Getting 'Hands-On'

For bold systems builders and users, third-party keyboards now exist that can make up for the standard Qwerty keyboard's drawbacks. Systems builders who include such unique keyboards can offer increased value to customers. One caveat: You'll have to work personally with these alternative keyboards before you can proficiently offer advice about them.

In this Recipe, I review three examples of alternative keyboards: ergonomic, training and a non-Qwerty.

Ergonomic Keyboard
When it comes to comfort, I recommend the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 from Microsoft. The layout is divided into two banks of keys that are slanted 24 degrees away from each other to accommodate the angle of the user's wrists. They also slope upward toward the center in a 14-degree gable to reduce the rotation of the user's wrists.

There's a detachable foot under the front of the unit to give the keyboard a 7-degree downward slope, which is said to be more natural when used on a comparatively low table. This slope can also be removed to let the keyboard lay flat. Folding feet in the front of the unit produce a conventional upward tilt for use on a high table. There's also a sizeable rest pad for reduced strain on the wrist.

When pushing the keys, I found the response comfortable and quiet. Beyond ergonomics, there are customizable hot keys, a zoom slider and back-and-forward buttons for Internet-browser control. Those features, however, require you to first install driver software from a CD.

While this keyboard was certainly comfortable, its layout modifications were just enough to throw me off. For those who don't touch-type, the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 should reduce their fatigue. Also, such a unit can mitigate repetitive-stress-injury lawsuits in a work environment. For that, the unit's price of just $50 is a bargain.

Training Keyboard
For enabling a person to touch-type, I recommend going with the Das Keyboard, available from Metadot for just under $90.

What's unique about the Das Keyboard is that all the keys are blank. There's no better way to train a person to not look at the keyboard than to give them nothing to look at on the keys themselves. That's exactly what Das Keyboard does.

While the F and J keys of Das Keyboard are deeper than the others to give a user a tactile clue of where their fingers are, such subtleties were lost on me.

Indeed, after a week of using Das Keyboard, I found that my typing speed had increased by nearly 10 percent. However, part of the improvement may be attributable to the sink-or-swim environment. Meanwhile, I was never certain I was pressing the right keys when inputting passwords, which are displayed only as bullets. For these reasons, I can't recommend the Das Keyboard for production use. But you'll literally end up touch-typing--or not managing to produce any text at all!

Non-Qwerty Keyboard
For weaning a typist off Qwerty, I recommend the silver and black NSK 535 S from New Standard Keyboards, which is just under $70.

The keys are laid out in alphabetical order. The letters A to M are on the left, and N to Z are on the right. Navigation and shift keys are in the middle. While the keyboard's use of key combinations to reduce the number of keys did make the unit smaller, it didn't speed up my typing. And it's not easy to adapt to.

As you see, there's no perfect keyboard, but there are alternatives to Qwerty units. And they can add value to a system builder's business proposition.