Computer Keyboard

       Computer keyboard is one essential part to a computer. The design of a keyboard has a long history which can be traced back to the early 17th century.The arrangement of the buttons, “keys”, on a keyboard is not random. There are many kinds of arrangement of the keys. The most common keyboard is known as the QWERTY keyboard as the english letters in the first row from left to the right read QWERTY. This arrangement was first invented by Christopher Latham Sholes in the 19th century. At the time, people had problem typing because the keyboard they used had the most common typed letter near each other that when people typed too fast the keys would get stock. However, the new arrangement invented by Sholes solved the problem by arranging the common letters separately on the keyboard. It has become the most common kind of keyboard people use until nowadays. 

Besides the arrangement of the keys, the “haptic” design of a keyboard is also one concern of the designers nowadays. For example, the new Mac keyboard designed by apple Inc. slightly curved every key and applied a special material that the keys won’t stick to one’s finger but also not too smooth. A good design of a keyboard links our thoughts directly to the screen. Referring to the film Objectified, a better design of a form is when you use it that you don’t really feel the existence of the object. The “form” is the vehicle that helps our interaction with the “content” of the designed object. For example, as I’m typing the blog right now, I’m not really looking and feeling the design of the keyboard on my MacBook, the design of the keyboard links my thought directly to the sentences showing on the screen that it is so fluent that I don’t even pay attention to the existence of the keyboard. This is a success of the keyboard. A good design provides good interaction between the object and us.


Image from: http://www.seoconsultants.com/frontpage/keyboard/