[gindely]

I switched to Dvorak before I started uni. I have been typing dvorak the majority of my typing.

Still discovered the hard way that I needed an ergonomic keyboard. I use a kinesis advantage, but frankly a Microsoft one will do. It just needs to be enough.

Also major factor: Switching away from a mouse. Every time I've done full time work at a computer (i.e. when I'm not studying), I got wrist pain.

Switching to a touchpad is tiring for the fingertip, since it's not designed to drag on a surface all day.

But switching to a trackball has been a fantastic choice (six or seven years ago by now - some kind of red Kensington ball). I think there's so much more choice in using a trackball than a mouse or a touchpad, since it can be operated with the fingertip or the hand, and it's trivial to operate it without bending the wrist badly.

I got the ergonomic keyboard before the trackball; but the trackball made an almost instantaneous difference, whereas the keyboard only makes a cumulative difference - nowadays I can use a straight keyboard temporarily (e.g. if I want to go somewhere and use a laptop, I can, even for weeks at a time) but I wouldn't want it fulltime.

[modernerd]

I had the same experience. After trying Dvorak and Colemak and even stenography for a while I decided it was time to explore more hardware.

Went from mouse → trackpad → trackball. I tried fingerballs and thumbballs and settled on the Logitech MX Ergo (thumbball). Using the digit with the strongest muscles makes a lot of sense to me, although it helps to have bigger hands.

I wouldn't go back to a trackpad, even with the loss of gestures (I just use keyboard/trackball shortcuts instead), and I wouldn't go back to a mouse — pushing a rock repeatedly to move a pointer around the screen just feels weird to me now, and I notice wrist cramp within an hour.

Similar story with keyboards. I went Apple Magic Wireless → Ergodox EZ → Microsoft Surface Ergo (the default angle works great for me so I don't have to adjust anything and I like the single piece of hardware over the Ergodox; it's easier to move between rooms). I have the Keyboardio Atreus on order and am looking forward to comparing that. It seems like the perfect balance between size, features, hackability, and ergonomics to me.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keyboardio/atreus

[dbcurtis]

Just a warning about trackballs: I love them and have used them almost exclusively for probably 25 years. A few years ago I started getting “trackball thumb”. So I advise switching up among various different trackball geometries. (I also use the Lenovo pointing-stick keyboards in the mix. )