A thought has been chewing at me for quite a while now, and it came into relief somewhat recently, when someone I know almost lost the use of one hand. The damage turned out to be temporary, thankfully, but it still brought the idea back into focus for me:
How good of a one-handed layout could one make? Has anyone tried making a serious one before? I think the UHK is very capable in this regard, not because of the obvious being a split keyboard, I actually think I would make such an endeavor with a non-split configuration just to have more keys available to one hand, but between macros, one-shot keys, secondary roles and, just to emphasize, macros, I think one could actually make a reasonable one-handed layout.
I hesitate to call the UHK uniquely capable because I have no idea what the competition offers in regards to any of these features. Someone called me a keyboard enthusiast once, to which I replied that I’m not, I use one model, it works, I don’t want any other ones. I’m not enthusiastic about keyboards, I’m happy with the one I have.
Please do try. You’d be surprised how many people out there need accessibility options. I’m paraplegic, and I can’t tell you how much time and money I’ve poured into the search for solutions to various problems, and they rarely work.
E.g., I used to be a guitarist, and I spent a couple of decades trying to prototype an adaptive mouth controller to use with effects boards and expression pedals. I never found a usable solution. Now I can’t really play at all, so the search is over, but I know there are plenty of disabled people out there who need a little help.
Could be interesting as inspiration. I think I will try my hand at this project sometime soon, forgive the pun. I just need to make some decisions: Do I use the entire keyboard for one hand a la one-handed Dvorak, or do I make a layout for one half of the keyboard? If one half, then do I make one for each hand, bespoke to that half, or do I make a mirrorable design? I think I will try to go for the last option at first. That allows also for usability for people with more hands, as one can be on the mouse while the other has access to a “full” keyboard.
I tried a mirror layout on the left keyboard half for a while, using the left space thumb key as the mirror key (primary=space, secondary=mirror layer). It kind of worked, but I never got satisfactorily fast enough, so I abandoned it again.
There’s the Mattias half-keyboard, which has a mirrored layout. Someone posted a mirrored layout in a thread, too. I’m borrowing a UHK right now, and I tried using a mirrored layout, but I don’t find mirroring intuitive. That may be because I’ve always typed with just one hand. As I type this message, I’m using a half-keyboard layout that translates the left half of the keyboard onto the right side without reversing the order of the keys. For me, this is a lot better than mirroring.
Interesting reads, though I was thinking more of a keyboard layout optimized for one-handed use.
The mirrored layouts are less of proper layouts meant for one handed full time use and more for just being able to type out a short thing with just the one hand.
One-handed typing on standard keyboards is also obviously a thing, but again more a case of adapting something sub-optimal to work well enough.
I still think I’m going to make a dedicated layout trying to optimize one-handed usage of a UHK. I’ve given it some thought on and off, and I have some ideas on how I think it could be done pretty well.
