Keyboards Layouts Explained

Speaking of keyboards, the most common configuration is the QWERTY layout. It was invented by a typewriter called Christopher Latham Sholes, who used a top row layout of letters like today's QWERTY set-up. That design was sold to the Remington Typewriter Company in 1873, which slightly changed the design, making it more similar to the one that we use today.

But not everyone uses that configuration! Here are some alternative layouts.

AZERTY, This keyboard takes his name from the first six letters to appear on the first row of keys. It is modeled on the English QWERTY layout, and it's used by most French speakers especially in Europe and Quebec. It appeared in France in the last decade of the 19th century, but its exact origin is unknown.

QWERTZ, This layout is more similar to the first configuration than the AZERTY one, because the only difference is that the Z and the Y are inverted. It is use predominately in central Europe, but its not the same for every country. Some zones for example use the QWERTZ main scheme, but with a few little differences in the "Crtl" and "Alt" keys.

DVORAK, even if this may sound like another string of letters, it is in fact the surname of this keyboard's inventor, August Dvorak. When he designed this layout in 1936, he thought that QWERTY was inefficient, and he believed that his layout was faster and smarter, and studies seems to agree. He also saw that people with a QWERTY keyboard usually make 32% of strokes on the "home row". In the Dvorak configuration, that rises to 70%. He also said that in the other layout all the most used letters are in a left zone, making it a keyboard for left-handed people. In his configuration in fact, the main keys are well distributed on the typing surface, creating a layout perfect for everyone.

COLEMARK, the Colemark keyboard is for someone who feels uncomfortable with the QWERTY keyboard but doesn't want to use a complete different layout. In this configuration there are 17 changes in key layout and the "Caps Lock" button is replaced with a second "Backspace" key, for those who are often making typing mistakes.

JCUKEN, in some countries is used a completely different alphabet than the one used in the QWERTY keyboard, such as Russia. Since 1917, in this country there is the JCUKEN configuration, based on the Cyrillic alphabet. For those who don't speak Russian it is impossible to use, as the home row is "FYWAPROLDW".