'Hands down ref' computer keyboard layout

Sections

  1. Summary
  2. Changes from other layouts
  3. Similarity to other layouts
  4. Scores
  5. Comparison to other well-known layouts
  6. Finger based metrics
  7. English Word-based analysis
  8. Comparison to other layouts (word metrics)
  9. English heat map
  10. Programming Code (all languages) heat map
  11. Most common English bigram pairs
  12. Most common Code bigram pairs
  13. Typing lessons
Canonical namehands-down-ref.en.ansi
Form factorSlab : ANSI
'Author'Alan Reiser
Author data may not be correct, we're working on it.
Keys horizontally staggeredYes
Letters on thumb (lower and upper case)0
Avoids AltGr for standard charactersYes
Does not move non-character keys (ANSI/ISO)Yes
Maintains QWERTY 'shift' pairsYes
Maintains QWERTY top row (ANSI/ISO)Yes
Uppercase on same keyYes
Conventional home keys, fingering, Space, Enter, Shifts, AltGrYes
Maintains QWERTY ZXCVNo
Maintains Colemak punctuationNo
Vowel handRight
Vowels and tricky charactersLeft hand: CHLRchlrRight hand: AEIOUWYaeiouwy

Click image for larger view

hands-down-ref.en.ansi


Download the Keyboard Layout Analyzer .json file.
Download the Computer install files for Linux, MacOS and Windows (Untested ALPHA/BETA. Use at own risk. Includes ahk, keylayout, klc, pkl, tmk, xkb).

Changes from QWERTY (1873)

hands-down-ref.en.ansi Layouts most similar to Qwerty

Changes from Modified Blickensderfer (1892 / 2012)

hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Changes from Dvorak (1936)

hands-down-ref.en.ansi Layouts most similar to Dvorak

Changes from Colemak (2006)

hands-down-ref.en.ansi Layouts most similar to Colemak

Changes from MTGAP (2012)

hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Changes from HIEAMTSRN (2014)

hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Changes from Uciea Vanilla (2021)

hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Changes from Poqtea-qp (Autogenerated, 2021)

hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Hands down ref is most similar to

LayoutScore
hands-down-hazamod.en.ansi22.50%
hands_down_alt.en.ansi17.75%
athena.en.ansi17.50%
ctgap-ev.en.ansi17.00%
eureka-plus.en.ansi17.00%
hands-down-neu.ts.eu.ansi16.50%
hands-down-neu.eu.ansi16.50%
isrtgap.en.ansi16.25%
hexalgram.en.ansi15.75%
eureka.en.ansi15.50%

Hands down ref is least similar to

LayoutScore
shz.en.ansi1.75%
noname-30.en.ansi2.00%
righty.en.ansi2.25%
colibius.en.ansi2.25%
dvorky.en.ansi2.25%
f-you.en.ansi2.25%
beakl49.en.ansi2.25%
beakl-hm1-mod-ian.en.ansi2.25%
hiyou-satan.en.ansi2.25%
s2.en.ansi2.25%

Scores

Scores are percentages relative to the best layout for each metric.
MetricPercentage
Finger-based metrics60.55
Word-based metrics97.51
English60.04
Code60.66
Proglish62.47
Words metric for no same-finger97.51
Overall score72.87

All layouts (711)

MetricLowestLowest scorehands-down-ref.en.ansi scoreHighestHighest score
Fingersnoel.en.ansi26.6160.55
vckb2.en.ergodox98.50
Wordsnoel.en.ansi18.2197.51
snth.en.matrix100.00
Averagenoel.en.ansi23.8172.87
vckb2.en.ergodox97.42

Overview compared to all other layouts

hands-down-ref.en.ansi hands-down-ref.en.ansi

ANSI layouts

Ergo layouts

All ANSI/ISO (578)

MetricLowestLowest scorehands-down-ref.en.ansi scoreHighestHighest score
Fingersnoel.en.ansi26.6160.55
full-maks-minimo.en.ansi74.58
Wordsnoel.en.ansi18.2197.51
dilbert.en.ansi99.65
Averagenoel.en.ansi23.8172.87
full-maks-minimo.en.ansi81.78

Overview compared to all other ANSI/ISO layouts

hands-down-ref.en.ansi hands-down-ref.en.ansi

ANSI layouts

Conventional ANSI/ISO (409)

MetricLowestLowest scorehands-down-ref.en.ansi scoreHighestHighest score
Fingersnoel.en.ansi26.6160.55
g-ansi-maks.en.ansi68.71
Wordsnoel.en.ansi18.2197.51
full-r2-rt162_25-2ec2c1.en.ansi99.65
Averagenoel.en.ansi23.8172.87
g-ansi-maks.en.ansi77.42

Overview compared to all other Conventional ANSI layouts

hands-down-ref.en.ansi hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Conventional ANSI layouts

Conventional ANSI/ISO + QWERTY shift pairs (361)

MetricLowestLowest scorehands-down-ref.en.ansi scoreHighestHighest score
Fingersnoel.en.ansi26.6160.55
g-ansi-maks.en.ansi68.71
Wordsnoel.en.ansi18.2197.51
dilbert.en.ansi99.65
Averagenoel.en.ansi23.8172.87
g-ansi-maks.en.ansi77.42

