Hands Down™ Neu
the variations for high rollers

w  f  m  p  v   /  .  q  "  '  z

r  s  n  t  b   ,  a  e  i  h  j

x  c  l  d  g   -  u  o  y  k   

Pnky Ring  Mid  Index  Thumb Thumb  Index  Mid  Ring Pnky
6.2   8.8  10.5  14.6  5.1  ƒ(%)  17.5  11.0  14.7  6.6  4.8
45.3 L R 54.7
5.3  10.2  13.3  20.8  4.2  d(%)   6.3  14.3  16.4  4.9  4.4
53.7 L R 46.3

Same-finger bigrams%†
  0.047  0.120  0.142  0.152 sfb(%) 0.298  0.109  0.037  0.045
Total   0.949%
cf. QWERTY 6.6%, Halmak 2.8%, Dvorak 2.6%, Colemak 1.5%, MTGAP 1.2%

(native OS support for Hands Down Neu is in the Hands Down layout OS bundle here)

Hands Down Neu is the place to start if you're new to ultra-high efficiency alt layouts, or confused about all the variations possible with Hands Down. Neu works on any keyboard, so it is recommend if you are using a standard row-stagger slab keyboard (⌨️), or a split ergo and you prefer to have modifiers (esp. shift) on a thumb (👍🏻). Neu is great on its own, without any need for other "Smart Keyboard" features (combos, Adaptive Keys, etc.), though they can certainly be deployed on Neu with great results. As Neu is the basis for the other variations, if later you want to try a thumb-alpha variation, you can do so without too much retraining.

Hands Down Neu is recommended for those using traditional ansi/iso/jis keyboards, or who prefer thumb shift or other layer functions on the thumb instead of home-row mods. Hands Down Neu is the basis for the precious metals variations (Gold/Silver/Bronze) and the hard metals variations (Titanium/Rhodium/Vibranium), but these variations require a dedicated thumb key for an alpha character (T/N/H or R).

• Finger movement: Hands Down Neu Home Block: Obsessive attention on finger movement in the "Home Block" reduces fatigue during long typing sessions. (3x3 block of keys on each hand under index, middle, ring, plus resting position of pinkies & thumbs = 22 keys of the  Hands Down Home Block). Careful balance of usage frequency vs SFB & distance & neighbors delivers exceptionally even typing rhythm. (ex. dextrous right index has the highest SFBs, but has correspondingly lower usage frequency and distance covered.).

• Same-Finger Bigrams (SFBs) are exceptionally low, ensuring that your fingers are not abused trying to hit too many letters in a row with the same finger. This is the single most important component of a good layout, and something that QWERTY fails at miserably. What few SFBs that remain can be eliminated with judicious use of  Adaptive keys (see below). Many other very good low SFB layouts place much more demand on the ring and pinky, exceeding the Hands Down design burden threshold for these weaker, less-nimble fingers.

• Inward rolls A very high 3:1 in:out rolling ratio is achieved by, wherever possible, placing neighbor finger bigrams to make typing as easy as rapping fingers on a table.  The benefit of a high in-roll ratio with high alternation means exceptionally low redirects, (a "ping-pong" or "trilling" back-and-forth motion). 

  • The highest frequency consonant bigrams are all optimized for inward rolling:  ND, SN, RS, SL, LD, GL, (GL via adaptive M). 

  • The five highest frequency vowel bigrams OU, IO, EA, IE,  OA, are inward rolls. 

  • Most of the opposite direction outward rolling bigrams occur much less frequently. 

  • This applies also to many "disjoint neighbor bigrams" like SH, GH, IA, etc. 

Below are some mod suggestions you can consider when deploying Hands Down Neu 

• AU is the highest SFB, and accounts for roughly 1/3 of all the SFBs on the Hands Down Neu variations. Fortunately, this high frequency SFB occurs on the most capable finger, and that finger has a purposely lower total utilization rate to compensate for this burden. You can easily reduce the net SFBs by about 0.05% by swapping these two letters. Many similarly high performing layouts have chosen to do this. However, doing so destroys the very comfortable, and much more frequent, OU inward roll.  Hands Down Neu variations aim to strike a balance with inward rolling and SFBs so the AU is preferred. When the tradeoff is SFB versus rolling, SFB generally deserves priority, but Adaptive keys (see below) allow both low SFBs and high inward rolling. 

