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As I navigate through middle age, I'm encountering some physical challenges that impact my coding work. Specifically, I've developed benign tremors and some arthritis in my hands. This has led to an increased frequency of typos during coding – both on the line I'm currently working on and at random places in the code, where I might inadvertently insert a keystroke without noticing.

This issue becomes particularly troublesome during debugging. Often, I find myself spending considerable time troubleshooting only to discover that the root cause was a simple typo. A standard linter doesn't typically catch these types of errors immediately, which adds to the challenge.

I'm reaching out to see if anyone in the community has faced similar challenges. I'm particularly interested in any ergonomic solutions or specific keyboard models that might help alleviate this problem. Any advice or recommendations based on personal experience or expertise in this area would be greatly appreciated.

(please refer me to an alternate forum if this is not the appropriate place, and I'll gladly move it)

bullcitydave
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    Hi, welcome to Hardware Recs! Are you interested in traditional style keyboards with ergonomic layouts, or something more radical such as orbiTouch? – JMY1000 Jan 17 '24 at 18:24
  • @JMY1000 that's very cool. I do know someone with a worse tremor who struggles more than I, and I will share this. I can still use a traditional keyboard. Maybe something more traditional with higher keys will make it less likely for my fingers to slide around. I work in public places a lot, so I fear a mechanical keyboard might be too noisy. But I quite honestly haven't tried the ergonomic keyboards that intentionally divide the keyboard into two sides. I want to be able to type as quickly as possible. I just find I'm much more error-prone than I used to be. – bullcitydave Jan 17 '24 at 18:51
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    Hm, not entirely sure what would help then; maybe heavier switches? Different keycap profiles? Anything else you can think of that might help? – JMY1000 Jan 17 '24 at 21:02
  • @JMY1000 Good idea, thank you. I haven't looked yet, but I wonder if product descriptions from vendors like Logitech provide that spec. I could also go to a Best Buy or a Staples and mess around. – bullcitydave Jan 18 '24 at 16:30
  • Typically these things are more niche and usually available only online; you might be able to find some variation in switch weight, but not as much as online. If you think any of those would be helpful, I can provide some more specific recommendations. – JMY1000 Jan 18 '24 at 18:46

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I would suggest you to use any mechanical keyboard with blue switches.

The reason is that blue switches not only provide a tactile feedback of being pressed but also an audible one. You will know for sure whether you have pressed the key or not.

Aside, some studies suggest that mechanical switches are better for people with arthritis or carpal tunnel problems. True or not, I switched to mechanical some years ago and will never go back to rubber.

Personally, I use an Ajazz AK33 (Amazon Spain) (Amazon.com) that you can buy with a variety of switches and is not very expensive.

Toni Homedes i Saun
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    Is Blue a brand? Otherwise what has colour got to do with it. And the link is spanish, this is a English only website. – Rohit Gupta Feb 10 '24 at 22:51
  • @RohitGupta No, blue is a type. Different brands have unified switch types by color. See, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf4EVtr8wDY – Toni Homedes i Saun Feb 11 '24 at 08:05