I just switched to Norman like 5 minutes ago. I'm really surprised how quickly I'm adjusting! The mostly same-finger mappings really help me know where to visually search for the key if I need to look down.

I use a Kinesis Pro Keyboard and was able to remap in my layout.txt "v-Drive" file as below. I dont have any affiliation with them, but I think it's the best keyboard I've ever used:

[e]>[d]
[r]>[f]
[t]>[k]
[y]>[j]
[i]>[r]
[o]>[l]
[p]>[colon]

[d]>[e]
[f]>[t]
[h]>[y]
[j]>[n]
[k]>[i]
[l]>[o]
[colon]>[h]
[n]>[p]

https://preview.redd.it/mczc0tlemcfd1.png?width=1008&format=png&auto=webp&s=ca01f35a99e1e4a5b9cbf02d540f5f7becfa4505

Was it in 2009, the same year as this subreddit started? I'm trying to put early alt layout development in chronological order. Dvorak was 1936, and then Colemak in 2006. I assume Norman was soon after Colemak but before Workman and Niro, which came out in 2010. Layout comparison websites are plentiful, but creation dates are rarely mentioned.

i connect my usb mechanical keyboard to my phone using a type c usb converter. the standard layout is querty. how can i change it to norman? is there an app i can download?

Hi —

I switched to Norman a little over a year ago, from 4 decades of "not-really-touchtyping but really fast typing" on qwerty.

It took 800-1000 ~30 sec (so: 6-8 hrs) lessons on keybr.com to get good, i.e. 50+ wpm. Up to 60+ now with all characters and maybe 80ish with just letters.

I'm probably roughly where I was, or a bit faster, but it is more comfortable and I'm glad I made the switch. Also I'm definitely still improving! Interestingly, the only place I still notice the difference is in boggle-type games, where I have muscle memory that is distinct from regular typing.

I particularly like the preservation of a lot of shortcut muscle memory (cut and paste, etc), including for emacs.

I endorse the mod's thesis, in the wiki, that it is a great 80/20 solution. Grabs good low hanging fruit while trying to make it easy to learn.

Cheers,

John

Is there a Norman layout that works on the iPhone?

I switched to Norman about 2 years ago and I'm glad I did. As per request of the mod, I'm just going to share a bit of my experience to others who may be thinking of making the switch. The main benefit that I have noticed is the comfort while typing. Typically, my 5 minute typing test scores are similar to my 1 minute typing test scores and I feel like I can keep my "burst" speed up for much longer without my fingers tiring out. In addition, I really do notice how much less my fingers move than they did with QWERTY, and the efficiency is one of the main selling points of the Norman keyboard layout. Another great part of the layout is the ability to use hand rolls and type common character combinations with ease. Especially the "ing" and "ion" character combinations. Additionally, once you get comfortable with the layout and start moving your fingers efficiently, it is very possible to type 115+ without your fingers tripping over each other. This makes it a much more home-row friendly option than some other keyboard layouts.

Now I'll discuss what I think of Norman in comparison to some other Common keyboard layouts. Firstly, it is not necessarily worth it to everyone to switch keyboard layouts. If you type above 100 wpm, or can touch-type quickly while using all 8 of your fingers (not including thumbs) without using the home-row technique then don't waste your time learning the "proper" home-row technique. The technique itself will not necessarily speed you up. I type very properly, which may be slightly more comfortable to me, but to most it is not. Many people end up keeping their wrists in bad positions while typing, and awkwardly flex their fingers when using proper home-row technique. However, I have very large hands and have adjusted my typing style to keep my wrists in a very natural position, so this is not an issue of concern to me. Touch typing did not come very naturally to me without the home row technique, so that is why I learned it. If you do touch type without the home row technique, then it may be quite difficult to learn a new layout without proper home row, so take that into consideration.

Norman's main competitor's are likely to be QWERTY, Colemak, and Workman. The only benefit of QWERTY, and this is debatable, is that it has less consecutive same-finger usage. However, I've typed on QWERTY and Norman for long enough periods of time to assure you that QWERTY has nothing on Norman. Next comes the layout that I would consider Norman's closest competition, Colemak. Colemak has some of the best scores on the various tests for keyboard layouts, but the numbers definitely are not everything, and they do not reflect typing comfort. This is definitely important if you want typing to be enjoyable for long periods of time. Norman is also much easier to switch to from QWERTY than it is to switch to Colemak. In addition, it allows you to still type on a phone or a normal QWERTY keyboard without too much difficulty, since your muscle memory is relatively similar and you also know generally on which part of a QWERTY keyboard to look at to find the key you are looking for. If I were to choose a keyboard layout to use other than Norman, it would almost certainly be Colemak. Another comparable keyboard layout is Workman. Workman focuses much more on comfort than it does on performance, and while comfort is important to me, I am fine with sacrificing the small amount of comfort for the performance gains of Norman or Colemak. To conclude the comparison, I think that Norman is a great combinations of the performance advantages of Colemak while also maintaining much of the comfort from the Workman layout, and for those reasons it has been a great layout for me.

