As the year draws to a close, I've rolled the results of many hours of work over the last few months to live....
You may now see for yourself how your favourite layout does compared to over 360 others... metrics available for finger-based tests using Patrick's Keyboard Layout Analyzer (two scoring models) as well as assorted word-based metrics.
These additions also required several changes to the per-layout details available via the Letter Layout DB, and also linked directly from the various results pages.
We have also averaged the results from all the tests to produce "Best overall" lists, based on Rank in all the tests, and Average Percentage score.
Follow the links on the Best Layouts page. Enjoy. :-)
Following a request on Geekhack, have added some analysis of how many words can be typed on the Angle Mod HomeBlock words.
Added some common/tricky word lessons, and some extra practice, to the typing lessons on the Letter Layout pages.
Added the Fraser Street analysis to the Letter Layout pages.
"Fraser Street" is a specially-crafted piece of text that is typed almost entirely on the left hand in QWERTY layout.
It was designed to show how Dvorak layout had better hand alternation. Thanks to Shai Coleman for the idea.
Also made some changes to how the one-handed layouts are scored, I think there was a bug or two in the analyis.
My changes seem to have made a difference, but not sure why... :-)
Anyway the resulting letters are now more accurate, which means the word counts should be more accurate too.
Added some word-based metrics to the Best Layouts page.
This is a way of comparing layouts based on how many words you can type on different subsets of keys:
Implemented some major updates to the Internet Letter Layout DB
New feature:
With such a big update, I may have missed a few things... please report any issues. I expect to prettify the graphs a bit more as I get more familiar with
generating graphs.
Updated the Internet Letter Layout DB, which involved a lot of renaming to get to a standardised format which
I hope will be permanent.
Also added links to download the Keyboard Layout Analyzer .json, as well as the Keyboard Layout Editor .json, if it exists (only Matrix layouts done at the moment.)
Added the first version of the Internet Letter Layout DB, a reasonably comprehensive collection of logical (as opposed to physical) letter layouts for keyboards, in the various different form factors used in current version of Keyboard Layout Analyzer.
The upcoming X-Bows keyboard, currently in pre-production. You can find details on the X-Bows site and more details and options on the X-Bows Kickstarter page.
Click image for larger view.
The X-Bow features Gateron switches (your choice of action, from the usual red/black/blue/brown options), and a much more human-friendly key layout.
The keys are programmable, and if you're into backlighting, they've got you covered too.
An optional magnetically-coupled numpad is also available.
Added a basic homerow explorer to allow comparison and finding of keyboards based on their home row keys.
Added the 30% Singularity layout
Click image to go to its page.
Added some mockups and a font comparison table to the Design page on Building a Custom Keyboard.
Basically these are the best matches I can find for Signature Plastic's Gorton Modified font.
The thoroughly unorthodox Seelpy 1 has arrived, it needs a whole page to show it, you can read all the juicy details here.
The following table lists the best scoring layouts as of today, as determined by Den's scoring on Patrick's Keyboard Layout Analyzer (KLA). This is a representative sample curated from all the layouts that we test.
The well known layouts are included, as well as the best of the rest, and some from the bottom end as well.
There are four scores for each layout:
Note: lower scores are better, we are measuring effort and lower effort is better.
