From AZERTY to QWERTY
Keyboards ergonomics as a developer. Why did I quit BÉPO to QWERTY layout?
As a French self-taught web-developer, I wanted to share my experience testing keyboard layouts and especially why this object was so important for me. Since I studied graphic design and later worked as a developer, my default choice, or rather no choice, was to code and use any computer with its original keyboard: the one that is shipped with the computer most of the time. So I used the macOs AZERTY variant on Apple’s very thin keyboards.
One issue of AZERTY layout as a developer is that numeric figures are not directly accessible: you must type Shift first. So you will see most people using 100% size keyboards, with numeric pads. And that is one of the ergonomic issues when you spend more than 8 hours typing some esoteric language on your computer, your mouse-hand is travelling a lot between its resting position (index on J key for right-handed or on F key for left-handed) to the mouse.
Second problem with AZERTY, which must be the first for non-developers, is that AZERTY was not designed for efficiency and ergonomics. Letters position is a non-sense if you’re thinking of French language letter usage. As a derivative from QWERTY layout, its main feature was to prevent typewriters to jam. Before going further, have a look at The Dvorak Zine comic strip, it will explain better the whole keyboard layout struggle at computer time.
In 2014, it’s decided, I will find a true ergonomic keyboard and I found out the Dvorak had a French variant called BÉPO which gets the same advantages. First problem here, where can I buy some BÉPO layout keyboards? Most of the websites sell some stickers to apply on your existing keyboard, but it seems too subtile and I want to make a bolder move. I will understand later why it’s better to get a dedicated keyboard hardware for a layout after practicing several layouts at the same time: your muscular memory take advantage of your keyboard shape, so it easier to switch from a layout to an other if you have two different keyboards.
Then after some research, I find this keyboard: TypeMatrix 2030 which have a BÉPO and ortholinear layout. Ok, let’s buy it! For a first specialized keyboard it was a special move to spend more than 100 € just for… a keyboard, but it’s worth the effort.
Once the keyboard received, it took me nearly one month to recover my initial typing speed. I was feeling like learning a second speaking language for the first time. I was typing like my grandmother on her computer and it can be very annoying when you need to work and to be productive on coding and in writing emails too! So I set a first rule to myself: hide your stock AZERTY keyboard somewhere and use BÉPO layout at the office all the time, even if it’s hard and you’re slow as hell. I spent many breaks practise dactylography on Bépodactyl website. It reminded me when I was learning the piano by repeating dumb key sequences over and over. But it worked, and one month later I was officially keyboard bilingual.
The layout was really impressive on how my fingers were not moving at all keeping all most used letters on the home row (this is your keyboard row with F and J which normally have little bumps to indicate resting position). And it was a delight to write emails and memos on it. For coding, it has some cool features too: for instance all paired symbols are side-by-side (parenthesis, brackets, curly brackets, quotation marks, …) and that’s less efforts even if most coding softwares are closing these symbols for you. And I loved how they moved Enter and Return keys to the middle of the keyboard assuming that our thumbs should type on these useful keys instead of our little fingers.
But this keyboard has its drawbacks too, most of them are due to the BÉPO layout itself. As this layout was designed to rest your fingers when typing French. As a developer, I am still writing in English most of the time, and even when I’m not coding, I still write in English too, like, right now… So BÉPO layout is not perfect for multi-lingual usage and numeric figure were still only accessible using Shift key. Then there is the keyboard shortcuts issue, which made the TypeMatrix keyboard mandatory for BÉPO. All well-known shortcuts are not single-handed anymore: copy, paste, undo. So TypeMatrix added some function keys to make these commands still available with left-hand only. I think this is the main flaw of BÉPO layout: focusing on French letter usage, its designers forgot that keyboard shortcuts are stretching our fingers too. And if you are not writing long essays but working on several documents and applications you are using shortcuts more often than really writing.
After several years using my TypeMatrix, some wear begin to occur and I was thinking that I should look for a new keyboard with better switch mechanisms and stronger keycaps. I looked for how keyboard keycaps work and learned the difference between membrane or dome-switch keyboards and mechanical keyboards. Especially how mechanical keyboard could be custom up to the look and feel of each key. Great! Let’s find a BÉPO mechanical keyboard… I really quickly understood that if I wanted both of the two worlds I have to build it myself… and it would cost more than 200 $ and I need to design the keycaps… or to use a blank keyboard 😅.
