Easier to learn than Minimak, faster than Dvorak, and your shortcuts stay put.
Read the blog How Qwickly came to be.
For the full Qwickly layouts (and installers) see the Qwickly README.
- QwickSteps QwickSteps.dmg
See installation steps listed for Qwickly and download and use the QwickSteps release file QwickSteps.dmg
Created using Ukelele software.
- QwickStep1 QwickStep1_amd64.msi
- QwickStep2 QwickStep2_amd64.msi
- QwickStep3 QwickStep3_amd64.msi
- QwickStep4 QwickStep4_amd64.msi
Created using Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator v1.4.
- in development (stay tuned)
Let's get the 8 most frequently occurring letters in home finger positions. A and S are already there.
Swap frequently occurring letters: E, T, N, I, O, P
with letters above or below them: D, F, J, K, L, ;
(R occurs more than P but we'll get it in the next step.)
Q W (D) R (F) Y U (K) (L) (;) [ ] \
A S (E) (T) G H (N) (I) (O) (P) ' enter
Z X C V B (J) M , . /
Legend
same as QWERTY
( ) same finger as QWERTY
The keys ASET GH NIOP uses the same fingers' muscle-memory from QWERTY, only staying much more frequently on the home row.
With this layout, you may often miss DF JKL but that's okay since the letter you want is immediately next to the miss it's super-quick to correct. We are mostly learning the home row, so don't worry too much about the misses.
Even with these same-finger-only changes, if you look at the bottom of the page, you can see how much of an improvement this is over the standard QWERTY layout! Of course you already knew because you could feel how much smoother typing is getting.
Move on to QwickStep 2 as soon as you can handle it (sometime before getting fully comfortable).
Let's put that R on the home row where it belongs. Shift the O right, bumping P that shifts F left to where R was.
Q W (D) (F) <P> Y U (K) (L) (;) [ ] \
A S (E) (T) G H (N) (I) <R> [O] ' enter
Z X C V B (J) M , . /
Legend
same as QWERTY
( ) same finger as QWERTY
[ ] same hand as QWERTY
< > other hand than QWERTY
The home row is now looking really good, and other keys are moving to their final places so we don't have to relearn much as we go. Switch to QwickStep 3 as soon as you can handle it, or sooner to test out the waters.
Now we want to lock down the place of the vowel U. Shift D right, bumping F to where U was.
Q W <U> [D] <P> Y <F> (K) (L) (;) [ ] \
A S (E) (T) G H (N) (I) <R> [O] ' enter
Z X C V B (J) M , . /
Legend
same as QWERTY
( ) same finger as QWERTY
[ ] same hand as QWERTY
< > other hand than QWERTY
Now we've got most of the keys in their final places or close-by.
Notice that we've kept 7 of the moved keys on the same fingers as QWERTY, 2 on the same hand, and 4 have moved to the opposite hand. Even with only these changes, we're already much better than Simplified Dvorak.
The hardest changes are now behind us, keep practicing. Don't get too comfortable, switch to QwickStep 4 as soon as you can.
Now we're tweaking the remaining few unsmooth letter placements. Swap Y with K and B with J.
Q W <U> [D] <P> [K] <F> [Y] (L) (;) [ ] \
A S (E) (T) G H (N) (I) <R> [O] ' enter
Z X C V <J> <B> M , . /
Legend
same as QWERTY
( ) same finger as QWERTY
[ ] same hand as QWERTY
< > other hand than QWERTY
This is already a really good layout that's better than many that are harder to learn. Trivia: this ends up being a more optimized version of the NIRO layout (rotates B-K-J keys). In fact this was the original version of Qwickly and we could call this the final version of QwickStep.
In the picture below note which fingers are used for which keys, in particular the left-middle finger is not used for the bottom row.
There's some evidence that reusing muscle-memory for home row keys works.
Notice which letters are more/less quickly typed than others.
Day 1 started at ~15 wpm after about an hour of practice.
Using https://stevep99.github.io/keyboard-layout-analyzer
Colemak QwickStep4 Niro QwickStep3 S.Dvorak QwickStep1 QWERTY
Alice 67.31 68.27* 67.55 67.45 63.59 59.43 46.55
Common 74.50* 71.75 70.75 70.10 64.48 55.07 39.53
S.A.T. 71.38* 70.01 68.19 67.79 60.79 54.52 37.15
Magna 69.29 69.86* 68.85 68.34 63.99 57.69 44.40
1984 69.30 70.53* 69.08 68.59 65.19 58.19 44.38
Tarzan 69.73 70.34* 69.45 68.95 64.73 58.35 44.96
Jungle 65.57 66.09 66.44* 65.55 61.71 55.45 44.35
Difficult 67.30* 66.18 65.28 63.75 61.31 54.21 36.61
Medical 72.08* 69.34 67.34 63.69 58.77 52.01 35.60
Quotes 56.54 57.68* 57.40 56.23 48.43 50.77 39.73
Tao 61.44 61.46* 60.34 59.91 57.78 54.31 40.19
Bigrams 77.43* 76.23 75.39 74.96 70.88 69.80 57.59
Cost 60.69* 60.06 59.84 59.33 52.09 50.84 36.93
Contract 60.17* 54.67 54.61 54.61 49.24 45.81 33.16
Binary 61.05* 59.70 59.05 58.55 55.12 48.40 34.80
Lorem 57.89 59.72* 59.18 58.67 50.96 50.55 36.48
Game 43.99 45.11* 44.82 44.22 41.64 40.10 32.48
bold name = prose (English sentences) bold score* = best score
QwickStep4 got tops on 6 of the 10 English prose samples,
Colemak taking the 3 (Cost/Contract/Binary) Academics, and Niro taking The Jungle Book.