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by MereInterest 3127 days ago
People know the alphabet as a one-dimensional object. Unless your keyboard has 26 keys all in order, the multiple rows don't correspond to an existing mental model. At that point, you can either choose qwerty, which pleases anyone who already knows it, or you can make a sort-of alphabetical layout, which pleases nobody.

I'd be curious about your statement the most people who use phones didn't learn to type. Is that for a particular age group? Alternatively, for the developing world, where phones are more common than computers? I'm having difficulty seeing the justification for the statement.
1 comments
bobajeff 3127 days ago
If you know the alphabet you can easily guess where the keys will be. (In a alphabetically ordered keyboard)

Do you believe that most people who use phones know how to type?

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MereInterest 3127 days ago
If the keys are laid out in a 1x26 keyboard, yes. If the keys are laid out in a more usable way, then no. If I can see the key 'j', I cannot guess whether 'm' will be to the right or left of it, without knowing the length of the row, and considering it at all times.

I would describe today's society as one in which typing is necessary for any basic tasks, and is universal, and so I don't see why smartphone users would be different from the norm in terms of typing ability. Are you using "typing" to refer only to "touch typing"?

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