案例库 · 软件与 IT · 产品决策 · 1868–1900
这条还没译成中文，下面是英文原文。
QWERTY won by being first and trained, not by being the best keyboard.
Sholes's layout shipped on the first successful typewriter and got baked into a generation of typists, so the world kept it even when better layouts appeared.
E. Remington & Sons
那一手
In 1866 Christopher Latham Sholes, a Wisconsin newspaper publisher, co-invented a machine to number documents, and a fellow inventor suggested it could print letters too. With printer S.W. Soule they built a typewriter, and after about thirty models they settled on the QWERTY arrangement.
Historians disagree on why: some say the layout spaced common letters to reduce typebar jamming, while later researchers argue it grew out of telegraph operators transcribing Morse code. Either way, the machine came to market in 1874 as the Remington No. 1, the first commercially successful typewriter.
QWERTY then spread through offices and typing schools, so each generation learned the same layout. When alternative layouts such as Dvorak claimed to be faster, the switching cost in retraining and muscle memory stayed higher than the promised gain, and QWERTY was simply kept.
为什么管用
- The Sholes and Glidden machine shipped first and its layout became the one people learned on.
- Typing instruction and office habit created a base of trained users who did not want to relearn.
- The alleged efficiency gain from alternatives was small enough that retraining was not worth it.
- Every later device copied QWERTY, so no alternative could build its own installed base.
可以搬走什么
A design wins when it is the one people are already trained on, and network effects in human skill are often stronger than a measurable efficiency gain.
后来呢
QWERTY survived the IBM Selectric, the first personal computers, the BlackBerry and the touchscreen phone, all through the same mechanism: people type this way because that is how they were taught. It remains the world's default layout over a century and a half later.
资料来源
- Where Did the QWERTY Keyboard Come From?
- The Lies You've Been Told About the Origin of the QWERTY Keyboard
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