| Rank | Layout | Style | All | English | Prog | OtherTech |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seelpy 1 Ergolinear | Ergo | 112.5 | 84.4 | 108.9 | 152.2 |
| 2 | X6.4H Ergolinear | Ergo | 115.3 | 94.2 | 113.4 | 145 |
| 3 | X6 Ergolinear | Ergo | 117.4 | 102.1 | 113.6 | 139.4 |
| 4 | Vu Keys Ergolinear 1 | Ergo | 119.2 | 97.3 | 113.9 | 150.9 |
| 5 | QGMLWY Ergolinear 1 | Ergo | 123.6 | 104 | 118.3 | 151.9 |
| 6 | SorenK Ergolinear 1 | Ergo | 123.7 | 106.1 | 116.4 | 149.7 |
| 7 | BEAKL 4 Mod Ian AltGr3 | ANSI | 124.2 | 104.6 | 118.3 | 152.7 |
| 8 | Maltron Ergolinear | Ergo | 124.6 | 100.2 | 129 | 157.3 |
| 9 | MTGap TS Ergolinear 2 | Ergo | 124.8 | 107.8 | 122.1 | 149 |
| 10 | RSTHD ErgoLinear 2 | Ergo | 125.1 | 99.8 | 124.8 | 160.2 |
| 11 | Colmak TS Ergolinear 2 | Ergo | 125.8 | 104.3 | 119.5 | 157 |
| 12 | Ian X4 | ANSI | 128.4 | 103.5 | 114.6 | 166 |
| 13 | Arensito Ergolinear | Ergo | 128.8 | 114.7 | 119 | 150.6 |
| 14 | Nawfal Ergolinear | Ergo | 129.7 | 113.4 | 121.4 | 154.3 |
| 15 | Dvorak Ergolinear | Ergo | 131.3 | 115.6 | 128.4 | 153.7 |
| 16 | BEAKL5 ErgoLinear | Ergo | 131.6 | 113.9 | 126.4 | 157.2 |
| 17 | schizoKBD-shifted | ANSI | 133 | 105.4 | 120.8 | 174.1 |
| 18 | Plum Ergolinear | Ergo | 138 | 122.8 | 131.9 | 160.5 |
| 19 | Arensito | ANSI | 138.1 | 121.2 | 127.1 | 163.9 |
| 20 | Arensito Kinesis | Ergo | 138.5 | 115.2 | 132.3 | 172.3 |
| 21 | BEAKL Opted 1 | Ergo | 146.5 | 105.6 | 131.5 | 206.6 |
| 22 | Ergodox MTGAP TS | Ergo | 153.4 | 108.7 | 141.4 | 218.1 |
| 23 | -+T+- HT02a | Ergo | 154.4 | 94.5 | 137.2 | 241.4 |
| 24 | Ian M2 tweak | ANSI | 156.2 | 105.5 | 139.3 | 230.3 |
| 25 | Ergodox Colemak TS | Ergo | 156.8 | 106.7 | 141.1 | 229.8 |
| 26 | MK-Type V2.Staggerfix | ANSI | 158.1 | 109 | 138.4 | 230.8 |
| 27 | Ian R2 p | ANSI | 159.4 | 105.9 | 136.3 | 238.9 |
| 28 | Maltron 90 Ergodox | Ergo | 167 | 102.8 | 180.9 | 252.8 |
| 29 | Kinesis Svorak-r | Ergo | 167.4 | 119.1 | 156.2 | 237 |
| 30 | AOEYK | ANSI | 172.6 | 116.2 | 179.5 | 249.2 |
| 31 | Kinesis Colemak | Ergo | 174.3 | 110.8 | 183.4 | 260.4 |
| 32 | Right Pinky's Friend | ANSI | 182.3 | 123.4 | 198.7 | 260.3 |
| 33 | Ergodox Norman | Ergo | 187 | 125.6 | 190.8 | 271.4 |
| 34 | Ian S2 | ANSI | 189.8 | 115.7 | 203.8 | 289.4 |
| 35 | Vu Keys | ANSI | 191.2 | 111.4 | 199.8 | 299.9 |
| 36 | Dvorak Standard | ANSI | 191.5 | 128.6 | 211.1 | 274.2 |
| 37 | Aus der Neo-Welt | ANSI | 191.9 | 119.7 | 186.6 | 293.3 |
| 38 | Halmak 2.2 | ANSI | 192 | 120.2 | 202.6 | 289 |
| 39 | SorenK | ANSI | 192.3 | 120.1 | 199.2 | 291 |
| 40 | MTGAP | ANSI | 192.5 | 120.7 | 206.3 | 288.9 |
