QWERTY

QWERTY is the most used modern-day layout for a keyboard using the English language. The name comes from the fact that the first six letters on the top row of letters on a keyboard is QWERTY. While QWERTY was designed to reduce clash bar in type writers, there has not been an alternate that was good enough to remove the QWERTY style. Because of that, modern day computers still use QWERTY for their keyboards.

The primary reason that QWERTY was developed was to prevent jams. When the type writer was first created, it was done so with the letters lined up in alphabetical order. This caused problems, though, so what the developer–Christopher Sholes–did was move letters that were commonly used together such as th and st and separated them. This means that a bar that would pop up for the letter T was not next to the bar that would pop up for the letter H. This would allow a typist to continue typing without there being a jam.

It has been argued that QWERTY was developed to slow typists down to prevent against grammar errors. Because people were using type writers, if they made a mistake, the document was gone. However, that wasn't why QWERTY was developed and, in actuality, it has allowed typists to word process even faster because of the arrangement of the letters on the keyboard.

The benefit of QWERTY to a typist today is that, because the letters are spread out on the keyboard, while they hit a letter with their left hand, their right hand can move over the next letter with their right hand and they can go back and forth. What this allows is a rhythm to be developed where the typist can get more typed in a shorter amount of time. In other words, it allows for an increase in productivity.

While there have been attempts at creating "better" keyboards, QWERTY has become a common favorite amongst people. Despite the fact there are other keyboard styles that might allow for faster typing, people have grown so accustomed to QWERTY that it is nearly impossible to adopt a new style of keyboard. Therefore, it appears that QWERTY is a keyboard style that will stay around for a considerable amount of time.