but keeping the same finger for each key, and the red ones, as counterpart, have been raised to the upper row in place the other left.
With this minor changes, the middle row already has the top 10 most used words in english, and the most common word can be written with just four fingers in the center of the board.
It took me no more than 2 days to get used to it, because I only change a few keys, and every keycap is pressed by the same finger you were used to use with a QWERTY layout.
The best part: You already know this layout, no need to memorize a new one.
I hope you enjoy this layout, which I will publish on github as plugins for the most common OS.
Thanks for reading.
#FAQ