• Top or Bottom row (Stretch or curl)? Top row preference started with QWERTY in an attempt to keep fingers closer to the number row, but if you use an embedded num layer like I do, this is no longer a factor. The flexor muscles used for gripping are significantly stronger than the extensors used for straightening fingers, and there is research that suggests that curled fingers and floating hands is better than typing with fingers extended while resting on wrist pads. I type without the use of any wrist rests, and I find it much more comfortable on my aggressively staggered and angled split ergonomic keyboards to curl my fingers rather than to extend them. But many people prefer prefer to reach to the top row, especially if you have longer finger:palm length ratio than average, or your column stagger isn't as aggressive, or if you are on an ortholinear or row staggered keyboard, or use wrist rests. You can invert any of the Hands Down layouts, swapping the top and bottom rows, to make it a top-heavy rather than a bottom heavy layout. The usage difference on the left hand isn't as great as it is on the right vowel hand, so it doesn't benefit as much from a row swap, but if you choose to do so, I strongly recommend that you swap the whole row (or at least the three keys in the home block). The comfortable rolls are the product of these neighbor-finger relationships. The four (or ten) keys outside the home block are less sensitive to the row, and could be swapped in top-bottom pairs, but all were thoroughly evaluated for these specific positions (including raking downward vs pushing upward) while developing all Hands Down variations. 

Inverted Hands Down Neu

x  c  l  d  g   -  u  o  y  k  z 

r  s  n  t  b   ,  a  e  i  h  j

w  f  m  p  v   /  .  q  "  '    

• Combos give speedy access to less common letters that have been eXtracted from the main layout (like the Alt-x layouts), yet they remain easily available in predictable locations with comfortable combos, and the stats were analyzed with the impact to each finger properly considered. 

  • UY  for Qu. (finger on the U)
    I would heartily recommend removing Q and make it available via UY combo, and hold just it a tad longer to get QU (hold with shift for Qu, capsLk for QU), meaning QU becomes super efficient, all while taking up no space at all on the keyboard. QU is so ridiquelessly easy now that you don't need to design a whole layout around these low frequency letters: ThinQu. Use that space for another more frequently used symbol, like ;, #, or _, or whatever you find yourself typing a lot.

  • WF for Z, (similar to QWERTY location)

  • Dozens of other combos can speed entry and increase comfort.

    • Punctuation combos:

      • like !?;:@# are all on combos only one row from home.

      • diacritic, ´,`,ˆ,˚,¯ are combos all on home row (AE/EI/AI/AH/EH),
        and é,è,ê,å,ō when "lingered" (below).

      • other symbols: –, —, ~, _, = are on the bottom row, keying off the - (-U/-O/-K/UK/YK)

    • Command combos:

      •  undo/cut/copy/paste/select all/find, etc. (XC/XL/CL/LD/XD)

      • escape and tab also on home (RT, RS). 

      • All these coexist fine with my HRMs, and H digraphs (below).

  • Common H digraphs (TH, SH, CH, WH, GH, PH) are realized with combos (NT, SN, ST, FP, DG, PM). TH is the most common bigram in the English language, more common than many individual letters, and is now a crazy easy and fast single action, right on home row, involving the very capable index & middle fingers.
    🇯🇵 Using H digraph combos would allow me to swap B->W->K->B for Japanese, promoting K to a better location with WH on the pinky but realized with a single motion combo on WY the WH SFB problem is eliminated. (These swaps may not be for everyone, but taken together with combos and Adaptive Keys, mean that my actual configuration is a bit different from this, with notably better performance'. You can brave my QMK repo if you really want the skinny on how all these work together.)