Overview compared to all other Conventional ANSI with QWERTY shift pairs layouts

hands-down-ref.en.ansi hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Conventional ANSI with QWERTY shift pairs layouts

Comparison to other well-known layouts

hands-down-ref.en.ansi hands-down-ref.en.ansi

colemak.en.ansi

mtgap.en.ansi

workman.en.ansi

dvorak.en.ansi

norman.en.ansi

qwerty.en.ansi

Best ANSI

full-maks-minimo.en.ansi

dilbert.en.ansi

Worst ANSI

noel.en.ansi

Finger based metrics

Finger based metrics, as determined with Keyboard Layout Analyzer, using KLAnext scoring model, and then normalised to ANSI QWERTY = 100.
Lower is better.

English

RankLayoutScoreDistanceSameFingerSameHand
Bestvckb2.en.ergodox41.0041.0531.9359.05
This layouthands-down-ref.en.ansi68.2974.5460.3571.67
Referenceqwerty.en.ansi100.00100.00100.00100.00

Programming code

RankLayoutScoreDistanceSameFingerSameHand
Bestx1_atreus-44-keys.en.ergodox54.5034.5661.2880.83
This layouthands-down-ref.en.ansi89.8591.5492.2681.66
Referenceqwerty.en.ansi100.00100.00100.00100.00

Proglish (an 80:20 English:Code mix)

RankLayoutScoreDistanceSameFingerSameHand
Bestvckb2.en.ergodox47.0841.5043.7464.91
This layouthands-down-ref.en.ansi75.3679.3172.0274.16
Referenceqwerty.en.ansi100.00100.00100.00100.00

Overall Fingers score (4 * English % + Code % + Proglish %) / 6

Higher is better. Score is out of 100.
RankLayoutPercentage
Bestvckb2.en.ergodox98.50
This layouthands-down-ref.en.ansi60.55
Referenceqwerty.en.ansi44.26
MetricLowestLowest scorehands-down-ref.en.ansi scoreHighestHighest score
Overall fingersnoel.en.ansi26.6160.55
vckb2.en.ergodox98.50

English Word-based analysis

Home Keys Analysis

The Home Keys for this layout are shown with red dots in the first image above, giving the following letters:

aeinrstu

Home key common words

Not part of final score.
Which of the 200 most common words are typeable on the home keys.

Words handledWords not handled
a in is as it i at are an its see use us set the of and to that was for with on be by his he from had not which have or were this but you their they her has all been one will who would more she up can him so out there into we when said them about other than time no if some only also first could two my what over such do may me any like then after very most these new made your people now between should where years many being our before through much way work those did well down back just even because own little make must good under man used both same how still three while last too life against know year each get mr take long part off go day might great never found old gbp right another place came during again without come world men end upon think later say few left number away thought until home here small different system though around since often called within always every need went

Home key words

How many of the 30,000 most common words in the English corpus are typeable on the home keys.
Not included in final score ... layouts with letters on thumb have unfair advantage, and it punishes layouts which opt to keep O and U off the home row.

Home Key lettersEnglish words typeableScoreLongest wordExample
aeinrstu639272811restaurants

Word count
Word length

No same-finger words

How many of the 30,000 most common words in the English corpus can be typed without using the same finger twice.

Home Key lettersEnglish words typeableScoreLongest wordExample
aeinrstu22994449819seventeenth-century

Word count
Word length

Word metric comparisons

MetricLowest exampleLowest scorehands-down-ref.en.ansi scoreHighest exampleHighest score
Home keys wordstahan.en.ansi42728
hands-down-platinum-ts.en.ergodox6068
No same-finger wordsnoel.en.ansi8404498
snth.en.matrix4613
Words averagenoel.en.ansi18.21 %97.51 %
snth.en.matrix100.00 %

Comparison to other layouts

hands-down-ref.en.ansi hands-down-ref.en.ansi

colemak.en.ansi

mtgap.en.ansi

workman.en.ansi

dvorak.en.ansi

norman.en.ansi

qwerty.en.ansi

ANSI layouts

Ergo layouts

Best ANSI

dilbert.en.ansi

bone.en.ansi

Worst ANSI

tahan.en.ansi

noel.en.ansi

Heat map

English heat map

hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Programming Code (all languages) heat map

hands-down-ref.en.ansi Note: Colour change points are different in the Code heat map due to the different character frequency distribution.

Ten most common English bigram pairs (excluding space and enter)

( er ht eh in an it no en es at)
hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Ten most common Code bigram pairs (excluding space and enter)

(er in en et ar el es or st at )
hands-down-ref.en.ansi

Typing lessons

Download some English words suitable for learning the layout.
Note if any files are empty it's because there are not enough words to create a lesson. This is most noticeable in the bad layouts.

Week 1Homekey words Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Week 2No same-finger words Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Week 3Common / tricky words Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Week 4Pangrams Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Week 5So you think you can type? Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Week 6Extra practice 1: Common words in text Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Week 7Extra practice 2: Lorem ipsum and friends Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Week 8Extra practice 3: Underused words Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Week 9Extra practice 4: Commonly misspelled words Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5