| 41 | Klausler | ANSI | 193.9 | 117.4 | 207.4 | 297 |
| 42 | QGMLWY | ANSI | 195.1 | 118.3 | 202.6 | 300 |
| 43 | Colemak | ANSI | 195.5 | 118.6 | 200.9 | 300.9 |
| 44 | Burroughs Bower | ANSI | 195.5 | 121.9 | 200.8 | 296.5 |
| 45 | Balance Twelve | ANSI | 195.7 | 116.5 | 188.8 | 307 |
| 46 | QFMLWY | ANSI | 195.8 | 120.5 | 203 | 298.6 |
| 57 | Acemak 1 | ANSI | 195.9 | 119.4 | 201.5 | 300.9 |
| 48 | Capewell-Dvorak | ANSI | 196.4 | 123.8 | 212 | 293.7 |
| 49 | HIEAMTSRN | ANSI | 196.5 | 118.5 | 204.4 | 302.9 |
| 50 | TypeHacK Layout | ANSI | 196.6 | 123.7 | 203.2 | 296.3 |
| 51 | Seruxie | ANSI | 196.9 | 122.5 | 202.8 | 298.9 |
| 52 | Tarmak 4 (ETRO) | ANSI | 198.7 | 123.9 | 203.5 | 301.5 |
| 53 | BLOU | ANSI | 199.3 | 125.5 | 209.4 | 299.4 |
| 54 | Workman | ANSI | 200 | 125.9 | 206.1 | 301.4 |
| 55 | Asset | ANSI | 200.3 | 126.3 | 205.1 | 301.9 |
| 56 | Neo 2 (v1) | ANSI | 200.8 | 127.2 | 210 | 300.8 |
| 57 | Capewell | ANSI | 201 | 127.5 | 205.4 | 301.9 |
| 58 | Minimak 12-key | ANSI | 202.8 | 130.1 | 207.6 | 302.5 |
| 59 | Norman | ANSI | 202.8 | 130 | 207.9 | 302.7 |
| 60 | Kinesis Qwerty | Ergo | 204 | 159.9 | 207.2 | 264.3 |
| 61 | Tallus | ANSI | 206.2 | 121.7 | 185.3 | 328.1 |
| 62 | BvoFRak EN V0.5 | ANSI | 223.1 | 114.7 | 185.3 | 382 |
| 63 | QWERTY | ANSI | 224.9 | 167.1 | 224.6 | 305 |
| 64 | Dvorak Programmer | ANSI | 229 | 128.8 | 196.6 | 375.4 |
| 65 | Colemak Programmer | ANSI | 239.4 | 119.2 | 202.6 | 414.4 |
| 65 | TNWMLC (Worst CarpalX) | ANSI | 243.7 | 197.3 | 238.7 | 309.2 |
| 66 | Workman Programmers | ANSI | 244.2 | 126.3 | 210.1 | 415.3 |
| 67 | QWERTY Programmer | ANSI | 266.2 | 167.9 | 230.2 | 410.5 |
More (includes pics of layouts).
Added a whole bunch of new tests and layouts to the KLA test environment. So the scores in the table below will differ slightly from the scores in the table above.
I also fixed a few of the non-ASCII characters in some of the tests, removed most of my development layouts, and resorted the layout order.
Read more on the Keyboard tests page, and explore the layouts in the KLA test environment.
The following table lists the best scoring layouts as of today, as determined by Den's scoring on Patrick's Keyboard Layout Analyzer (KLA). This is a representative sample curated from all the layouts that we test.
The well known layouts are included, as well as the best of the rest, and some from the bottom end as well. Given that known good layouts score well, and known bad ones score badly, the testing methodology looks sane. Congrats to Den and Patrick for their work.
