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Several years ago, I had wrist and finger pain from typing all day. I purchased a Kinesis ergo keyboard and the pain hasn’t returned since. It’s a super smart design.

Keys conform to your hand

The keys are set in a bowl so that each key is as close as can be to your finger tips.

Opposable thumbs are useful

Rather than only using your thumbs to press space bar, a cluster of keys is placed under each thumb. That means fewer keys that require straining your pinky to reach.

Natural finger movement

Keys are all vertically aligned, not diagonally like most keyboards. The keys are in the natural range of movement of your fingers, no need to move your wrist or yaw your third knuckle.

Key remapping

Keys can be remapped, so if you don’t like where a key in placed you can just swap it for another key. Personally, I’ve made very minimal use of this feature.

Type numbers faster

The keyboard doesn’t have a numeric keypad, which seems like a week point at first look. But with its smart design, 8 of the number keys rest under your fingertips compared to 4 when using a numeric keypad. Numeric calculations are a bit slower, as the operators aren’t as conveniently located as on a numeric keypad.

The keyboard does support a numeric keypad mode similar to what most laptops have, but I don’t tend to use it (perhaps I would if I spent more time typing calculations).

Better your speed and technique

The layout of the keys rewards good typing technique and penalizes bad habits. I broke several bad habits that I didn’t even notice I had.

Minimal learning curve

Before I purchased the Kinesis keyboard, I was split between learning the Dvorak layout or trying another alternative and expensive keyboard. I had previously tried the ill-fated Fingerworks TouchStream LP which had a multi-month learning curve and universally reduces typing speed—yuck!

I was pleased that after a week I was up to my normal typing speed on the Kinesis keyboard. After the second week my typing speed jumped about 15 WPM.