The New Standard Keyboard: A review

By David Faucheux

The New Standard Keyboard has far fewer keys than traditional keyboards and is further desirable for its compactness, thinness, lightness, and method of reducing the number of keys on a traditional QWERTY keyboard by means of three shift keys. The wrapping cord feature is clever with the slot to tuck the USB connector in. The front and back feet are compact and offer adjustability. Tactile markings are included but could be bigger. The arrow keys have been moved to the center of the keyboard. No separate numpad is utilized.

I was sent a keyboard to review for my blog and an email with attachment that explained the layout and the tactile markings. This made it easy for me to learn the layout. I’d add a button that shifts you from the unique NuStandard.com layout to Dvorak and QWERTY so that anyone can use the keyboard and can gradually transition.

This keyboard harkens back to the earliest days of the typewriting machine (a typewriter was the operator, not the machine and it opened up jobs for women) by putting the letters in their correct alphabetical order. Letters A-M are struck with the left hand; letters N-Z, with the right. The earliest typewriting machines jammed and so the QWERTY layout was developed to slow things down! I am not sure if both hands type equally and if the strongest fingers type the most used letters as is true in Dvorak.

The website explains: “In the past with the jumbled Qwerty or Dvorak letter arrangements, the only way to gain skill in typing was by drilling on a few letters until they became second nature, then repeating on a few more letters at a time until every letter was an automatic response. Only then, after complete training to make the entire alphabet available, could productive typing begin. Most touch-typists cannot say where any particular letter is, even though their fingers seem to know.

“Now, on the New Standard keyboard, the letters are arranged alphabetically to read like a book. The first half of the alphabet, A to M, reads line by line down the rows of keys for the left hand. The second half of the alphabet, N to Z, reads line by line on the right hand. This breaks the alphabet into familiar little chunks that are easy to remember, and after a few minutes familiarization, makes it possible to find each letter without any drilling, because the alphabet is already familiar.”

I have used a prototype keyboard by www.dvortyboards.com that arranged each column of keys in perfectly straight lines. No other keyboard I have used has ever done this. I liked it and think it could be explored further as a design feature. In other words, the tfb yjn --or as this was Dvorak, xuy fhb--were not angled and slanted but ruler straight as were the other keys. Also note that I need the numpad keys for screen reader navigation so I may not be able to use this keyboard as my main keyboard.

IMAGINE That!