Hands Down™
Reference

q c h p v   k y o j /

r s n t g   w u e i a

x m l d b   z f ' , .

Finger/Hand Usage(ƒ) & distance(d) distribution※
Pnky Ring  Mid  Index  Thumb Thumb  Index  Mid  Ring Pnky
5.0  8.1  12.8  15.4  3.2  ƒ(%)  17.7   8.5  16.5  6.2  6.6
44.5 L R 55.5
2.4  8.4  16.7  20.2  3.9  d(%)    8.5 15.6  17.1  4.0  3.2
51.5 L R 48.5

Same-finger bigrams%†
  0.003 0.231 0.113 0.153  sfb(%)  0.173  0.172  0.021  0.014
Total   0.880%
cf. QWERTY 6.6%, Halmak 2.8%, Dvorak 2.6%, Colemak 1.7%, MTGAP 1.3%

(native OS support for Hands Down Reference is in the Hands Down layout OS bundle here)

Rolling comfort: A balance of hand alternation and same-hand rolls, mostly inward on neighbor fingers, rarely requiring reaches across the hand or jumping rows. 

• Hands Down Reference has less than 1/7 the SFBs of QWERTY. That's 86% fewer times the same finger will need to hit two different keys in a row. This is unquestionably the single most important measure in any keyboard layout, and Hands Down Reference is among the very lowest. Low SFBs are a major factor in typing speed and fatigue (though there are many other important factors).

• Comfortable inward rolls. Following Dvorak/MTGAP design wisdom, the most common bigram problems are solved by placing vowels and consonants on separate hands. But where consonant clusters or vowel blends do occur, every effort is made to make them be comfortable inward rolling motions.  On the consonant hand, SH, ST, RS, NT, NG, CT, CH, SH, BL, LD, (CL, via combos,). Most of the opposite direction bigrams occur less frequently. While TH is much more common than HT, index-middle finger outward rolling is almost as easy. The vowel hand is optimized for E and the most common vowel bigram, OU. While other vowel bigrams roll outward, the net impact is less than OU. The least common vowel bigrams involve A, so it resides on the pinky that has little else to do.

• Hands Down has remarkably few top<->bottom row jumps, but even one is awkward, especially for neighbor fingers. My instance of Hands Down avoids most uncomfortable row jumps altogether with combos: on the left hand, CH produces CL, (and HP yields PL).

• Whither ZXCV? Combos handle these, in the same place as QWERTY=almost no learning curve. x+m=Undo, x+l=Cut, m+l=Copy, l+d=Paste, m+d=Paste Match, x+d=Select All

• 🇯🇵 I swap K<->Y Since K is the second most frequent consonant in Japanese (after N). The negative impact to English is minimal, but the gain in Japanese is great.

• Keycaps: Some alternate "Colevrak" keycap sets have keys for Hands Down Reference positions.

Make your layout fit your typing needs

Consider this Hands Down Reference layout a reasonable place to start with your own customized layout. In the spirit of excellent advice a wise Dvorak user gave me on Reddit, instead of starting from broken QWERTY and see what is gained by moving things around, try starting from Hands Down Reference layout, and see what is lost, as you  gain customized comfort.  Check out Hands Down variations below for many ways you can tailor the layout to fit you.

Hands Down Polyglot is a new variation in the early stages of development aiming to bring Hands Down efficiencies to those who regularly type in multiple languages.