> I'd be very surprised if that was as ergonomic as a symmetrical layout.

The body is complex, and movements build on top of that. It's hard to reason about it as a system in this way.

For now though, what matters is it's more fun to type on an ortholinear keyboard. I wish the focus was on that aspect and not health benefits until there's data.

:o) I can agree that a discussion about health benefits would be more compelling with data.

As an anecdote, I'll say I find my ortho keyboard using a Dvorak layout much more comfortable to type on than row-stagger QWERTY; and certainly looking at videos show that the latter looks much busier at the same WPM.

The main thing I'd argue is that many of the design features of a standard keyboard (asymmetry; big spacebar; row stagger, with different stagger for each row..) don't seem to be good design decisions compared to even a grid of keys all the same size.

> But the standard row-stagger is asymmetrical; the way a hand types with the left hand is not mirrored by the right hand.

How is it asymmetrical? Unless you consider the right hand typing on the numpad/cursor keys.

On a QWERTY keyboard, think about the letters "I" and "E", which the middle fingers on your right and left hands respectively would hit. Both require your middle finger to reach up and slightly left. It's not a mirrored movement—both skew left. The stagger breaks symmetry of any non-home row finger movements.

I think I see it, it seems to me that my finger naturally wants to hit in between "E" and "R", but it hits exactly on top of "I".

So ortho fixes this, but could it then introduce problems for other pairs? It seems hard to believe that there is a layout which is 100% better for all combinations.

Regarding symmetry, our hands are already asymmetrical due to handiness (left-handed, right-handed), and the brain naturally adapts, and there is also the risk of Hawthorne effect if you A/B test ortho/staggered. Some real studies on layouts would really be useful.

Ortholinear can be interpreted as 0 stagger, but still takes time to adjust to. However, when I was using ortho at work and ANSI at home, it didn't take much effort for me to alternate.

Ortho layouts are also most often used on compact boards, and the Preonic (5x12 grid, '50%' form factor) is probably the most 'plug and use' friendly ortho I've come across.

Standard keyboards use a mix of 0.25u and 0.5u stagger, depending on the row.

The Zlant is a uniform-stagger board I got once as a fun project, but you'll see the stagger difference right away: https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/blob/master/keyboards/zl...

Consider the index-finger columns:

On the LHS, the index-finger RFV. The finger rests on the homing key F, with R to the left.

On the RHS, the index-finger column is UJM. The finger rests on the homing key F, with U also to the left of F.

I'd consider (say) a Katana keyboard to have a symmetrical row-stagger.