•  Adaptive keys could be productively added to any layout on any smart keyboard; with Hands Down Neu, they improve the already great rolling and finger motion (all stats cited do not even consider the value of adaptive keys). Quickly rolling adjacent keys sends the statistically more frequent sequence to eliminate SFBs, scissors or row jumping, to make the typing flow even more naturally. Type just a fraction slower than fast rolling and you'll get the regular letters just as you would expect. It's uncanny how low the error rate is low when carefully considered. Some recent layouts may use a single adaptive key as a "Magic key" to accomplish a similar task. That has the advantage of isolating the magic so there is no chance of a timing error. I find it much easier to leverage the layout topology with targeted Adaptive keys, making it all easier to learn and with more comfortable motions (mostly similar rolling).

  • AH yields AU. Since AH is much less common than AU (H rarely occurs after vowels), using Adaptive keys to send AU when AH is rolled will eliminate the AU SFB by "pulling" the U up to home row to the H position only when needed, and leave the very comfortable OU inward roll in place. Such a beautiful solution (typed as beahtiful), where a bad AU SFB is turned into a comfortable rocking of the entire hand (pinkies don't like moving independently), withOUt sacrificing the more common OU inroll. (Alternatively AE could be used to produce the AU bigram. It is statisticaly a tiny bit better. I find that the commonality of using Magic H easier to get used to.

  • Magic H. As with the AU adaptive sequence, the EO/UA/OE can all use H as a Magic key. Roll out EH for EO, UH for UA, OH for OU. So, August people is realized by typing Ahgust pehple.  Now, if you're always typing hesitations, like "Ah, eh," just tap the keys a smidge slower, and there you go!

  • Q. produces Qu, essentially pulling U up from the bottom row and eliminating the awkward "scissoring" of neighbor-finger keys on opposite rows.  Since Q  basically never ends a word in English, this is an easy, fluid adaptive sequence with virtually no errors.

  • FM produces FL, eliminating this awkward scissor motion. 

  • PM yields PL, PV yields LV, more scissor corrections.
    M & L use the same middle finger, so this motion leverages existing muscle memory to avoid the awkward row jump entirely. Now, GL and FL, roll just as easily, with nothing new to remember. 

  • B frequently pairs with M and L so it is placed between the two most common pairings. But optimum position for B would displace even more frequent letters, so this is clearly a compromise location. Middle column keys pull the hand away from the home block, so this eliminates the awkward "split-neighbor bigram" that would spread the index and middle fingers apart. In such cases, Adaptive keys can alleviate this awkward position, by leveraging otherwise simiar motions, but lessening the stretch. 

    • BD yields BL,DB yields LB. 

    • MV yields MB (M&B should be on the same row, or only one row apart. With adaptive keys, this awkward row jump is eliminated).

  • Other uses for adaptive keys show ways it can be extended for other efficiencies. For example, rolling A, produces AU, eliminating an SFB by shifting the left hand one row, hitting A with middle, and , with index. Rolling #. sends .com

  • Together, these adaptive keys produce some surprisingly comfortable outcomes. Type MPM, for example, or MVM, and you might  stumble upon some slick keystrokes!

• Linger Keys

  • Or just "linger" on Q to get Qu.

  • "Lingering" on the left of any paired symbol will produce the right hand mate. Lingering on <[({"' produces '"})]>.

• FL or GL? FL is a more common roll than GL, but both are equally smooth with Adaptive keys. These are presented as above for the familial similarity with the other Hands Down Neu variations below, but F & G could be productively swapped without concern. I personally prefer F on the bottom which put G in place for easier spatial relationship to the H bigram combos like PH, leaving my bottom row for my cut/copy/paste combos.  Adaptive M (being L when fast rolling from G or P) and adaptive V (being B when immediately following M) completely neutralizes the differences, so no performance whatsoever is lost in either arrangement.

