Is the Qwerty keyboard a poor design?
ANS: When invented in 1878, it was a good design for the mechanical typewriter because it achieved its purpose of slowing the typist to prevent typebars from jamming. In these days of the electronic keyboard, its design is obsolete. The professionals who were typing in those days – typists and secretaries – didn’t mind the suffering and struggle of Qwerty, but everyone is typing on keyboards today and a good design is one that gives priority to human needs for ease, efficiency and comfort.

08

What other alternatives are there?
ANS: In the early days, there were alphabetical keyboards, but these didn’t take into account the frequency of occurrence among letters, and so the common keys were not conveniently placed.

The Dvorak keyboard grouped the vowels and most common consonants together on the homerow and was able to achieve faster speed. But it has been shown to be more prone to errors than Qwerty, and just as difficult to learn.

Why does Qwerty take so long to learn?
ANS: Since the Qwerty arrangement is not logical or intuitive, learning it is like learning non-sensical letter arrangements - requiring repetition and drill, for weeks and months. Truth is, Qwerty wasn’t designed for ease of learning.

What are the other problems of Qwerty?
ANS: Most users are silent sufferers – except for those who filed for workmen comp when the problem becomes acute enough to affect their occupational health. But problems are legion, and have been well-documented in such articles as “The Curse of Qwerty” – http://www.tks.buffalo.edu/~scomings/Sgc/dv-art.html

What is Qwerty Economics?
ANS: An economic theory stating that when a product has been in the market long enough, a phenomena called path dependence creates a situation of inter-related dependencies that make it difficult if not impossible for new (and better) products to crash in. Qwerty is often quoted as the classic example since the Dvorak - a supposedly better keyboard – was not able to dethrone it.

What country is the home of abKey ® ?
ANS:You figure it out. The abKey ® idea was conceived in the USA, while the inventor, a graduate student from Singapore, discovered the alphabet’s most common letters while watching the TV program Wheel of Fortune.

It was patented with the help of a British Patent lawyer. Its design was refined in Singapore, by the Industrial Design team of PSB Corp., headed by a German ID expert. It is to be manufactured in Asia ( Singapore, China, and/or Thailand) and will be marketed throughout the world as a global keyboard, through a multi-national team of distributors.

How is abKey ® different?
ANS: The arrangement of the letters is alphabetical as well as logical. They are in related recognizable groups of fives, threes and twos so as to tap into the associative learning disposition of the brain. The vowels are grouped together as are the most common consonants and these are all on the homerow with the most common function keys– making typing much more efficient.

Thus, touch-typing can be learned in One-hour. Also, the keys are staggered in Qwerty – again to prevent typebars from getting in one another’s way-increasing difficulty and errors. The keys in abKey ® are aligned for ease of use and accuracy.

What other benefits does abKey ® have?
ANS: The fact that the vowels are together makes abKey ® most advantageous for learning to type and typing in languages that are vowel-based, which include English as well as: Chinese (pinyin), Indian (Tamil-Anjil), most Western European languages, and Japanese.

Also, its alphabetical arrangement makes it possible to have toy keyboards which are accessible for young children who have just learned the alphabet, without their having to learn a totally different, and difficult, letter arrangement like Qwerty.

How is abKey ® good for Ergonomics?
ANS: Studies at the world renown Cornell Ergolab recommend an ideal seating position as shown below, for typing that will be least stressful to shoulders, arms and wrists. The typist faces the monitor, and should not look down at the keyboard. This is only possible with touch-typing, which abKey ® facilitates.

“The abKey's revolutionary ergonomic design reduces repetitive stress injuries due to the reduced load in the muscles involved in carpal
tunnel syndrome. Its fashionable v-shape design along with ergonomically placed keys allows natural movement of the hands, wrist &
arms to help lessen symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis. This product is a breakthrough health solution for many desk-bound executives!”

Dr Nelson Lim, Chiropractic Physician , founder of Singapore’s Discover Chiropractic Clinic and graduate with top honors from the world renown Palmer Chiropractic College in Davenport Iowa (U.S.A).

Silicon Valley Revolutionaries – see:
http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/revolution/

Alejandro Zaffaroni, founder of medical giant Alza (developers of innovative technologies for the delivery of medicine) says that the biggest revolution will be not in new drugs or cures, but in lifestyle changes:
''We basically create disease by the way in which we live -- the great stress, the smoking, the drinking, bad foods, the accumulation of negative things. This is the reconstruction that we will be seeing in this coming century.'‘ San Jose Mercury News