There are four scores for each layout:
Note: lower scores are better, we are measuring effort and lower effort is better.
| Rank | Layout | Style | All | English | Prog | OtherTech |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | X6.4H Ergolinear | Ergo | 116.2 | 91.1 | 113.4 | 148 |
| 2 | X6 Ergolinear | Ergo | 117 | 98 | 113.7 | 141.5 |
| 3 | BEAKL 4 Mod Ian AltGr 3 | ANSI | 123.7 | 100.5 | 118.3 | 156.8 |
| 4 | MTGap TS ErgoLinear 2 | Ergo | 124.8 | 104.2 | 122.1 | 151.2 |
| 5 | Maltron Ergolinear | Ergo | 126.3 | 98.4 | 129 | 160.3 |
| 6 | RSTHD ErgoLinear 2 | Ergo | 126.4 | 97.2 | 124.8 | 162.9 |
| 7 | Colemak TS ErgoLinear 2 | Ergo | 126.7 | 101.3 | 119.5 | 160.1 |
| 8 | Arensito Ergolinear | Ergo | 127.7 | 110.8 | 119 | 151.1 |
| 9 | Nawfal Ergolinear | Ergo | 129.5 | 109.4 | 121.4 | 156.6 |
| 10 | Dvorak Ergolinear | Ergo | 130.6 | 111 | 128.4 | 155.5 |
| 11 | BEAKL5 ErgoLinear | Ergo | 131.4 | 109.1 | 126.4 | 160.4 |
| 12 | schizoKBD-shifted | ANSI | 133.9 | 101.4 | 120.8 | 181.8 |
| 13 | Plum Ergolinear | Ergo | 137.1 | 118.4 | 131.9 | 161.8 |
| 14 | Arensito | ANSI | 137.4 | 117.2 | 127.1 | 167.7 |
| 15 | Arensito Kinesis | Ergo | 139.7 | 111.3 | 132.3 | 177.1 |
| 16 | Ergodox MTGAP Thumbshift | Ergo | 159.2 | 105.1 | 141.4 | 231.2 |
| 17 | Ian M3 | ANSI | 159.8 | 101.6 | 140.5 | 244.2 |
| 18 | -+T+- HT02a | Ergo | 162.5 | 91.8 | 137.2 | 257.2 |
| 19 | Ergodox Colemak Thumbshift | Ergo | 163.4 | 104.1 | 141.1 | 243.3 |
| 20 | Ian R2 p | ANSI | 163.8 | 101.8 | 136.3 | 255.9 |
| 21 | Kinesis Advantage Svorak-r | Ergo | 172.2 | 114.8 | 156.2 | 247.8 |
| 22 | Maltron 90 Ergodox | Ergo | 175.5 | 101.3 | 180.9 | 265.9 |
| 23 | AOEYK | ANSI | 177.8 | 112.2 | 179.5 | 265.7 |
| 24 | Kinesis Advantage Colemak | Ergo | 182.5 | 108.5 | 183.4 | 274.1 |
| 25 | Right Pinky's Friend | ANSI | 187.2 | 119.2 | 198.7 | 275.4 |
| 26 | Ergodox Norman | Ergo | 194.9 | 122.3 | 190.8 | 286 |
| 27 | Ergodox QWERTY Thumbshift | Ergo | 197.8 | 152.2 | 172.6 | 261.4 |
| 28 | Dvorak Simplified (ie Standard) | ANSI | 198.9 | 124.2 | 211.1 | 295.8 |
| 29 | Aus der Neo-Welt | ANSI | 199.3 | 116.2 | 186.6 | 315.1 |
| 30 | Ian S2 | ANSI | 199.4 | 112 | 203.8 | 315.9 |
| 31 | Halmak 1 | ANSI | 199.9 | 116.2 | 202.9 | 311.8 |
| 32 | dangvu | ANSI | 200.3 | 109.1 | 199.2 | 323.5 |
| 33 | Vu Keys | ANSI | 200.3 | 109 | 199.8 | 323.6 |
| 34 | MTGAP | ANSI | 200.8 | 117.2 | 206.3 | 311.9 |
| 35 | SorenK | ANSI | 200.9 | 117.1 | 199.2 | 314.4 |
| 36 | Balance Twelve | ANSI | 202.9 | 112.9 | 188.8 | 328.6 |
| 37 | QGMLWY | ANSI | 203.7 | 115.4 | 202.6 | 323 |
| 38 | Burroughs Bower (typewriter) | ANSI | 203.8 | 118.8 | 200.8 | 319.3 |
| 39 | Colemak | ANSI | 204.2 | 115.9 | 200.9 | 324.1 |
| 40 | Klausler | ANSI | 204.3 | 114.5 | 207.4 | 324.5 |
