Keyboard Layout Comparison

In short Layout comparisons usually run on a standard sample of English text, which tells you how the layouts rank for a generic writer and not how they rank for you. This runs the analysis on text you paste in — your own emails, your own code — because the answer for prose and the answer for a language full of brackets and underscores are genuinely different. It measures three things across QWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak and Workman: total finger travel in key units, same-finger pairs where one finger must move twice in a row, and hand alternation. Same-finger pairs are the column to watch. Travel distance is the number people quote and it correlates weakly with comfort or speed; consecutive same-finger sequences are what actually break your rhythm, and they are what the alternative layouts were designed to reduce. The honest conclusion is usually not to switch. Retraining costs weeks of ruined productivity and the gain for most people is modest, so the case is strongest if you already have discomfort or type all day for a living. This is a geometric model of key positions, not an ergonomics study — it cannot predict pain, and pain is the reason that actually justifies the switch.