Ubalde, Philippe Miguel 09/10/2019

BAME101

The Curse of QWERTY: Summary

The Curse of QWERTY by Jared Diamond was about how the QWERTY keyboard is
such a hassle to us typewriters – and how it became the dominant design for the
keyboard. The writer talked about how the QWERTY keyboard brings more errors
and awkwardness in the positioning of our fingers compared to the DVORAK
keyboard. It mentioned that the DVORAK keyboard is much easier to use as it can
make the writer produce more words per minute than the QWERTY keyboard. But
how did the QWERTY keyboard become the standard among all other designs? The
QWERTY keyboard was invented by Christopher Sholes. The keyboard was
purposely invented to avoid invisible jamming – and was soon remodified by the
engineers of Remington until it started to add improvements such as the shift key.
Then competitors came in like the DVORAK keyboard. It has won many typing
contests and is clearly a better design than the QWERTY keyboard at the time – but
commitment plays a huge role in the scene. Some of us are open to change, and
some of us are not. It is clear that the consumers had decided to use the QWERTY
keyboard because we are accustomed to it.