| 41 | Seruxie | ANSI | 205.7 | 119.2 | 202.8 | 323.1 |
| 42 | HIEAMTSRN | ANSI | 205.9 | 114.5 | 204.4 | 329.5 |
| 43 | DreymaR | ANSI | 206.4 | 122.1 | 208.3 | 319.4 |
| 44 | Kinesis Advantage Qwerty | Ergo | 207.5 | 154.4 | 207.2 | 273.4 |
| 45 | Workman | ANSI | 207.6 | 121.5 | 206.1 | 324.1 |
| 46 | BLOU | ANSI | 208.1 | 121.5 | 209.4 | 324.4 |
| 47 | Capewell | ANSI | 210.4 | 123.8 | 205.4 | 328.7 |
| 48 | Yak | ANSI | 210.5 | 126.3 | 206.4 | 325.1 |
| 49 | Minimak 12-key | ANSI | 210.5 | 126.7 | 207.6 | 324.5 |
| 50 | EAton | ANSI | 210.6 | 116 | 204.2 | 340 |
| 51 | Norman | ANSI | 210.8 | 126.7 | 207.9 | 325.1 |
| 52 | Ergodox QWERTY | Ergo | 213.3 | 157.4 | 207.1 | 284.3 |
| 53 | QWERTY | ANSI | 229.8 | 161.3 | 224.6 | 323.7 |
| 54 | XPeRT | ANSI | 233.1 | 159.3 | 226.7 | 334.5 |
| 55 | BvoFRak EN V0.5 | ANSI | 234.7 | 111.7 | 185.3 | 415.4 |
| 56 | Dvorak Programmer | ANSI | 238.3 | 124.5 | 196.6 | 404.4 |
| 57 | TNWMLC (Worst CarpalX) | ANSI | 247.1 | 191 | 238.7 | 325.2 |
| 58 | Colemak Programmer | ANSI | 251.9 | 116.6 | 202.6 | 449.3 |
| 59 | Workman Programmers | ANSI | 255.7 | 122.1 | 210.1 | 449.8 |
| 60 | QWERTY Programmer | ANSI | 274.3 | 162.3 | 230.2 | 438.6 |
More (includes pics of layouts).
Added new Tools section with some useful links (more to come), as well as the beginnings of my guide to building a custom mechanical keyboard from scratch.
That's also still a work in progress but I need to start now so I can document the next steps...
Added four new swiping/one-finger layouts to the Swiping layouts comparison page. These were designed by other people.
The layouts are Chubron, Opti Improved, Fitaly, and Metropolis.
Added the Atari 800.
Added a mockup by Anonymous, fingercoded.
Added the Atreus layout, fingercoded.
Added the Z8 swiping layout. Definitely done with this for today. It's better than about twice as good as QWERTY, according to the limited metrics used to measure.
So the question is, is this the best English swiping layout in the world? Let me know :-)
See comparisons against other popular layouts.
Added the Z7 swiping layout. Think that's about as far as I'm going with this for now :-)
See comparisons against other popular layouts.
Added the Z6 swiping layout.
See comparisons against other popular layouts.
Added Planck fingercoded.
Added Matrix Colmak, from a design by Jack Humbert.
Added a proposal for a switch tester layout.
Added the Taylor Peterson modified Dvorak Fingercoded layout.
Added the ANSI 104 QWERTY Fingercoded layout.
Also switching to a new colour scheme for these layouts, based on selected Material Design colours.
Added KLE file for JD40 Fingercoded.
Have uploaded a lot of changes to the Best Layouts section. The main thrust is still on the Den Scoring sections.
