Kvikk is set of low effort Scandinavian keyboard layouts. Comparing to standard layouts they increase home area usage, reduce bottom row usage and cross row jump frequency, improve load distribution between hands and fingers, reduce frequency of same finger usage, facilitate inward rollovers and reduce finger movement distance.
Layouts are result of Carpalx optimization involving 29 letters and three most common punctuation characters (full stop, comma and hyphen). Position of punctuation characters was fixed, but they were taken into account in calculation of typing effort and influenced optimization process on all stages.
Due to large number of possible letter permutations (namely 29!) evaluating each and every configuration was not feasible and simulated annealing was used to look up optimal configurations.
Carpalx report with essential keyboard stats is available for all layouts. All statistics including frequency distribution is based on Norwegian (also Nynorsk), Danish, Swedish and English wikipedia articles. Ten finger distribution takes into account last letter frequencies and assumes that opposite hand's thumb is responsible for space bar. While eight finger distribution is calculated without taking into account spaces. Word reports are available for some layouts.
Layouts are named after ten finger letter assignment pattern (consonant|vowel|none) that emerges in optimization process. In all layouts only left middle and index fingers are responsible for vowels.
Carpalx typing effort is 1.627, much lower then QWERTY, Dvorak and Colemak, but not quite as low as Norto.
Row distribution is good. Almost ¾ of text is typed from home row.
Layout is symmetric, most of the load is handled by fast index and strong middle fingers.
Carpalx typing effort is 1.642. Significantly lower then QWERTY, Dvorak and Colemak.
Row distribution is good. Almost ¾ of text is typed from home row.
Layout is symmetric, most of the load is handled by fast index and strong middle fingers.
Carpalx typing effort is 1.673, much lower then QWERTY, Dvorak and Colemak, but not quite as low as Norto.
It is somewhat close to Bokmål layout reflecting similarity in frequency distribution.
Row distribution is good. Almost ¾ of text is typed from home row.
Layout is symmetric, most of the load is handled by fast index and strong middle fingers.
Carpalx typing effort is 1.738, still much lower then QWERTY, Svorak and Colemak, but higher then Norto.
Row distribution is good.
Layout is symmetric, most of the load is handled by fast index and strong middle fingers.
Typing effort is linked to corresponding Carplax report.
| Layout | Language | Typing effort | Home row usage (%) | Hand balance (%) |
| Bokmål | Bokmål | 1.627 | 74.2 | 52:48 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nynorsk | 1.647 | 73.9 | 53:47 | |
| Danish | 1.676 | 74.3 | 51:49 | |
| Swedish | 1.783 | 71.4 | 51:49 | |
| English | 1.853 | 68.4 | 52:48 | |
| Nynorsk | Bokmål | 1.628 | 74.4 | 52:48 |
| Nynorsk | 1.642 | 74.3 | 53:47 | |
| Danish | 1.710 | 73.4 | 51:49 | |
| Swedish | 1.798 | 72 | 51:49 | |
| English | 1.886 | 66.9 | 52:48 | |
| Danish | Bokmål | 1.638 | 74.2 | 52:48 |
| Nynorsk | 1.661 | 73.9 | 53:47 | |
| Danish | 1.673 | 74.3 | 51:49 | |
| Swedish | 1.768 | 71.4 | 51:49 | |
| English | 1.869 | 68.4 | 50:50 | |
| Swedish | Bokmål | 1.672 | 74.2 | 51:49 |
| Nynorsk | 1.712 | 73.9 | 52:48 | |
| Danish | 1.692 | 74.3 | 51:49 | |
| Swedish | 1.738 | 71.4 | 51:49 | |
| English | 1.863 | 68.4 | 56:47 |
Carpalx optimized configurations can be used as drop-in replacement for unoptimized letter base in existing Scandinavian layouts.
Kvikk XKB and KMonand configurations are good examples of such usage. They combine Kvikk optimizations with symbols imported from standard Norwegian, Danish and Swedish layouts.
Linux users can copy XKB configuration file to /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/ directory:
sudo cp kvikk /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/kvikk
Bokmål layout can be selected with
setxkbmap kvikk
and set as default as
localectl --no-convert set-x11-keymap kvikk pc105
Nynorsk layout can be selected with
setxkbmap kvikk -variant nn
and set as default as
localectl --no-convert set-x11-keymap kvikk pc105 nn
Danish layout can be selected with
setxkbmap kvikk -variant da
and set as default as
localectl --no-convert set-x11-keymap kvikk pc105 da
Swedish layout can be selected with
setxkbmap kvikk -variant sv
and set as default as
localectl --no-convert set-x11-keymap kvikk pc105 sv
In all layouts scroll lock can be used to switch between äö⇄æø groups.
One can use KMonad configuration instead of XKB. Linux users need to set uinput permissions and specify path to input device before loading KMonad configurations.
Bokmål layout for can be selected with
kmonad kvikk-nb.kbd
Nynorsk layout for can be selected with
kmonad kvikk-nn.kbd
Danish layout for can be selected with
kmonad kvikk-da.kbd
Swedish layout for can be selected with
kmonad kvikk-sv.kbd
Another alternative is to use Kvikk configurations for keyd key remapping daemon.
January 2, 2022. Giorgi Chavchanidze.
