The Great Keyboard Layout Comparison: 2021 edition.

[iandoug]

Hi all

It's been a while since the the last time I did this exercise (2017) but I have done another comparison between the various keyboard layouts.

The results are up at https://www.keyboard-design.com/best-layouts.html

As part of the process, I also refreshed the Internet Letter Layout DB (ILLDB) at https://www.keyboard-design.com/interne ... ut-db.html

The layouts were evaluated for finger-based metrics using a fork of the Keyboard Layout Analyzer at
https://klanext.keyboard-design.com , as well as some word and same-finger bigram tests via custom programs.

There were 355 layouts evaluated, in ANSI, Ergodox or Matrix form factors.

I included new layouts developed in recent times, as well as removing older development and minor variants, and those deemed "bad for hands" (chiefly constant AltGr on ANSI) and "bad for heads", chiefly the Seelpy/Essie style layouts.

The analysis includes new features, while some used last time have been removed.
The motivations are at https://www.keyboard-design.com/testing-2021.html

Click the links in the top 30 lists to see each layout's analysis, or via the ILLDB.

Feedback welcome.

Thanks, Ian

[leoc]

It looks like nice work! For the benefit of lazy people, would you also consider adding, to the page for each physical layout, the scores achieved by the most standard QWERTY logical layout used on that physical layout?

[iandoug]

Hi

I did actually consider that but figured someone would want the OTHER of whichever of these I picked:

https://www.keyboard-design.com/letterl ... en.ergodox
https://www.keyboard-design.com/letterl ... en.ergodox

[The first can be immediately improved by putting Enter under the thumb. These layouts were inherited from Patrick's original version.)

I'll need to make matrix versions ... with and without thumbshifts...

Thanks for the feedback.

Cheers, Ian

[hellothere]

FWIW, I'd also like to see more QWERTY action. I'm not a real typist. I use 1 or 2 fingers on one hand and 3 to 4 on another. I tend to rest my forearms on my chair and use the "floating hands" technique. What would help me out more would be key placement, key size, and extra keys, like an equals key on the numpad.

You put an awful lot of good work into that website. It really looks great.