For part of an upcoming segment we’re doing on the QWERTY keyboard layout and vestigial design, Nora interviewed user interface researcher Jared Spool. They talked about keyboard layouts (including QWERTY v. Dvorak), user interface design, and human-computer interaction. A shorter version of this interview will air on Spark 77, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you like hearing these extended interviews, why not subscribe to Spark’s enhanced podcast? You’ll get regular weekly episodes, plus additional blog-only content like this. [Subscribe via RSS] or [Subscribe with iTunes]
[Original image by john_a_ward]
May 12th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
[...] User-interface designer Jared Spool (full interview) [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 4:25 am
Hi Nora:
Interesting interview! Thought you'd be interested in knowing the merits of Dvorak may be suspect – have a look at this Straight Dope article and the research it references:
http://tinyurl.com/5q2toy
Cheers!
Tim Dixon
Twitter @timdixon
May 19th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Thanks, Tim!
September 6th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
this show talked about the six keys above the arrow keys on the keyboard and the designer of this layout. Oh how I wished that the HP computer I just got had these 6 keys, but HP wanted to save, 6 cents per computer, and redesigned the 6 keys into a 5 key vertical arrangement. Now my two decades of keyboard muscle-memory is down the toilet and I am forever hitting the wrong key. It is as if they rearranged the manual stickshift pattern in the car, it's standardized for a reason. Now I have to buy a new (traditional) keyboard to get the six key pattern back. Thanks for nothing HP. And if you can ever interview the cretin who decided that the 6-key pattern needed to be changed into this 5-key vertical arrangement, give him/her a good (digital-) horsewhipping.
One thing that does need to change (imho) is the tiny, almost molecular-scale 6-line window for writing comments on webpages, 6 lines is inadequate.