In defence of QWERTY, it did a decent job for what it was designed for (reducing the risk of mechanical typewriters jamming by not having two hammers next to each other be pressed at the same time), but really oughtn’t have lasted past the point where the risk of jamming was not longer there.
I think people exaggerate how bad QWERTY is. Studies have not consistently found an advantage for one keyboard layout over another, and some studies even show that typists can reach equivalent speeds even with randomised layouts. This suggests that experience and practice with a particular layout is far more important to typing speed than the particular placement of letters. Which is a good argument for keeping qwerty around.
(reducing the risk of mechanical typewriters jamming by not having two hammers next to each other be pressed at the same time),
This story is quite common but there is little evidence that it’s actually true. The designer of qwerty actually made a late adjustment to move R next to E (swapping it with period), even though ER is the second most common letter combination in English.
there are two big arguments for a denser layout, notably you move your hands less, which means you can type faster, statistically speaking. It makes it easier. Generally you see typing speed track roughly with this over time.
And since you move your hands less, it’s ergonomically better for typing, so you get less strain, you have better ergonomics in general, you can type longer, and even faster since there is less strain.
Different layouts optimize for different things, some optimize for efficient roll combinations, some optimize for switching between hands as optimally as possible. Some don’t really do any of that (qwerty) which also have a significant impact on typing.
Layout isn’t really about speed, it’s about comfort
I’ve been using modified colemak for like a year now and good lord it’s so much nicer to use: you just place your fingers on “arst neio” in my case and then 80% of the keys you actually use on a regular basis are within a tiny finger movement to reach.
And then there’s the fact that you’re almost always using a different finger for the next letter, suuuper smooth typing experience.
