CHAPTER V

IMPLICATIONS AND PROJECTED IMPEDIMENTS

A new layout might face the same resistance faced by the Dvorak keyboard. The benefits may not outweigh the costs of change at this moment in time. Projected Impediments to the success of a new layout include:

1-     Market inertia, path dependency and economics of scale as described in Chapter 3.

2-     The difficulty of retraining typists who use the vastly installed current keyboards may become the main obstacle to widespread acceptance of a new layout. When your QWERTY-trained subconscious mind tells you to press an [F] key and you get a Dvorak [U], this can be a very disorienting experience.

3-     Compatibility. Users in the Arab world depend highly on publicly accessible computers (Internet cafes, etc.) and frequently move from computer to computer. A resistance due to compatibility problems is anticipated. But a new design might gain popularity as the computer industry matures and it becomes more common for individuals to have a computer dedicated for their exclusive personal use versus computer resources shared among groups within a home or office environment. This would have the effect of allowing individuals to customize the computer interface to better suit themselves without having to worry about the impact upon other users.

4-     The cost of switching to a new layout and/or coping with the discrepancies between typewriters might be greater than what individuals and organizations in the Arab World can afford, or might not outweigh the projected benefits. The current Arabic keyboard has become entrenched in tradition. With millions of current users adapted to it, it would cost millions to convert them all over.

5-     Marketing failure: Basic scientific research is one thing, but picking the winners in a dynamic economy is quite another.

6-     Forces to adopt this superior standard should also be very strong. If manufacturers don’t find incentives and demand for the new design, it will fail. After all, most people do not need to type 100 words a minute! A superior design would only benefit speed typists who are a minority.

7-     The advantages of an improved layout might be slow to be manifested. In 1956 a federal General Services Administration study that found that Dvorak offered "no advantages over retraining on QWERTY." A subsequent 1973 study by Western Electric found that after 104 hours of training, Dvorak typists were 2.6% faster than they were on QWERTY, while a 1978 Oregon State University study found that after 100 hours of training, typists were only 97.6% as fast as they were on QWERTY[1]. Other, more recent studies showed similar results, with the most outstanding showing about a 5% speed increase in the best case. That doesn't come close to the 180 words per minute claimed by some Dvorak proponents or the 20% to 40% speed increase claimed in an old Apple Computer ad. But these studies, say Dvorak supporters, failed to observe that the participants previously all had been QWERTY typists. This leads to an obvious disadvantage for the Dvorak groups, who had to overcome their QWERTY habits while attempting to adapt to the new keyboard layout. The only acceptable study, they claim, would be one in which all the participants had never typed before.

8-     It may be some time before RSI becomes an epidemic in the Arab world, which draws attention to the necessity of a new design.

9-     Theoretical abstraction presents candidates for what might be important, but only empirical verification can determine if these abstract models have anything to do with reality. Studies in the ergonomics literature find no significant advantage for Dvorak that can be deemed scientifically reliable.