Conventional Keyboards Are STAGGERINGLY STUPID!
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it in keyboard threads as a short visual demonstration of why staggered layouts force unnatural finger movement.
What it is
Ben Vallack compares finger movement on a staggered keyboard with an ortholinear grid keyboard, using an Anne Pro 2 and a ZSA Planck EZ. He argues the stagger forces awkward finger motion.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2021 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Recommends h3mb3 · 2021-11 · on “Djinn Split Keyboard”
Where are all the 75% ortholinear split keyboards? All the super-duper ergo boards have very few keys and/or a strange layout (like this Djinn). Currently the best keyboard for my left forearm's RSI has been Mistel Barocco MD770 [1] but I've recently been aware how the staggering maybe forces the fingers to travel in slightly unnatural ways. These videos [2][3] from Ben Vallack demonstrate this nicely. Thus, I'd like to test an ortholinear one, but with all the normal 75%/tenkeyless board keys in place. I personally don't need to optimize the right hand keys as much so I'm not interested in learning an oherwise crazy new layout just to test out if the ortholinearity helps. And, I really like
Recommends Fetiorin · 2022-08 · on “I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard”
Note that on normal keyboard all alpha keys are staggered to the left. For both hands. So, this stagger is not helping you to keep your left hand at correct angle. "Grid" ortholinear is not an ultimate solution either, but it is more comfy (from personal experience). There is a short video about ortho vs stagger [this video]
Critical devenvdev · 2021-02 · on “System76 Launch Configurable Keyboard with Open Source Code”
This is simply not true. [this video] With ortholinear this argument holds more without actually twisting your wrists.