Dvorak vs Colemak: Alternative Keyboard Layouts Explained

Alternative keyboard layouts are worth it for people who type for hours every day on their own machine and are willing to spend three to eight weeks slower before they get faster. They are usually not worth it if you share a computer, use a work laptop you cannot reconfigure, or only type in short bursts. The short version: the layout changes where letters sit, not how fast your brain can think of words, so the ceiling moves less than most people expect.

An alternative keyboard layout is a rearrangement of which letter sits under which finger, designed to put common letters on the home row and cut down on awkward same-finger and same-hand stretches that QWERTY forces. SpeedyTypest measures your typing speed and accuracy on whatever layout your operating system is set to — it does not install or switch layouts for you, so everything below happens at the OS level, not inside the browser.

What are alternative keyboard layouts, and how are they different from QWERTY?

QWERTY was arranged in the 1870s to keep mechanical typewriter arms from jamming, not to make typing fast. It puts only a minority of common letters on the home row and load-balances awkwardly between hands. Alternative keyboard layouts start from a blank slate and optimize for modern letter frequency in English: common letters land on the home row, vowels and frequent consonants split evenly between hands, and same-finger repeats are minimized.

The three layouts people actually switch to are Dvorak, Colemak (and its variant Colemak-DH), and Workman. Each makes a different trade-off between how much home-row time it buys you and how much muscle memory you have to unlearn.

How is Dvorak different from Colemak?

Dvorak, designed by Dr. August Dvorak in 1936, moves nearly every letter. It puts all five vowels — A, O, E, U, I — on the left hand's home row and the most common consonants on the right hand's home row, so a huge share of English words can be typed without leaving the home row at all. The trade-off is that almost none of your QWERTY muscle memory carries over, including shortcuts like Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, which move to different keys.

Colemak takes a narrower approach on purpose. It changes only 17 keys from QWERTY and deliberately leaves Z, X, C, and V in place, so copy, cut, paste, and undo keep working exactly as they do today. That single design choice is why Colemak has become the more common QWERTY alternative for people who live in a keyboard shortcut-heavy workflow, like developers.

What about Colemak-DH and Workman?

Colemak-DH is a small refinement of Colemak that moves the D and H keys to reduce lateral finger stretching, particularly for people typing on smaller or split keyboards. Workman takes a different starting assumption than either Dvorak or Colemak: instead of maximizing home-row hits, it optimizes for which fingers are strongest and how far they naturally travel, which shifts some letters off the home row that Dvorak and Colemak keep there.

Is switching from QWERTY actually worth it?

For most people, the honest answer is a modest yes, with real cost up front. The dip is real: your first one to two weeks on a new layout will likely run well under half your old QWERTY WPM, since you are relearning where every letter lives. Recovery to your old QWERTY speed typically takes three to eight weeks of daily practice, and total plateau time — the point where the new layout stops improving — can run two to three months.

Once you plateau, the reported gains over QWERTY are usually in the range of 5 to 15%, not the dramatic doubling some layout advocates claim. That is a real edge if you type for a living, but it is not a shortcut around deliberate practice — see our guide on proven techniques to boost your WPM for gains you can bank on regardless of layout.

Who benefits most from an alternative layout?

Three groups get the clearest return: people who type for several hours a day on a keyboard they own and control, people managing hand or wrist strain who are also following ergonomic setup advice (see a clinician first if pain is already present — a layout change is not a treatment), and people who are still building typing habits and have little QWERTY muscle memory to lose. Programmers are a common case, since a layout like Colemak keeps editor shortcuts intact while easing symbol reach — our post on typing speed for programmers covers the symbol-heavy side of that in more depth.

People who benefit least: anyone on a shared family, school, or work computer where you cannot change the OS-level layout for everyone else, anyone who touch types across many different machines during the day, and anyone chasing a specific WPM number soon — say for a job test or an upcoming deadline — since the transition dip works against you exactly when you cannot afford it.

How do you switch without losing weeks of productivity?

1. Pick one layout and commit for a minimum of four weeks before judging it — switching layouts again mid-transition resets the clock.
2. Enable the layout at the OS level (Windows, macOS, and Linux all ship Dvorak and Colemak natively; Workman needs a small third-party driver) but keep QWERTY as a second, quick-switch option for the first month.
3. Practice on a keyboard you control, not a shared or work machine, until you are back near your old speed.
4. Relearn shortcuts explicitly if you chose Dvorak — write down your five most-used shortcuts and drill them separately from prose typing.
5. Run a short daily test to track the dip and the recovery instead of guessing at your progress.
6. Expect accuracy to suffer before speed does — slow down on purpose in week one rather than fighting through errors.

Track the transition with short, consistent sessions rather than one long marathon — the daily typing challenges give you a fixed, repeatable passage each day so your week-over-week comparison is layout progress, not text difficulty. A free account also keeps your result history so you can see the exact week your new-layout WPM crosses back over your old QWERTY baseline.

If you want to drill the specific words or code snippets that trip you up mid-switch rather than random passages, that is where Pro's custom text mode earns its keep — you paste in your own material and repeat it until the new finger paths stick.

What's the real objection to switching?

The most common reason people talk themselves out of switching is the productivity hit at work — nobody wants to be visibly slower at their job for a month. That is a fair concern, and the honest fix is to do the first two to three weeks of practice on personal time and a personal machine, not live in front of a deadline. The second objection is portability: if you regularly type on other people's computers, public terminals, or a locked-down work image, you will be flipping between two layouts constantly, which erodes a chunk of the speed gain you switched for. If either of those describes your daily setup, the better move is to bank the 5 to 15% gain by fixing technique on QWERTY instead — you keep full portability across every machine you sit down at.

The bottom line

Alternative keyboard layouts are a real, modest upgrade for people who own their typing environment and are willing to trade a few slower weeks for a small permanent gain — Colemak if you want to keep your shortcuts, Dvorak if you are starting from scratch. For everyone else, the same 5 to 15% is usually sitting in your QWERTY technique already. Either way, run a free typing test on your current layout today so you have a real baseline number before you decide anything.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Colemak or Dvorak better for programmers?

Colemak is the more common pick for programmers because it changes only 17 keys and leaves Z, X, C, and V in place, so Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+X, and Ctrl+Z keep working without retraining. Dvorak moves those keys, which breaks muscle memory for shortcuts you likely use dozens of times an hour.

How long does it take to get fast on Dvorak or Colemak?

Most people recover to their old QWERTY speed in three to eight weeks of daily practice and reach a new plateau within two to three months. The first one to two weeks are the slowest, often under half your prior WPM, while your fingers relearn where every letter sits.

Can I switch keyboard layouts without a new keyboard?

Yes. Dvorak and Colemak are built into Windows, macOS, and most Linux distributions as OS-level settings, so the physical keys stay printed as QWERTY while the operating system remaps what each keypress sends. Workman usually needs a small third-party driver instead.

Will switching to Dvorak or Colemak actually increase my WPM?

Typically, yes, but modestly — commonly reported gains land around 5 to 15% over a typist's prior QWERTY speed once they are fully past the transition dip. It is a real edge for full-time typists, not the dramatic jump some layout advocates claim.

Is it hard to switch back to QWERTY after learning Colemak?

It is manageable but adds friction, since you effectively become bilingual between two layouts. Most switchers keep both enabled at the OS level and expect a brief slowdown any time they sit at a QWERTY-only machine, like a shared or public computer.

Should I switch layouts if I only type casually?

Probably not. The three-to-eight-week slowdown only pays off if you type enough hours per day for a 5 to 15% gain to matter. Casual typists get more value from practicing technique on QWERTY, since it needs no transition period at all.