New Ergonomic Keyboards
Two picks and two pans
By Deborah Quilter
First published December 8, 1998

If your neck, forearms, and wrists ache after a session at the keyboard, there's a good reason for it: Humans aren't built for typing.

Consider just a few of the pitfalls: Keeping the muscles in one position-holding your hands over a keyboard or using a mouse-exhausts them, setting the stage for injury. Prolonged elbow bending stretches the ulnar nerve, an activity that, over time, can lead to damage. Repetitive flexing and twisting of the wrist to reach faraway keys can lead to tendon and nerve damage. Simply holding the hand palm-down can strain the forearm muscles.

These risks aren't merely the result of bad keyboard design and faulty technique. They're also caused by mouse-driven software, so an "ergonomic" keyboard alone cannot protect you from repetitive strain injury. You must heed other recommendations about technique, posture, pacing, and workload. However, there are certain keyboard designs that can reduce arm and hand strain.

I looked at four alternative keyboard designs that attempt to surmount such dangers: the Goldtouch Adjustable Keyboard, the Kinesis Maxim Adjustable Keyboard, the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite, and the Cirque Smooth Cat. Most of them require only a soft touch. All of them are angled to minimize twisting of the wrist, and all are or can be tented upward at the center to minimize pronation (palms-down positioning of the hands). Closer scrutiny reveals important differences among these keyboards that should affect your buying decision.

The designers of these keyboards kept the basic QWERTY configuration, but some have switched around other keys. For example, Goldtouch moved frequently used function keys to the left. This helps shift activity from the overworked right hand to the left, and the time it takes to get used to this new arrangement is well worthwhile. When looking for a keyboard, remember that important keys should not be located near the thumbs, which should not be overtaxed.

Recommended: Goldtouch Adjustable Keyboard

The old Lexmark Select-Ease keyboard once set the standard for ergonomic keyboard design: You could split it into separate halves and tent it at the middle. It also had a detachable numeric pad, which was a smart design idea. Anyone who fondly recalls the old Lexmark will be thrilled to hear that the same designer is at work again.

The $99 Goldtouch Adjustable Keyboard keeps several of the intelligent features of the Lexmark and makes a few improvements. Goldtouch's keyboard matches the Lexmark's compact size, measuring a little more than 18 inches wide in its fully expanded position, and 7 inches deep.

The Goldtouch's overall action is the best of the bunch reviewed here. Keys depress easily and cushion your fingers as they land. The absence of a wrist rest allows you to bring the keys directly under your fingers. If you press a toggle, some letter keys in the right half of the keyboard will double as a numeric keypad (e.g., J, K, and L become 1, 2, and 3). This feature saves space, but it's awkward having the numbers staggered rather than vertically aligned. You're better off using the numbers in the top row so that you can use both hands. Goldtouch doesn't sell a separate numeric keypad.

The keyboard splits the work between the hands by placing a Windows key on each side and arranging Home, End, Insert, Delete, Page Up, Page Down, Scroll, F11, and F12 to the left of the Caps Lock key in two blocks. You can acclimate to this arrangement pretty quickly.

One downside is that there are no F11 and F12 keys per se; they share a key with F1 and F2, respectively. For example, to use F12 to select text in WordPerfect, you would have to press the Fn (Function) key, then F2, select the text you wanted to copy or cut, then press Fn again. This is laborious, and since these keys aren't programmable you can't work around this limitation.

The biggest problem is that you can't split the keyboard into separate halves as you could with the Lexmark. Instead, there's a hinged pivot point at the top of the keyboard. If you pull out a handle at the top of the left key bank you can tent the keyboard and separate the sides at the bottom to create an angle of up to 30 degrees. Adjusting the keyboard is rather awkward (it takes both hands), but it locks to stay firmly in place.

