QWERTY
image from Shutterstock
The keyboard that most people use these days is called the "Qwerty" keyboard. It is called the “QWERTY” because the letters that form the top left row of keys are: Q W E R T Y.
Whey is the QWERTY keyboard arranged like this? According to the website How Stuff Works:
“This early typewriter used a mechanism with characters on the end of a bar. When a key was struck, a linkage would swing the bar into a tape coated with ink. When the character struck the tape, the impression of the character was transferred onto the paper, which was positioned behind the tape.”
A typist who was fast would get the bars jammed as they collided on their way to the paper. Therefore , the typewriters had the letters rearranged with the most commonly used keys spread farther apart to slow typists down.
Another popular keyboard is the Dvorak:
image from www.dvorak-keyboard.com
You can see that the letters are completely rearranged. The keyboard tries to minimize the distance that the fingers need to move to type words.
