I can't speak for anyone else but switching to Dvorak saved my wrists. As a systems engineer most of my day is typing. About 15 years ago I started having pain in my wrists that got almost to the point I seriously considered changing professions away from IT. A friend convinced me to try dvorak first as he had good results with his RSI. I tried it, hated it, but persevered because I actually loved my job. It paid off, after about a month, I learned dvorak well enough to get things done at a reasonable speed. My wrists hurt less and less as time went on, and eventually stopped. I still type as much as I ever did really, probably more because I have to write so much more prose as my career has progressed. I credit switching to Dvorak for saving my career. Obviously YMMV, but the finger travel distance is less, and I could feel the difference. I now type about as fast as I did with qwerty, and haven't had an issue switching any os I use a keyboard with to dvorak for at least 10 years. If you have RSI, I highly recommend pushing through the hard learning curve and seeing if it helps. I do still have qwerty on my cell, but there I type with my thumbs, not my fingers, and the speed isn't comparable anyways.
No comments yet.