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Why Keep QWERTY?

To some degree, we are all very comfortable using our the keyboards that come built into our devices. In fact, a great number of us have no trouble typing on them without looking. It is hard to imagine a world in which the one we see when we look just below our screens is not the standard. This is because almost everyone actually does use the same keyboard setup. The Qwerty keyboard was patented in 1878, and “was originally meant to offer a solution to the problem of keys sticking together on a typewriter by slowing typing down” (Bhargava). If it was meant to slow down typing back then, today it is worse than inefficient. Isn’t there a better way? Well, actually, there is. And it has been around since the thirties.

Enter (or, not) the Dvorak keyboard. It is a widely regarded as a great example of network effects, and can also be explained through the related lens of diffusion. It is abundantly clear that the Qwerty keyboard has outlived its purpose. In fact, it does not seem to have much of a purpose at all, seeing as how limiting a person’s typing speed is not something we need anymore. Yet, we see almost a century later, that

 

The DVORAK keyboard design was never adopted on a mainstream, because nearly anyone who had to type had already learned how to use the inefficient system of the QWERTY keyboard at fast speeds and was unwilling to learn a new system. (Bhargava)

 

In our section on diffusion, we spoke about the ways in which the adoption of a new technology, and its ability to spread adoption, can depend tremendously on the network structure. As Michael M. Rook describes the failure for the lack of adoption:

 

With the Dvorak Keyboard, the manufacturers, sales outlets, typing teachers, and typists contributed to the slow diffusion of the keyboard system. They are considered “laggards” because they refused to use the system.  They made a decision to not sell keyboards with the Dvorak Keyboard.  Because such a small percentage of the population made the decision for all of the consumers, it is considered an authority innovation decision. (Rook)

 

Let’s consider the groups listed, namely: manufacturers, sales outlets, typing teachers, and typists, as being parts of their own “spheres”. If we consider everyone who works directly with keyboards, we can imagine that they comprise a network of people. We can also imagine that in this network, there is quite a bit of overlap between people working in these aforementioned groups, but we would expect them to have many connections within their field of work as well. For example, someone who works in keyboard manufacturing could certainly work as a typing teacher on weekends, but at the same time would have many contacts in both groups.

If we extend to our discussion of clusters to the example regarding the groups of keyboard-related occupations, we can see that a failure for them to adopt the Dvorak keyboard means that there might have simply been a high threshold for adoption of it. Since it did not spread past these groups, or “clusters”, it makes sense to see that the lack of adoption would be a result of these clusters not adopting it entirely.

 

Sources:

(Rook, Michael M.) sites.psu.edu/disruptive/2008/02/18/dvorak-keyboard-diffusion-rejection-will-it-happen-happen-with-web-2-0/

(Bhargava, Rohit) www.rohitbhargava.com/2011/08/what-you-can-learn-from-the-failure-of-dvorak.html

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