Is Workman leaning towards the left hand?

[hasufell]

I'm right handed and I am pretty sure my left hand is typing more with workman. It caused some strain (not bad though). Has anyone else experienced this? Has this been analyzed?

[doamatto]

Based on the "heatmap" on the website, it looks, relatively speaking, even to both.

[hasufell]

I think it doesn't. Colemak looks even.

However, this is really more of a feeling, but it's getting stronger.

[joel0]

You can do some research with the Keyboard Layout Analyzer. In the configuration you can load Workman and Colemak. I'd suggest pasting in a chunk of text that's more similar to what you type than the presets.

Under the "finger usage" tab you can set the display to hand vs hand. From the few things I've tried, Colemak looks more balanced (45:55% vs 41:59%).

The whole picture for analysis goes deeper than only looking at balance. I'd suggest also comparing the travel distance. Colemak has higher overall travel (4% more from a sample text), especially for the right index finger. There are many more metrics you can compare.

What metrics you prioritize somewhat comes down to a personal preference. If you prefer balance over distance, that's great, and Colemak might be best for you. I personally like the lower travel and less reaching for the center columns, so I go with Workman. A big premise for Workman is that there's a cost to reaching horizontally that wasn't factored into other layouts as much.

[hasufell]

Almost every text I pasted into the analyzer (whether it's my reddit posts or source code) is left-hand biased. Colemak actually doesn't do much better in that analysis, only a little bit. For source code, it's particularly bad. I reach 60:40 there for the left hand. Something is off here.

I pasted the text of the workman homepage into the analyzer:

• Workman: 57:43
• Colemak: 55:45

Definitely left-hand biased. I don't think anyone is primarily writing old-style english books with workman.

---

So, my theory is that "simple english" has a different heat map distribution.

[hasufell]

Ok, so I got RSI in my left hand. I'm not 100% sure that it's due to workman, but my suspicion is that it contributed to it. The things I changed half a year ago:

1. bought an ergonomic ergodox split keyboard
2. changed my layout to workman
3. learned touch typing

I think the fact that you alternate less between hands (e.g. some words you write completely with one hand) causes additional strain, because although your fingers don't travel much, your single hand is more active (e.g. using left index and left middle finger frequently together or one-after-another causes more strain compared to using index finger left, then index finger right, imo).

The other factor could be that it's just the touch typing and that most layouts seem to be at least slightly left-leaning.

Has anyone an opinion on this? Is there a layout that alternates more between hands?

[notzmv]

You might want to try out Dvorak then. Dvorak is more right-leaning than the other layouts and has a bigger focus on hand-alternation. Either way, ergonomics has no easy answers.

[hasufell]

You might want to try out Dvorak then. Dvorak is more right-leaning than the other layouts and has a bigger focus on hand-alternation. Either way, ergonomics has no easy answers.

Hmm. I believe that ergonomics has a clear scientific foundation. Many things have already been studied, such as use of chair arm rests. There are ways to determine what good positions and bad positions are, what causes more musle strain etc.

So, I rather disagree with you. There might be no definite answer as to what someone prefers (e.g. workman might allow higher typing speed), but there must be a definite answer what is ergonomically sound.

[hasufell]

@yg8ijvjvjv does your question have any relevance to the thread?

[hasufell]

This wouldn't be a bugfix, but a paradigm shift, going away completely from Colemak. I don't know why you think this is gonna happen or whether there even is a workman2.

[FabianSt305]

Your facts don't seem correct. But I know why!

The tool has a hidden flaw. Everything is left-biased because the tool considers spaces to be always typed with the left thumb.

Example: "To be or not to be; that is the question." should be 42:58 (on colemak) but is actually 54:46 because of spaces.
The worst part: Spaces are often easily more than 15% of the sample.

That means layouts need to be very unbalanced to the right to seem balanced in the tool.

[FabianSt305]

So it's not the layout; it's the analyzer.

@hasufell