Lastly, I've included a screenshot of my typeracer improvement over time. Up until the dip I was typing on QWERTY, and then after that I was on Norman. The recent fluctuations are due to me changing my technique which will allow me to type faster in the long run. When I type with my normal technique though, I average around 112 wpm.

https://preview.redd.it/307wsb8m35i61.png?width=445&format=png&auto=webp&s=b15a1a58a6c6de07e8882a5190ba7b62427e035f

It has been revealed in https://github.com/deekayen/norman/commit/64085a8fc36b656fe34f2bb6fa7939c50762c72c .

R is more common than H according to some letter frequency sources such as Mayzner Revisited. The right pinky was overloaded with many common symbols such as 0)-_=+;:[{]}\|rR'"/? as well as the Enter and the right Backspace and right Shift. Placing hH on the right pinky instead reduces the overload, similarly to the iI and oO placements in Workman. Whereas Angle mod (placing 0) on the right ring) and Wide mod (moving =+[{]}/? to the middle) reduce right pinky significantly as well, both change the fingering and overload the index fingers more (zZ in Angle mod, =+[{]}/? in Wide mod).

In https://imgur.com/a/79PJ2OO, the X and C are marked as having changed fingers, despite being not. Note that for comparison purposes, it is inconsistent to use the Angle mod in Colemak DH without using the Angle mod on all the other layouts as well. So with the Angle mod disabled, the bottom row starts with ZXCDV and is comparable. Note that DH is intended to put all keys in the same finger as in Colemak, and in Colemak it is intended to use left pinky for Z, left ring for X, left middle for C and left index for V (https://colemak.com/File:Colemak_fingers.png) to avoid CT bigram.

Hi there. I'm wondering what people think about the importance of SFBs. If you don't know already, SFBs are when you use the same finger to type two different keys in a row. For example, the common "ed" bigram.

I personally think that SFBs are one of the most concrete detractors of speed and comfort. However, the Norman creator seems to disagree with me on that. This shows in the Norman layout, as it has an almost equal rate to qwerty, offering little to no improvement in that regard.

What do you all think? Are same finger bigrams that important? If they aren't, what statistic is more important?

hey there! I am a colemak dh user, and I don't want to cause drama here or anything like that, but I really want to see arguments pro Norman.
(because I've seen a lot of people debunking it)

and another question, what is the objective of Norman? just to be simple but better than qwerty? or be the best layout it can possibly be?

When I learnt to type on Colemak, it was not so easy after so long with Qwerty. I stumbled on Norman afterwards and I think it would have been much easier to learn. Keeping most letters on the same fingers would really help transition time and difficulty.

Learning Colemak I found my fingers want their old letters quite often - not the old key locations, their old letters. E.g. my right middle finger wants to type I, even in the qwerty K position. My right ring finger wants to type O, in the qwerty L position. I found my fingers were associated with the old letters and that was very hard to change. All the letters that changed fingers were hard and slow to learn, I had to both undo the old mental assignment and learn a new one.

Personally I would have sacrificed ~5% of efficiency for something ~80% easier to learn. (Those are subjective numbers). I think Norman is a seriously good option for people with ton of muscle memory. And for people who can't take much downtime and need to be proficient ASAP. See the wiki for more discussion on it.

Colemak is good in its own right but it has its own issues too. The O on the pinky means the double "oo" is slow, the 'ion' trigram is a bit awkward, the frequent L is a little hard to reach, the G feels too frequent for its difficult position. And of course a lot of letters change fingers to accommodate its goals. So despite its claim of being easy to learn, I can't agree (maybe easier than Dvorak). It simply changes a lot of keys for its mission.

[See the wiki for a full write-up on the Norman layout.] (https://www.reddit.com/r/Norman/wiki/index)

Sidebar has been updated.

[See the wiki for a write-up on the Norman layout.] (https://www.reddit.com/r/Norman/wiki/index)

For Norman Oklahoma see r/NormanOK.