Thank you for the suggestion, but that's indeed a problem with lots of websites that get this utterly wrong. Browsing the web using a non-US keyboard is fun.
> imagine how hard it is for someone used to a British keyboard to hit enter on an american keyboard.
Not too difficult, I'd say, because you can just move your right pinky directly to the right from the home position and you're good to go. The problem with the British Enter key is that it's tall instead of wide, so you have to reach even further to the right. I don't see any benefit to the increased height, because I'm always going to hit the Enter key from the home position anyway.
It's a similar issue with having the backslash/pipe key next to the left Shift. I move my left pinky down and a little to the left to hit the left Shift, but instead there's a backslash/pipe key there, which means I have to move it even more to the left, which is just uncomfortable.
Yeah - and balancing the two is something often entirely overlooked and people stuck with the problem have to learn the options and try to determine “is this key the character or the key (in a US layout)”.
Issues like this are why often people just give up and learn US English enough to use the computer, then at least it’s tested and consistent.
> As an aside, why why why do people use the international keyboard layout? There is no possible way that it is more efficient given that two of the most used keys - left shift and (right) return are reduced in size and pushed further out of reach from home position. Worse yet, their lost space is taken by less frequently used keys. I cannot fathom why that design has remained popular outside the US.
This doesn't make much sense for the UK keyboard layout, where I agree that the US layout is a bit better from a common use perspective. It makes more sense when you start looking at other variations of the international layout, though. Live in the Baltics? You're going to use the Nordic layout that has several of the most commonly-used letters with diacritical marks. The physical layout (number of keys, position of keys, etc.) are all still the same, so not only is it easier to manufacture but all a touch-typist needs to do is alter the software layout to be able to use any keyboard they happen to stumble upon.
That's only the case if you have certain international keyboards enabled, which is why many people don't know about it and why it wasn't mentioned in the article.
>On the keyboard layouts of many countries these keys aren't accessible at all, either missing entirely or only being accessible via unergonomic key combinations
Not really relevant, as we're talking about keyboards and setups used by programmers.
If they don't know how to change the layout in English to program, then perhaps they're not fit for the job.
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