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Add to SafariWhen comparing AZERTY vs Norman, the Slant community recommends Norman for most people. In the question“What are the best keyboard layouts for programming?” Norman is ranked 8th while AZERTY is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose Norman is:
Norman keeps 22/26 letters in their original QWERTY finger, making the transition easier, and, according to many tests, does so without much loss in ergonomics.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Nearly unavoidable for French people
Most of us learned to type with this kind of keyboard, switching can be hard, and impractical to type French.
Pro HJKL intact for vim
Vim programmers are going to want their navigation keys to relate to each other in a sensible fashion. QWERTY and azerty seem to be the only games in town for this
Pro Uses the same fingers as QWERTY for most letters
Norman keeps 22/26 letters in their original QWERTY finger, making the transition easier, and, according to many tests, does so without much loss in ergonomics.
Pro Keeps many common QWERTY shortcuts intact
Common shortcuts, such as ctrl + z, ctrl + x, etc., are kept in their original positions without much loss in ergonomics, making the transition easier.
Pro Feels fast and comfy
Pro Focuses on the keys easiest to reach for the human hand
Like Workman, Norman takes human anatomy into account.
Pro Designed using normal keyboards in mind
Unlike keyboard layouts such as workman that are desgined to be used by matrix keyboards, norman is made to be used by a standard keyboard.
Pro Favours the right hand
Unlike other layouts, such as workman, norman favours the right hand due to it usually being stronger than the left.
Cons
Con Bad for programming
But you get used to it... :-)
Characters very common in programming languages, like [] {} ~#|`@ are reachable only via the infamous AltGr key on Windows computers (and perhaps Linux ones; not sure for Macs).
With practice, you type them without thinking, but it is still a rather impractical gymnastics.
Con CTRL + / is only accessible by numpad
Con Bad on SFBs
Lots of same finger bigrams (when 2 keys are hit simultaneously by one finger like the qwerty "ed".
Con A very small user base and community
Con Designed for right handed use
The Norman was designed with right handed use in mind, making it a less attractive choice for left handed users. However, tests done by some users (can be found in the comments) suggests that the Norman layout might be balanced.
Con Scores worse in ergonomics using the Carpalx test
Norman, although scoring better in travel distance, generally scores worse in the Carpalx test than layouts such as Colemak. See the source here.
