2021-03-05

Before giving a spare Iris to a friend who’s never used a split keyboard, I wanted to reset the layout from my personalized one to something less formidable. The default layout is still more elaborate than necessary, so I designed new one to reflect what I’d recommend for general use by a non-hobbyist:

To the end of keeping things familiar and simple:

• It stays close to a standard QWERTY layout where possible.
• There's only one extra layer, and it’s presented as a familiar Fn key.
• The thumb clusters are nearly symmetrical.

It also incorporates a few carefully chosen deviations and niceties:

• A numeric keypad appears under the right hand.
• Navigation keys appear under the left hand.
• Backspace replaces Caps Lock.

The most noticeable shortcomings are:

• {, }, ~, and | are tedious to type, requiring Fn+Shift.
• (, ), &, and ^ remain in their standard location, far from the home row.

It’s implemented as a keymap.json for QMK.