Why would anyone need a custom keyboard?

What's the point?

Think about it - the average office worker spends 8 hours a day in front of a computer, 5 days a week, month after month, year after year. And their primary method of interacting with that computer is by using a keyboard and mouse.

Doesn't it make sense to choose the best tool for the job? In fact, why settle for the best off-the-shelf solution? Why not tailor a tool to your personal fit? After all, no two people's hands are the same. Yet hundreds of millions of people around the globe all use practically the same one-size-fits-all keyboard layout that doesn't really fit any human that well.

Ergonomic Keyboards

Enter ergonomic keyboards - keyboards designed to accommodate the human hand and posture, instead of the human having to accommodate their tool. Keyboards designed from the ground up to be comfortable, rather than designed to be familiar to someone who used a typewriter a century ago. Keyboards that place keys where they are most convenient for your fingers today, not ones that shoe-horn keys into whatever space was leftover while still maintaining compatibility for museum pieces that use punch cards to store data.

My build of a TBK Mini by Bastard Keyboards. (Store link)

Split Keyboards

Next, let's talk about split keyboards. Looking back to when laptops started to become more mainstream, and the overnight explosion of ubiquitous cellphones, keyboards became smaller and smaller. Yet all the while, the span of the human shoulders has remained the same. We pivot our shoulders and bend our elbows to reach the keys not because it is comfortable, but because our keyboards don't give us any choice in the matter.

By splitting the keyboard into two halves for each hand, we can not only move the keyboard to where it is most comfortable for our shoulders, we can rotate each half individually to match our wrists.

My build of a Void Ergo S by Victor Lucachi.

Mapping your keys

Another "Why didn't I think of that?" feature is the concept of custom keymaps. Instead of accepting whatever placement of keys the manufacturer decided on, you can program any physical key on your keyboard to output whichever character you like on your screen. And you know how you can press Shift and a number to get a symbol? Why can't your keyboard let you define your own Shift key? Or multiple different Shift keys? How about keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Alt+Del: why can't you set aside a dedicated key if you wanted to? Custom keymaps give you this flexibility to change your keyboard to behave exactly as you want it to.

While some might dismiss the notion of a custom keyboard as a pointless luxury, or building one as a pointless pastime, the humble computer keyboard is the hands-on tool that millions of people use to ply their trade. No one would balk at a carpenter or a plumber buying expensive and specialised tools, so why should someone who spends a third of their live using a tool doany different?

Screenshot of Vial keyboard configuration software.