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The QWERTY keyboard is the most widely used keyboard style because it is familiar to people and requires minimal effort to learn. Additionally, the QWERTY keyboard is designed to prevent jamming, which was a concern of early typists.
There is a popular saying that you’ve almost certainly heard before: “Change is the only thing that is constant”. As you also know, this is true for the fields of science and technology too. With any new knowledge, there will be improvements in every field: from cars and computers to planes and telephones. Almost everything will feel the effects, including us humans. However, there is one tool that has always been constant: the keyboard we use. Almost 150 years after its invention, we still use the same old QWERTY keyboard.
From the great writers of the early 1900’s who wrote their novels on typewriters to the current era of computers and smartphones where email, social networking, and Whatsapp have become a part of daily communication; the same QWERTY keyboard is broadly implemented as the most preferred keyboard style.
But how did this QWERTY keyboard come about and survive generations of innovation? What’s so magical about it that even after 150 years, we haven’t switched to a different keyboard.
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The History Behind QWERTY
American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes is credited with the invention of the QWERTY keyboard. Sholes filed a patent to develop his keyboard in 1867. An earlier keyboard developed by Sholes was in alphabetical order and letters were placed like the keys on a piano.
As we know all too well, people are generally resistant to change, particularly if it will require significant effort, which is part of the reason why QWERTY is the most widely used keyboard style. People have simply become used to it. While it is debatable whether QWERTY keyboards are the fastest-typing keyboards available, they are certainly not bad and are easy to use. Furthermore, by the looks of it, it seems that they will be here to stay for another century or so.