In the meantime, I attended a passionate conference by Fabien Cazenave who worked on building TypeMatrix 2030 about ergonomics and keyboard layouts. Despite he worked on BÉPO implementations he was really critical about this layout drawbacks as being a developer himself. Then after encouraging us to practise on a blank keyboard, he told us that, after all, QWERTY layout was not that bad for computer enthousiasts and developers. Why? Because all programming languages were designed on a QWERTY keyboard. Then I took a deeper look at this original layout and told to myself, oh great, all programming symbols are available on the right-hand side! Awesome. But in fact, that is because on these available symbols that most of older programming language use semicolon (;) as line-ending mark. It just stands at the end of your keyboard home row. For the same reason, I understood all famous keyboard shortcuts were almost near to the main modifier key (control or command key).
My decision to go to the mechanical keyboards world was confirmed and accelerated after changing my old 2009 MacBook Pro to a newer 2018 model shipped with the ultra-thin butterfly keyboard. How can industrial design impose such an unergonomic and so fragile thing for the sake of aesthetics and thiness? I’m done with that kind of design. After dropping the Apple Mouse for a truly ergonomic and wired mouse, I will get a thick and noisy keyboard, plus, a keyboard that can last several decades and can recover after a coffee drop!
First step was to choose the right key switches, I bought a special testing sample on Amazon with each popular Cherry MX colours. I spent a week testing each switch with my colleagues and friends, this was an opportunity to talk about the keyboard matter to my friends and family who were not so interested in the subject and were just using the stock keyboard without thinking about it. I think that’s important to question our work tools because I spend so much time using them, and industrial manufacturers should not dictate how ergonomics should be without thinking about the human between the chair and the keyboard. I wanted to get aware of my work environment and how to improve it and not taking things for granted. Just because each computer comes with an AZERTY keyboard doesn’t mean it’s the best layout for working. And just because Apple decided to make keyboard as thin as possible doesn’t mean it’s the best for my hands.
Finding a EU mechanical keyboard reseller was not an easy task, these keyboards are not so popular in France except for enthousiasts and pro gamers, you won’t find them in IT stores or even on Amazon. My developer colleague and I finally found a German shop which sells all keyboard sizes, especially TKL (Ten-key less: without numeric pad) and 60% keyboards; remember, I looked for a compact keyboard to reduce right-hand travels between keyboard and mouse. So we bought our first mechanical and QWERTY keyboard, and it is awesome.
Coding with the QWERTY layout on a mechanical keyboard is a pleasure, in terms of touch and sound. Enough to be tempted to bring my keyboard home in my backpack 🤓. However writing emails or documentation in French is not so easy because of the rather frequent accented letters and even some ligatures. So we used a special layout call international QWERTY which transforms some keys to dead keys. To type the letter “É”, I must first type the “´” mark then “E” character, then the system will merge them automatically. The great thing about this is that it’s easier to type accented capital letters than with AZERTY. But at the end, typing in French can be a little longer and you can be tempted to avoid accents when you write not so critical stuff in Slack channels or in emails to friends.
Mechanical keyboards are also objects that come with a great community as you can find out on Reddit or Pinterest. And it is almost always tempting to see how custom or homemade keyboards can be interesting. Especially split keyboards such as the Ergodox or very minimal ones like the OLKB plank. But keyboard is not the only object that I should be aware of. Our workspaces are composed of many manufactured objects that dictate the way we work, 8 hours a day. The next step would be to dig deeper into custom and standing desks, or ergonomic chairs (which don’t look like a sports car seat…😅), the best lighting to work on computer monitors…. I don’t know, just be creative not only in my work, but how I work.
- Official BÉPO layout website: https://bepo.fr/wiki/Accueil
- http://www.typematrix.com/
- BÉPO training website: http://tazzon.free.fr/dactylotest/bepodactyl/
- Fabien Cazenave: @fabi1cazenave on Twitter
- EU mech keyboard reseller: https://candykeys.com/
- US mech keyboard manufacturer with custom keycap prints: http://www.wasdkeyboards.com
- Reddit Mechanical keyboards feed: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/
