DID YOU KNOW…
Why Your QWERTY Keyboard Was Designed to Slow You Down
The familiar QWERTY keyboard layout, ubiquitous on computers and smartphones, was originally designed in the 1870s not for speed, but to deliberately slow typists down to prevent mechanical typewriters from jamming.
Early mechanical typewriters suffered from issues where frequently used adjacent keys would clash and stick if typed too quickly. To address this, inventor Christopher Latham Sholes rearranged the alphabet, separating common letter pairs like "th" and "st" to reduce the likelihood of such jams. While more ergonomically efficient layouts have been proposed since, QWERTY's early adoption by typing schools and its prevalence in business offices solidified its dominance, making it a challenging standard to dislodge despite its inherent inefficiencies for modern digital typing.
Love discovering things like this?
A new fact every day with photos, on the free app.
Run a business? This line is for you. Everyone else, read on.
I wrote this page once and it has been working on its own ever since, including tonight while I sleep.
I build the storefront for your business, under your own name, and you see it before you pay anything. If you don't like it, that's the end of it.
Show me my shopBlackstar Digital Studio · Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Made in Italy 🇮🇹