• From Hands Down Élan, punctuation is considered alongside alpha keys, meaning that even punctuation is easily accessible. All glyphs are statistically considered, and standard key bindings ignored, to improve speed or to lower cognitive load (i.e. makes more sense…). This arrangement lends itself to extension for efficient coding workflows. 

  • Shift - = +; / = *; " = ?; ' = !; . = &; , = |

  • Shift ( = {; < = ≤ ; Alt ( = [

  • Even as slick as these are, I use combos for most of these symbols. Combos offer a faster single motion (mostly of adjacent fingers) rather than the two stroke motion of first pressing the shift key, then the other key.

  • (QMK now supports this sort of thing with something they call "Key Overrides" but I do it myself in less space, because my keyboards are severely resource constrained.)

• A "angle/symmetric mod" for ISO/ANSI/JIS "slab" keyboards is proposed in the native Mac bundle on the downloads page.

• 🇯🇵 Simply swapping B<->K offers another way to keep K opposite vowels for Japanese, without other penalties in English. It also reduces lateral (center column) motion a tiny bit.

  • あるいは「Ｃ」は日本語入力方式では使用されていないため、日本語IMEでＣをＫにマッピングするだけで日本語と英語の両方で比類のない効率が得られます。（IMEでそのような再マッピング機能がある場合。私はATOK使用）Because I swap B->W->K->B, CK ends up on the same finger. This makes sense in usage in Japanese, with C sending K, and in English I simply hit CK with a most convenient middle-index fingering. There are no other K bigrams to worry about in English. 

• Keycaps: See my updated list of sculpted keycaps that support most if not all Hands Down variations. 

• AU bigram and tweaking stats. Swapping U<->O, ,<->., (and X<->J on Hands Down Élan & Neu), can each yield even better SFB results on some analyzers/texts. I tried each of them for a while, and found the motions less comfortable or intuitive. Many nice rolls are lost, or "through hand stretches" (like excite) were not captured by analyzers, all for very little gain. Hands Down was built by hands for hands (not for analyzers), and tested on hands (not just machines), for long duration typing comfort (not for short bursts of speed), and what is presented is the closest I can get to what I'm actually using.  The analyzers can't handle advanced features like home row mods, combos, and adaptive keys, all features that further enhance the typing experience.

• Achilles Heel: HE & HI, (pinky) THE. However, remember that Achilles beat Hektor in the Trojan War...I use all of the H digraph combos, which basically eliminates the H pinky problem. The is now two stroke action not three: first TH, then E, with no pinky or even ring finger, and Achilles emerges victorious once more.

  • Achilles had two heels, what about Hands Down Gold? As mentioned above, the AU pair is the highest SFB on  Hands Down Gold, but can be easily addressed by simply swapping the OU pair to reduce the total SFBs at the price of the very comfortable roll (and higher redirects), or through Adaptive keys, sending AU when AH is typed quickly. 

jz gq m  p  v   ;: .& /* "? '!
r  s  n  d  b   ,| a  e  i  h  
x  f  l  c  w   -+ u  o  y  k  
t   ␣  

Finger/Hand Usage(ƒ) & distance(d) distribution※
Pnky Ring  Mid  Index  Thumb Thumb  Index  Mid  Ring Pnky
5.0  7.8  10.4  10.1  9.7  ƒ(%)  19.7  11.2  14.8  6.9  4.4
43.1 L R 56.9
2.7  8.2  12.7  17.6  9.0  d(%)  10.1  14.6  16.4  5.3  3.3
50.3 L R 49.7

Same-finger bigrams%†
  0.000 0.079 0.143 0.045   sfb(%)  0.296  0.123  0.064  0.034
Total   0.784%
cf. QWERTY 6.6%, Halmak 2.8%, Dvorak 2.6%, Colemak 1.5%, MTGAP 1.2%

Hands Down Gold may be the all-around winner of the precious metals variations (Gold, Silver, Bronze), and may be ideal if your prose is mostly English, and you want to optimize for a split keyboard with dedicated thumb keys, if you are open to the idea of putting an alpha on a thumb, and can make use of Home Row Modifiers or Callum-style one-shot mods. Other "Smart Keyboard" features (combos, Adaptive Keys, etc.) are totally optional, but Gold (and the other metals variations) take them very well, for an even smoother typing experience. (None of the stats quoted here include the positive impact of these add-on features.)