I have added various new tests, as well as some (rather radical) new layouts, which produce good results.
In particular, the X6.3H ErgoLinear is best at English:
While the X6.1H ErgoLinear is best overall:
Click images above for larger view. They are radical because of where the h is... on AltGr. In spite of needing both thumbs to press it, the layout still gets the best scores.
A revision to the layout below ... I found the four-way swipes a bit fiddly so reverted to something more conventional.
Also tweaked the punctuation and added the missing asterisk. The other three main currency symbols (£ ¥ €) are on the Sym page.
Guess this will be Ian Z2.
Here's the layout:
{
"title":"Ian Z2a",
"onScreen":{
"main":[
"1234567890",
"jfiousdmqz",
"bpanthervx",
"[SHIFT]&ylgcwk[Del→][DEL]",
"[TOOL][ALTGR:,][SPACE][][][SYM:.][ENTER]"
],
"sym":[
"[Cut][Copy][Paste][Home][Left][Up][Down][Right][End][|←Del]",
"~`{}*+-/=_£§∷‡",
"#\\[]$|'\"%^¥—‐–",
"…@<>!;:?‹›€±.,",
"[LOCK][ALTGR:,][SPACE][][][SYM:.][ENTER]"
],
"altGr":[
"ˉˋˇ´¨˙˚¸﹐˛˘˜ˆ",
"―∑éə®†Ωœøπ•·¡",
"æß∂ðƒ©ªº∆≠℥∞¿",
"ʒΩ≈çþ∫ŋµ≤≥°",
"[LOCK][ALTGR:,][SPACE][][][SYM:.][ENTER]"
]
}
}
Above is a work in progress at a design for a swiping layout for cellphones. Click the image for a larger view. I modified a supplied layout in the app (Qwerty + arrows layout).
I had been using Swiftkey for ages, but their change in ownership and business model bothered me, so I went surfabout for a replacement.
After trying various things including Kii (new version 2 beta) and Ai Keyboard, I eventually discovered Multiling O Keyboard.
This keyboard is very configurable (both in terms of look-and-feel and letter layout), and supports swiping. If you have the inclination to tweak, then it's a good choice for you.
So I spent some time trying different layouts etc and eventually arrived at the above layout. I'm still getting used to it because my head is still hard-wired for QWERTY, and struggle to find letters
sometimes. Also the swipe algorithm is very different to how Swiftkey works so I need to deal with that too.
Anyway the layout has the following improvements over QWERTY for common English letter compinations:
|
|
|
|
Currently the dev name is Ian Z1 but I guess it may end up being called Panther.
Here's the layout:
{
"title":"Ian Z1",
"onScreen":{
"main":[
"[4D:02468][4D: [Home][Copy][End][Paste]][4D: [Left][Up][Right][Down]][4D:
[Del][Cut][Del→][|←Del]][4D:13579]",
"jfiousdmqz",
"bpanthervx",
"[SHIFT]&ylgcwk[Del→][DEL]",
"[TOOL][ALTGR:,][SPACE][][][SYM:.][ENTER]"
],
"sym":[
"£¥€$%^&*()№√⁙",
"~`{}÷_-=|+§∷‡",
"@[]#/\\'\"%^—‐–",
"…<>!$;:?‹›±.,",
"[LOCK][ALTGR:,][SPACE][][][SYM:.][ENTER]"
],
"altGr":[
"ˉˋˇ´¨˙˚¸﹐˛˘˜ˆ",
"―∑éə®†Ωœøπ•·¡",
"æß∂ðƒ©ªº∆≠℥∞¿",
"ʒΩ≈çþ∫ŋµ≤≥°",
"[LOCK][ALTGR:,][SPACE][][][SYM:.][ENTER]"
]
}
}
This is one of the options for the Mito Canvas keycap set sold via MassDrop.
I found the modifier keys very interesting, given that they create them all using a few basic elements (arrow heads, bars, circle, cross and bullets).
Click the image for a larger view.
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