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Add to SafariWhen comparing Norman vs Carpalx QGMLWY, the Slant community recommends Norman for most people. In the question“What are the best keyboard layouts for programming?” Norman is ranked 8th while Carpalx QGMLWY is ranked 15th. 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 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.
Pro Easier to learn than QGMLWB
Keeps the ZXCV key in the same place as the very common QWERTY keyboard layout. More familiar than even than QGMLWB.
Pro The layout is basically good for most Latin languages
As vowels and consonants are mostly divided between 2 hands and most words in Latin languages are made of 2-letter (consonant+vowel) syllables, the layout keeps it efficiency not only in English, for which it was primarily created, but in other languages too.
Pro It takes much less effort to type than classical layout
The layout effectively combines not only changing hands methods, and rolling fingers as well, that makes typing a real pleasure.
Pro About the same score on the carplax test as the QGMLWB variant
See the source here.
Cons
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.
Con Very unpopular
Even rich on keyboard layouts variety Linux distros like Deepin, offering most of existing layouts, doesn't have this one. The situation on Android is not better, moreover if somebody get used to Swift-like keyboards, that do not have this layout, that person will be forced to have a second (e.g. qwerty) layout in mind.
Con Not always worth trying
The layout is great only if somebody uses it daily and a lot, like journalists, bloggers, writers do. In this case inconvenience to install the layout is worth use it. If you primarily use your phone/tablet to write some comments in Internet and other tiny writing tasks having such an unpopular layout on just your PC/laptop could be not justified.