Hands Down Gold is everything I've learned in one smart layout designed specifically for split ergonomic keyboards to be exceptionally efficient, intuitive, and comfortable. Building on the Hands Down Neu foundation, Hands Down Gold puts the most frequent consonant, T, on the thumb, for even greater efficiency and rhythm.

Hands Down Gold combines the rolling efficiencies of Hands Down Alt on the left and Hands Down Élan & Reference on the right, for a careful balance between hand alternation and same hand rolling. The result is an uncompromising layout that is comfortable even after long days of typing, and may even be better than the sum of its parts.

• Hands Down Gold has among the lowest total finger movement of any layout–only Hands Down Dash is lower.

• Why T not E, the next most common letter after space? (from the Hands Down Alt-tx page).

  • It has to do with the structure of a syllable, where E comprises the nucleus of a syllable, and thus interrupts the mental chunking that goes on while typing the word (and the rhythm) much more than do consonants that serve as syllable delimiters (the onset or coda). The consonants occur at natural thought breaks, like space does, so they are easier to group in the chunking that goes on as we think about the bursts of letters in the next syllable or so.  That's been my experience, at least. 

  • Thumbs are slow, and EE is the third most frequent double letter (after LL, SS), which poses a speed trap for the slow thumbs. The trick with letter on thumbs is to avoid overburdening this slow, heavy digit.

  • I think that the typing rhythm gain with a consonant not breaking up the syllable is far greater a benefit than putting E on a thumb. All this is, of course, just my opinion, trying to be the test subject and researcher at the same time. Others are sure to feel differently. This observation is born out in Peter Norvig's study of 74 billion English words, 97k unique. E occurs much more regularly in the middle of a word, whereas T occurs most frequently at the beginning of a word, and next at several places near the end, often at the beginning of a suffix, and least frequently in the middle (where E reigns supreme). 

  • So with the above understanding, E on a thumb, especially on the consonant hand thumb (to balance the space on the vowel hand thumb), would result in an interrupted typing flow, and increase redirects (ping-ponging or directional changes on one hand), destroying the inward rolling habit I find so comfortable.

• Same-Finger Bigrams Putting a letter on a thumb means that Hands Down Gold has among the lowest of any layout (1/2 that of Colemak), 87% fewer than QWERTY.  Other non-thumb-alpha layouts can produce similarly low SFBs, but that requires burdening less capable fingers with more work, or sacrificing much of the rolling habit that results in higher redirects (a.k.a. "ping-pong," changing the direction of the roll on one hand) and dfsb (a.k.a. SFS, or "same-finger skipgram" where a given finger is used to press two keys with typically one other key between).  What few SFBs that remain can be eliminated with judicious use of  Adaptive keys (see below).

• Inward rolls With Hands Down Neu as the foundation, Hands Down Gold sports a similarly high 3:1 in:out rolling ratio.

• Mod suggestions.

  • If W placement seems awkward for you, there are several alternatives you may consider. 

    • Swap W<->B: The B location on the middle row is recommended to keep B near M and L, (BL/LB, MB) at a very small cost to total distance. But since W is a slightly more common letter, you may want to swap these to bring W into a slightly more favorable position, at the cost of making MB more of a reach. You can address this with Adaptive keys (see below).

    • Swap W<->J: W on the pinky (and closer to the original QWERTY position) may be more comfortable, relegating the much less common J to the more difficult-to-reach position. There would be a small increase to SFBs with WR, and an increase of total pinky burden while reducing lateral motion reaching for the inner column.

    • Swap W<->K: This is my personal mod (actually, W->K->B->W), to bring K into a more usable position for Japanese, but this would significantly increase SFBs with WH. I use the H-Digraph combos to eliminate the WH SFB with a simple combo on YW. Since I is on the Y finger, an uncomfortable combo-SFB (the worst kind) would result, so I use a combo-linger to produce WHI. I then use adaptive keys for MV to send MB, to eliminate the row jump.