I liked the Lexmark because I could pull the halves completely apart. I could adjust one half without affecting the other, spreading the key banks to match the width of my shoulders. You can't do this with the Goldtouch, but if you carefully remove the back, take out the adjustment pin (you'll need an Allen wrench), and unloop the connecting cable, you'll get about two inches' worth of separation between the key banks. Doing this voids your warranty, so don't start tinkering unless you plan to keep the keyboard.

Recommended: Kinesis Maxim

The $149 Kinesis Maxim can't match the Lexmark's degree of flexibility, but it's still a good choice. The key banks, attached at the top, can be angled at up to 30 degrees at the bottom and tented at two different heights using center props. Three Windows keys are on the left bank, while a numeric keypad is embedded in the right bank (like the Goldtouch keyboard). You can buy a separate, detachable numeric keypad for $69. It's money well spent if you want to more evenly distribute the workload between both hands. The palm support can and should be removed. The keyboard's action is soft, installing and adjusting the keyboard is easy, and the manual is concise and clear. Since the keyboard halves can't be split and separated, the Maxim may be a better option for smaller people. Note that the Kinesis Maxim is the only keyboard reviewed here that's available for the Mac, and that version costs an additional $90.

Not Recommended: Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite

Many readers have asked about the $65 Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite. While some people like it, it has several drawbacks. Like its predecessor, the Elite is a one-size-fits-all keyboard: The key banks are molded in place and you can't physically separate them. The Elite has a built-in palm rest, which extends three inches from the bottom of the keyboard. Despite traditional thinking, however, resting your palms, wrists, forearms, or elbows while typing increases your risk of injury. The palm rest also forces you to extend your arms to reach the keys, which saddles your neck and shoulder with static loading (holding muscles in a fixed position over time).

There are other problems. Like a standard keyboard, the Elite forces you to overuse the right hand by relegating the numeric keypad and other frequently used keys to the right side. On top of that, the keyboard takes up a lot of space, pushing the mouse further to the right or up onto the desk instead of keeping it on the keyboard tray, which causes additional strain.

The Ctrl, Windows, and other keys at the bottom are oversized, a feature that lets you use two fingers instead of one to depress a key. Alas, the function keys running along the top of the keyboard, as well as the Page Up, Page Down, and cursor keys, are quite small and thus harder to use.

Although the price is right, the Elite isn't adjustable or customizable. Unless it's a perfect fit, steer clear of it.

Not Recommended: Cirque Smooth Cat

Like the Elite, the $79 Cirque Smooth Cat is a premolded, one-size-fits-all keyboard that's even bigger than Microsoft's offering. On the plus side, the function keys are of standard size. The Smooth Cat comes with a built-in touch pad, so the mouse placement issue is moot. The pad and numeric keypad are on the right side of the keyboard.

The touch pad is hardly an improvement over the mouse. To simulate a mouse click you tap the touch pad, which requires holding your arm poised (static loading again). If you don't tap quickly enough, your double-click won't register. Of course, with the press of a key you can use the numeric keypad as cursor keys, but navigating this way is painfully slow. The Smooth Cat's action-especially the space bar-is stiff, so sometimes you have to strike a key repeatedly. All in all, the Smooth Cat has too many rough edges to elicit my recommendation.

Copyright © 1998 Deborah Quilter. All rights reserved.

Where to Buy

Cirque Smooth Cat
Cirque Corporation
888/454-3398
www.cirque.com
List price: $79
30-day, money-back guarantee; five-year warranty

Goldtouch Adjustable Keyboard
Goldtouch Technologies
800/593-2453
www.goldtouch.com
List price: $99
30-day, money-back guarantee; one-year warranty

Kinesis Maxim Adjustable Keyboard
Kinesis
800/454-6374
List price: $149 for PC; $239 for Mac; optional keypad $69
www.kinesis-ergo.com/max-spec.html
60-day, money-back guarantee; lifetime limited warranty

Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite
Microsoft
800/426-9400
www.microsoft.com/products/hardware/natkeybd/default.htm
List price: $65
30-day, money-back guarantee; two-year warranty

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