From QWERTY to KALQ

The existing QWERTY keyboard was designed in the typewriter era to slow down typing. To prevent the typist from hitting keys too fast; because then they would get jammed. Ok, pretty much everyone knows that.

But now the typewriter is dead. And we have moved to the electronic keyboards on our touchscreens. Keys jamming is no longer a problem; and yet we stick to the QWERTY. Because everyone is familiar with it already, we don’t want to rock the boat and switch to a more efficient layout. So are we doomed to stick with the QWERTY because of legacy reasons?

There is hope in the horizon. After all, we now live in the brave new world of apps for (smart)phones. Where developers write apps for free. Where users are willing to try something new; and drop it if it isn’t good. No money changes hands; so both developers and users are willing to experiment.


Including experimenting with the (touchscreen) keyboard. Notice how many smartphone users use only their (two) thumbs to type? So Dr. Per Ola Kristensson at St. Andrews university came up with a new layout they are calling KALQ.

So how did they decide the letter layout? In three steps:
1)      Identify the most convenient way to hold the device while typing with your thumbs.
2)     Maximize use of both thumbs (“With KALQ we have therefore re-arranged the letters on the layout to maximise the alternation of both thumbs.”)
3)     Minimize thumb travel distance (if the thumb has to move too much, it won’t easy to hold the device).
The last 2 steps obviously involved mining a lot of data and doing statistical analysis.

The obvious concern would be the learning curve: how much time would it take to learn the new layout? And how much would it speed things up (aka: is it worth the effort)?

Kristensson has answers to both questions: it takes around 8 hours of typing to reach the point where KALQ is faster than QWERTY. And you would get around 34% speeding up with 13-19 hours of practice.

Certainly worth a shot, don’t you think? It’s available on Android.

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