Well I've been doing research on this for a couple of days now & I've come up with what I feel is the best layout regardless of whether or not one prefers sticky keys. I would have made a video to demonstrate my reasoning, but it's late & I don't have a mic, so I guess I'll have to type it out.
First I determined what the most used non-alphanumeric keys are. I came up with (from most to least, just in general)
. , " ' ! ? ( ) : & ; - / = @ [ ] _ + * # |
Now I know this is not true for everyone, but this that's why it's a generalization.
Next, Thanks to whoever posted the pandora mock-up I have a spiffy cardboard-reinforced scale model of our dear panda. My thumbs are average to above average size, but here is where they rest on the panda:
Now here is where logic comes in. The most used keys should be the most easily accessible. Since the Fn key is on the right side & will need to be held down by the right thumb, the majority of these keys should be left-justified. This will satisfy the needs of both sticky-key users & non-sticky-key users.
Next up is accessibility. The Blue area is the range of my left thumb without lifting, Red is my right. Green area is where keys can be reached without sticky, Orange is with, & Yellow is the area that is hard to reach with either side.
Based on this, I came up with the following layout:
Having seen this there are a few changes I made that I should explain:
Brightness/Wifi - This location is good because they are not functions relative to typing & fill the 'dead-zone'. They also line up nicely with the center buttons.
Monetary characters - Since these are scarcely used, they can afford to be a bit out of the way. This also allows more keys that might be used only occasionally to be placed on the keyboard instead of keys that some people may never use due to region. Oh, and also prevents whining ;]
Colon/Semi-colon - I switched these around for two reasons: The semi-colon is less often used than the regular colon and the bottom most key on the left is just a little awkward to press, so it makes more sense to have the colon in a position where it feels nicer to press. Also, it makes more sense to match the character on the bottom half of the colon to the one underneath it, if it was reversed it would be a little confusing.
Ampersand - I moved the ampersand to where the '@' previously was because 'and' is a more commonly used word/idea than 'at'. When thumb typing it makes it easier to have the ampersand easily available for easier abbreviation.
Brackets - Perfect place for both sets, creates nice symmetry as well.
AltGr/Compose - made more sense to me to have them next to each other & in an easily accessible place for our foreign friends =]
The rest - Well the rest are organized like I mentioned before, most used on left, less used on the right & filling the left-over spaces.
I spent a lot of time on this to make it the most well-organized approach to fast thumb-typing, so I hope it's given some consideration. Thanks! =D
