June 18, 2023

The QWERTY phenomenon

Have you ever noticed design decisions in the world that don't really make sense?

• Words or phrases that seem unusual
• Traditions that seem strange
• Product features that seem wildly out of place or time

This is something known as the QWERTY phenomenon.

The earliest keyboards were on manual typewriters. Press a key, and a metal lever with a letter embossed on it would snap up against a ribbon and create a print of that letter on a piece of paper.

To prevent these levers from getting stuck, they actually designed the keyboard on these typewriters in such a way that it slowed the typists down.

This became known as the QWERTY keyboard layout.

Weirdly enough, it's still in use today even though we don't have mechanical levers on our keyboard.

There was a push in the early days of computers to switch over to other layouts. One popular layout was called the Dvorak keyboard. My dad was a big fan and tried to get me to switch over.

It had a lot of great things going for it. It was faster to type on once you learned it. It was easier to learn. It was more ergonomic. But it never took off. QWERTY reigns supreme to this day.

It became the de facto standard for a reason that made sense at the time, and even though it’s purpose no longer exists, it’s still the standard. And that's really the point of the QWERTY phenomenon.

Design decisions, whether in ideas or in products, accumulate over time and often for good reasons. But sometimes those reasons change—or just go away altogether—and we're left with these odd vestigial design decisions.

Here’s my point:

The way things have always been or the way things are done now isn't necessarily the best way. So don't be afraid to question things and think about how it could be done differently. This is, after all, the heart of innovation.

However, don't forget that it's often difficult to go backwards, especially when a design decision has reached a wide consensus.

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Cheers,

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