The Fascinating History of the QWERTY Layout

During a conversation yesterday, my cousin casually asked me, “Why aren’t the letters on a computer keyboard arranged alphabetically?” I explained the common reasoning that the QWERTY layout was designed to prevent typebars from jamming when frequently used letter combinations like “TH” or “HE” were typed quickly. This is a widely known explanation with countless articles and videos available.

But he wasn’t convinced with this explanation. This made me do further research on this topic. Both Gemini and ChatGPT provided the same “to prevent jamming” story, but DeepSeek offered some additional information, suggesting that the initial keyboard layout was heavily influenced by telegraph operators. Continuing my research, I eventually found a research paper¹ that offered fascinating insights into the design of the QWERTY layout.

This was a new knowledge for me, so I decided to write this blog post as a personal journal – both to deepen my understanding on this topic and to have a handy reference for the future.

Please note that below is an over-simplified version of the history discussed in the paper. It leaves out details like the contributions of the Remington company, American Telegraph Works, Western Union Telegraph, patent issues, Edison’s remarks, the impact of shorthand writers, and several other events. If you’re eager for a deeper dive, I strongly recommend reading the original paper; otherwise, enjoy this streamlined overview.

The [Over-simplified] History of QWERTY

Christopher Latham Sholes, recognized as the inventor of the typewriter, created the initial typewriter layout in 1868. This was designed for telegraph operators to improve their workflow.

It was a two-row design resembling a piano. The first row included keys A to M, while the second row presented keys N to Z in reverse order. Part of this original layout is still present in modern keyboards in the last two rows.

ⒶⒷⒸⒹⒺⒻⒼⒽⒾⒿⓀⓁⓂ
ⓏⓎⓍⓌⓋⓊⓉⓈⓇⓆⓅⓄⓃ

The next 30 years saw a series of changes.

A first row of numbers (2 through 9) was a later added. A second row was added by relocating all the vowels and “Y” to this row. This row included a dot and a question mark, looking similar to this:

②③④⑤⑥⑦⑧⑨
 ⒶⒺⒾ.? ⓎⓊⓄ
ⒷⒸⒹⒻⒼⒽⒿⓀⓁⓂ
 ⓏⓍⓌⓋⓉⓈⓇⓆⓅⓃ

More changes happened based on the feedback from telegraph operators and several keys were moved around. Here are a few of those changes:

• W was moved to the vowel row since it functions as a semi-vowel.
• T was moved to the center due to being the most frequently used consonant.
• Q was shifted to the top edge because it was among the least used letters.
• I was placed near the 8 key to speed up typing years like 1870 or 1871 (with “I” representing 1).
• O was placed near the 9 key for the same reason (with “O” representing 0).
• S was moved between E and Z because the Morse code for “ES” and “Z” was similar, allowing telegraph operators at the receiving end to quickly choose between them.
• M was relocated to the bottom row, while C and X were swapped to evade the original typewriter patent when Sholes sold the design to a new company.

Over the years, the keyboard layout underwent many revisions until it eventually evolved into the early form of what we now call the “QWERTY” layout.

 ②③④⑤⑥⑦⑧⑨
ⓆⓌⒺⓇⓉⓎⓊⒾⓄⓅ
 ⒶⓈⒹⒻⒼⒽⒿⓀⓁ
  ⓏⓍⒸⓋⒷⓃⓂ

By 1898, after several iterations, QWERTY had emerged as the de facto standard. With most typists and shorthand writers already trained in this layout at this point, other typewriter manufacturers had no choice but to follow suit. And that’s how QWERTY became the norm - the reason why modern keyboards have a “shuffled” arrangement of keys rather than an alphabetical order.

Note: I shared the original paper on Hacker News as soon as I discovered it, which sparked some fascinating discussions. Check out the thread here to see what people had to say.