Adaptive keys, Combos, Semantic Keys, and Linger Keys from Hands Down Neu.

• Adaptive keys.

  • M becomes L when necessary
    M & L use the same middle finger, so this motion leverages existing muscle memory to avoid the awkward row jump entirely. Now, GL and FL, roll just as easily, with nothing new to remember. 

    • GM produces GL.

    • PM yields PL, PV yields LV.

  • BD yields BL,DB yields LB. Middle column keys pull the hand away from the home block, so this eliminates the awkward "split-neighbor bigram" that would spread the index and middle fingers apart. Rolling A, produces AU, eliminating an SFB by shifting the left hand one row, hitting A with middle, and , with index. Rolling #. sends .com

  • If you've moved W to the middle row, dropping B to the bottom, the MB bigram is more of a stretch, with a row jump. You can correct for this with adaptive MV yielding MB , so all the most common B-consonant bigrams are effectively on the same row (BL/LB, MB).

  • Together, these adaptive keys produce some surprisingly comfortable hand contours and rhythms. Type MPM, for example, or MVM, and you might  stumble upon some slick keystrokes!

• Combos.

  • On small keyboards,  you can remove less frequent letters like  Q and Z from the main keyboard finger field, with access to them via combo or by placing them on another layer (with statistically guided recommendations for their placement). 

  • JG for Z, (Z & G sounds like J)

  • GP  for Qu. (hold deletes the U)

  • Common H digraphs (TH, CH, SH, WH, GH, PH) are realized with combos (DN, CL, SN, HI, GM, PM). TH is the most common bigram in the English language, more common than many individual letters, and is now a crazy easy and fast single action, right on home row, involving the very capable index & middle fingers.

Hands Down Titanium/Rhodium/Vibranium are the hardened metals variations, and possibly best if your prose is a mix of English and other languages. Depending on the specific corpus, these may be the most "hardened" of all the Hands Down variations, further reducing usage of the index inner column, and slightly reducing scissoring. While not strictly necessary, Titanium/Rhodium/Vibranium are essentially closely related mods on a theme, designed with the intention to deploy the other optional "smart keyboard" features, (esp. H-Digraph combos, Adaptive Keys, etc), even though none of the stats quoted here factor in the positive impact of these add-on features.

Titanium (Neu-rx)

jz gq  m  p  v   #@ .: /* "! '?  
c  s  n  t  k   ,; a  e  i  h  
x  f  l  d  w   -+ u  o  y  b  
r   ␣  

Finger/Hand Usage(ƒ) & distance(d) distribution※
Pnky Ring  Mid  Index  Thumb Thumb  Index  Mid  Ring Pnky
5.0  6.8  10.6  13.3  6.7  ƒ(%)  17.4 11.5  15.7  7.5  5.5
45.5 L R 57.5
7.3  6.2  13.0  16.9  6.6  d(%)  8.9  13.4  17.2  6.1  4.9
49.9 L R 50.1

Same-finger bigrams%†
  0.002 0.016 0.141 0.057   sfb(%)  0.296  0.078  0.052  0.083
Total   0.725%
cf. QWERTY 6.6%, Halmak 2.8%, Dvorak 2.6%, Colemak 1.5%, MTGAP 1.2%

Hands Down Titanium/Rhodium/Vibranium further reduces SFBs (lowest of any of the Hands Down variations) and improves the rolling characteristics to approach that of the high rolling Gold or Bronze variations.  The three variations, with subtle differences mostly on the left hand, are the result of obsessive attention to neighbor finger issues, aiming to reduce  inner column use, and lower redirects (a.k.a. pinballing, trilling, or the back-and-forth on the same hand), all subjected to considerable statistical analysis and field testing. The result keeps the typing rhythm smooth and steady over the central home block. All three are exceptional on their own, but are designed anticipating deployment of other typing behaviors, especially H digraph combos and Adaptive Keys, which together further improve the rolling rhythm and other stats over what is reported here (to a theoretical SFB as low as 0.482%, for Vibranium).

