Keyboard Layout Analyzer
Which keyboard layout is actually best for what you type? Paste any text — an email, source code, a novel chapter — and watch it typed across QWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak and Workman at once. Each on-screen keyboard glows with a per-key heatmap of your text, and the scoreboard tallies the metrics typists argue about: finger travel distance, home-row usage, same-finger bigrams (the awkward double-taps), hand alternation, row jumps and an overall effort score. Watch the load split between hands and fingers, find which layout keeps your hands on the home row, and settle — or reignite — the layout holy war with numbers from your own typing.
Runs 100% in your browser — simulations are computed locally on your device.
Read the full guide to this tool
Notes
- QWERTY’s layout is a telegraph-era compromise; the common jamming-typewriter story is likely myth, but it demonstrably places common English bigrams on the same finger and off the home row.
- Dvorak puts all five vowels on the left home row so hands alternate on most English words; Colemak keeps 17 keys where QWERTY has them to stay learnable while moving 74% of typing onto the home row.
- Same-finger bigrams are the metric that hurts most in practice: the same finger typing two keys in a row ("ed", "un" on QWERTY) forces a pause a skilled typist can feel.
- Measured speed differences between layouts are smaller than the holy war suggests — comfort and travel distance, not raw speed, are where alternative layouts earn their keep.
- Runs 100% in your browser — nothing you paste leaves your device.
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