The History of the Keyboard
A keyboard is something we all come in contact with every day. Whether at work on our computers or at home on our phones, typing is a pivotal part of communication. In the digital age, the keyboard is how we communicate, complete work, and record it all — for both our professional and personal lives. It’s something so mundane we hardly think of how it came to be. At IDA, we love looking back on the history of products to inform future products. How was each key chosen to be where it is? Why was the keyboard developed? How has its design endured decades? For answers, let’s go back 150 years.
We can’t understand the first keyboard without going back to its predecessor: the typewriter. The first commercial typewriter came into being in the late 1800s. Christopher Latham Sholes was the first one to develop the QWERTY keyboard layout, and if you look at the first letters on your keyboard today, most likely, it spells out Q-W-E-R-T-Y as well. There is a lot of debate on how we landed here — some say this keyboard layout was chosen so commonly used letter pairings were spaced out so the typewriter wouldn’t jam. Although, this is hard to believe when “r” and “e,” two of the most common letter pairings, are placed next to each other. Also, the only way the keys would jam is if people were typing quickly and by memory, but when the typewriter was introduced, people used more of a “hunt and peck” method to typing.
It took decades of small tweaks until the final layout was settled, but the original design held fast. In 1882, the Remington second model of the typewriter was released. This was used mostly by people writing in shorthand in the office. The keys were slightly shifted, leading to the first 8-finger typing method using the middle row as the home keys. The “touch typing” method was revolutionary; it allowed people to memorize where the keys were and type quickly without ever looking down. Discounted typewriters were offered to women at the YWCA if they signed up for the touch typing courses. This program proved to be extremely popular, training women for secretarial positions for years to follow. From 1874 to 1900, women in clerical positions jumped from 4% to 75% in 26 short years.
Without knowing it at the time, developers essentially locked us into this one keyboard layout, despite other advances in typing technology. Once muscle memory was developed, it was almost impossible to change it. The touch typing courses defined QWERTY as the standard, whether we liked it or not. Competitors were already at too far of a disadvantage by the time anyone realized how quickly the courses would catch on. By 1901, touch typing was being taught at universities and, a decade later, in high schools. There was no going back.
The introduction of the PC only solidified the decision to keep the QWERTY keyboard as the industry standard. Most computers have this layout and even tactile keys, although quieter and lighter; there is something about striking a key that we all like. Research into alternate layouts is also hard to come by, especially with typing being taught earlier and earlier. In one study conducted in the 1950s, school children were given an alternate keyboard layout and found that they had similar speed and accuracy to the QWERTY keyboard. However, it left parents upset because some kids took over a year to unlearn the layout and get comfortable with QWERTY.
QWERTY has persisted, despite the fact that, obviously, better keyboard layouts exist for Latin-based keyboards. For example, in 1963, a keyboard layout was designed by August Dvorak with a home row that can type 70% of words in the English language, compared to a mere 32% on the QWERTY keyboard. This layout also shifts more typing to the right hand to reflect the majority hand dominance of the population. With the QWERTY keyboard, most words are typed with the left hand, which remains a huge critique of its functionality.
Numerous issues with the QWERTY keyboard will most likely never be solved. Thankfully, we know that speed and accuracy are not improved even with a “perfect” keyboard. The first keyboard layout we learn will always be the fastest and most effective. But, who knows how long typing will be as crucial as now. With the rise of talk-to-text tools and audio messages, typing is becoming less important as it is out-paced by other methods. Even with the rise of texting, which primarily uses only the thumbs, the keyboard structure has remained. For better or worse, QWERTY is proving that some 1800s trends can last into the 21st Century.
