For the past several months, I have been steadily tweaking my typing experience and settling on Colemak DH, using a split ortholinear keyboard. I’ve been really pleased with my results.
My journey began last year when I experienced increasingly frequent acute pain in my outer wrists and fingers while typing with my TKL keyboard. To mitigate this, I tried changing my sitting posture, switching to keys that required less actuation force, and taking breaks.
I realize I’m self-diagnosing my problem, but there seems to be supporting evidence from others who advocate switching to a new keyboard layout, a split ortholinear keyboard, or both. The issue appears to be the uncomfortable angle at which my hands meet on traditional keyboard home rows, causing pinched wrists after thousands of repetitions. Since I use computers extensively both at work and home, my condition became particularly severe. I’ve been researching potential solutions.
At this point, I had nothing to lose. My approach was to completely reassess - from posture, hand and finger positioning, to what I’d actually type and complete keystrokes on. It ended up being a change to the typing layout I used, in addition to a new type of keyboard on which I type. I’m really happy to report that I’ve not had any wrist pain since switching! My touch typing speed initially plummeted, but is slowly climbing back up, which is really encouraging.
Part 1. The layout
I settled on Colemak DH, a variant of the original. The “DH” refers to the change of positions of the D and H keys for even better ergonomics over the original.
Below is my configuration:
graph TD left_base["Left Half<br/>TAB Q W F P B<br/>LCTRL A R S T G<br/>LSHFT/ESC Z X C D V<br/>LGUI LOWER HYPER/SPC"] right_base["Right Half<br/>J L U Y ; BSPC<br/>M N E I O '<br/>K H , . / RSHFT<br/>RET RAISE RALT"] left_lower["Left Lower Layer<br/>TAB 1 2 3 4 5<br/>LCTRL ! @ # $ %<br/>LSHFT/ESC - - - - -<br/>LGUI - -"] right_lower["Right Lower Layer<br/>6 7 8 9 0 BSPC<br/>^ & * ( ) -<br/>- - - - - RSHFT<br/>RET ADJUST RALT"] left_raise["Left Raise Layer<br/>TAB ` ~ - + =<br/>LCTRL - - { } |<br/>LSHFT/ESC - - [ ] _<br/>LGUI ADJUST -"] right_raise["Right Raise Layer<br/>HOME PGDN PGUP END -<br/>BSPC<br/>LEFT DOWN UP RIGHT \\ -<br/>- - - - - RSHFT<br/>RET - RALT"] left_adjust["Left Adjust Layer<br/>- F1 F2 F3 F4 F5<br/>- BT1 BT2 BT3 BT4 BT5<br/>LSHFT/ESC - - - - BTCLR<br/>- - -"] right_adjust["Right Adjust Layer<br/>F6 F7 F8 F9 F10 F12<br/>- - - - - F11<br/>- - - - - -<br/>- - -"] left_base -- "Hold LOWER" --> left_lower left_base -- "Hold RAISE" --> left_raise right_base -- "Hold LOWER" --> right_lower right_base -- "Hold RAISE" --> right_raise left_lower -- "Hold RAISE" --> left_adjust left_raise -- "Hold LOWER" --> left_adjust right_lower -- "Hold RAISE" --> right_adjust right_raise -- "Hold LOWER" --> right_adjust
Touted benefits over QWERTY:
Reduced lateral movements. The layout places 70% of typing in English on the home row, compared to just 34% with QWERTY. Alternating hand patterns. This means better spread usage between left and right hands for letter combinations. Minimal same-finger usage. Reduction in how often you need to press consecutive keys with the same finger.
As alluded to, the learning curve was very steep. It felt like I had to relearn touch typing all over again. I had to spend several weeks practicing letter combinations on MonkeyType, only bringing me back to functional speeds, like 25 wpm. I also noticed a huge reduction in typing speed when going back to QWERTY (on a device I could not customize), perhaps because I was trying to ingrain a new layout into my head.
Part 2. Ergonomic split ortholinear
The second part to this was using a split ortholinear keyboard. I chose the Corne to be my first ergonomic split keyboard, using low profile choc type switches and choc type spacing. I am partial to the minimal look.I am no stranger to assembling keyboards, so I felt comfortable enough getting the parts for a build. From initial impressions alone, it feels ergonomic simply from the fact that the two splits can be placed in any position on my desk. I’ve been positioning my hands at shoulder width with wrists straightened.
The added benefit of using this type of keyboard, from an ergonomic perspective, is that there is a drastically reduced key count, which eliminates unnecessary fingers from stretching beyond their natural positions. This does make typing inherently slower as keyboard layers are introduced to make all the keys accessible. I know it will be a long, long time before my typing speeds get close to where they once were, but I’m hoping with consistent practice that I’ll be able to do so.
I’ve been using ZMK to customize my Corne’s keyboard layout, and it’s been very easy to do so. Whenever I make a change and commit it to my project, a Github workflow is triggered, which builds the firmware for me to flash my Corne splits.
What I’ve learned
The re-learning curve to type is real but temporary and doable. Split keyboards enforce finger discipline. Ergonomic benefits were immediate for me. Customization is fun and addictive. Portability requires commitment.
For anyone experiencing discomfort with traditional keyboards, I can’t recommend trying the Colemak DH and split ortholinear design highly enough. This journey definitely isn’t over though.