• Hands Down Neu Home Block: Obsessive attention on finger movement in the "Home Block" reduces fatigue during long typing sessions. (3x3 block of keys on each hand under index, middle, ring, plus primary position of pinkies & thumbs = 22 keys of the  Hands Down Home Block). Careful balance of usage frequency vs SFB & distance & neighbors delivers exceptionally even typing rhythm. (ex. dextrous right index has the highest SFBs, but has correspondingly lower usage frequency and distance covered.) Hands Down Alt-ex has the lowest total finger movement, based on the Hands Down Alt line that was designed specifically to reduce distance metric.

• Inner column on the index finger requires a displacement of the whole hand, or an uncomfortable split between the index and middle fingers. By reducing inner column usage, the hand stays closer to home positions and reducing the stretch across the hand. this is achieved by sensitivity to the finger and palm, wrist rocking and so on, all guided by statistics. Letters are aligned in columns to reduce SFBs, and on rows to reduce scissoring, and on opposite hands to avoid both. Only after the base layout has addressed all that is statistically possible combos or Adaptive Keys whatever address whatever is left (see below).

• Why R on thumb, not E or T?

  • It's a delicate balance of total usage, letter doubling, and double duty on the thumb (ex. mods or layers). More on the linguistic implications of this later, but for now understand that this is an extension of the logic that puts T on the thumb in Hands Down Gold. R is a less frequent than T in most languages, and the double letter RR is a bit less common than TT, relieving some burden from the dual duty thumb, while still realizing significant performance gains by utilizing all 10 fingers. 

  • 🇩🇰🇳🇴🇸🇪 Some Scandinavian languages tend to use R very frequently. R on the left pinky may present too heavy a burden for these languages. Moving R to the thumb allows lighter pinky burden without upsetting any of the other delicately balanced concerns, without sacrificing English performance or comfort.

• Same-Finger Bigrams (SFBs) are stunningly low. This is the single most important component of a good layout, ensuring that your fingers are not abused trying to hit too many letters in a row with the same finger. Hands Down Vibranium has lower SFBs than most other layouts (less than 1/2 that of Colemak, 1/5 that of QWERTY), and fewer than  any other Hands Down variation.  What few SFBs remain can be eliminated with judicious use of  Adaptive keys (see below). Putting a letter on a thumb helps achieve this, while keeping other priorities like rolling and balance on appropriate fingers. 

  • Like all Neu variants, these already stunningly low SFBs could be reduced by another 0.05% (to ~0.675%) by swapping the U<->O, at the expense of slightly higher redirects, and reduced inward rolling habit. (I prefer to maintain this inward rolling of OU/OA, and use Adaptives AH->AU/EH->EO to eliminate the AU/EO SFBs.) 

• Inward rolls. Neighbor finger bigrams are organized to make typing as easy as rapping fingers on a table.  The highest frequency consonant bigrams are all on powerful fingers, most rolling inward: NT, ND, NG, SN, SL, LD. Similarly, high frequency vowel bigrams IO,  OU, EA, IE,  OA, are all inward rolls. This applies also to many "disjoint neighbor bigrams" like ST, IA, etc. Most of the opposite direction outward rolling bigrams occur much less frequently.  Hands Down Vibranium total rolling approaches that of roll-prioritized layouts, at 44%, and with a nearly 3:1 inward:outward rolling ratio, (cf. Colemak @ 46%≅1.2:1, APT @ 47%≅2:1, STRDY @ 48% <1:1, Rollmak @ 48% <1:1, Canary @ 48.5%≅1:1)‡‡  , but also has very high alteration, which results in very low redirects, low center column use, and low scissoring, all with no sacrifice of the critical SFB numbers.  

Adaptive keys, Combos, Semantic Keys, and Linger Keys from Hands Down Neu.

