n. A keyboard layout developed by August Dvorak and William L. Dealey in 1936 as an alternative to the overwhelmingly popular QWERTY keyboard. The Dvorak keyboard was designed to speed typing by placing the characters on the keyboard for easiest access to the most frequently typed letters. In addition, pairs of letters that often occur sequentially were separated so that the hands could alternate typing them. See the illustration. See also ergonomic keyboard, keyboard. Compare QWERTY keyboard.