• Adaptive keys. (Further reducing SFBs and total motion).

All layouts have some awkward bits, some of which can be addressed with Adaptive Keys (or combos) to  further address these edge cases.

• • M becomes L when necessary (ie, before or after G, as MG/GM are comparatively rare together).
    M & L use the same middle finger, so this motion leverages existing muscle memory to avoid the awkward row jump (scissoring) entirely while also reducing total finger movement.

  • GM produces GL, MG produces LG, rolls easily on the same row, with nothing new to remember.

  • AH sends AU, UH sends UA, eliminating the SFB on the right index. (-0.173%) AH is quite uncommon.

  • EH sends EO,  OH sends OE, eliminating the SFB on the right middle. (-0.070%) EH is quite uncommon.

  • The result is a stunning theoretical SFBs of 0.482%, assuming all possible AU/UA&EO/OE are realized with Adaptive Keys. In practice, the gain will certainly be less than this, but still more than enough to justify the AU/EO pairings common on all Hands Down Neu variations. 

    • The AU/EO pairings are responsible for around 33% of all the SFBs on all Hands Down Neu variations. The right index bears most of this burden, so its total burden (frequency of use) is kept lower to compensate. It is tempting to further reduce the already stellar SFB numbers is to swap these, resulting in AO/EU pairs. While AO does occur less frequently than AU, EU typically occurs more frequently than EO, so the net gain is not significant. Furthermore, the loss of the inward rolls for OU/OA/EU, all of which are more common than their inverse, creates notably higher redirects (a.k.a. pinballing/ping-pong), interrupting the smooth typing rhythm. The Hands Down Neu variations thus place greater emphasis on these rolls, and more than recovers the SFB hit with Adaptive Keys, unburdening the right index almost entirely. 

• Combos.

  • On small keyboards,  you can remove less frequent letters like  Q and Z from the main keyboard finger field, with access to them via combo or by placing them on another layer (with statistically guided recommendations for their placement). 

    • JG for Z,

    • GP  for Qu, hold to delete the u.

  • Common H digraphs (TH, CH, SH, WH, GH, PH) are realized with combos (TN, CT, SN, WM, GM, FD). TH is the most common bigram in the English language, more common than many individual letters (UMFPGWYBVKXJQZ), and is now a crazy easy and fast single action, right on home row, involving the very capable index & middle fingers. The three most frequent H digraghs are also more common than many other single letters, and are now on home row...how comfy is that?

  • These H digraph combos pull the WCP use from the left pinky to the ring, and eliminates 80% of the H use on the right pinky. The net effect is even lower pinky burden, and a better distribution of the burden across appropriate fingers.  This leaves the left pinky with about 4.4% of the total usage, and the right pinky with merely 3.0%. (About 12% keystrokes on the left pinky percentages can be shifted from left pinky to left ring, and 55% from the right pinky to the middle or index of the right hand via the combo).

Hands Down Titanium/Rhodium/Vibranium are variations on a theme.
Why retain these several very close varitions? Isn't one just better? The differences are subtle, and one may feel better than another to you, depending on your texts, languages, keyboard, even your hands and how they fit your keyboard. It may be best to consider all these as mods of Titanium, the base variation with R on the thumb. All have been tested thoroughly, by several people, for extended periods in real-world scenarios.

Vibranium v (Neu-vv)

xz  wq m  g  "!   #@ .: '? j  b
s  c  n  t  k    ,; a  e  i  h
v  p  l  d /*   -+ u  o  y  f
r   ␣  

Vibranium p (Neu-vp)

wz xq  m  g  j   #@ .: /* "! '?  
c  s  n  t  k   ,; a  e  i  h  
p  f  l  d  v   -+ u  o  y  b  
r   ␣  

Vibranium f  (Neu- vf)

xz  wq m  g  j   #@ .: /* "! '?  
s  c  n  t  k   ,; a  e  i  h  
f  p  l  d  v   -+ u  o  y  b  
r   ␣  

Vibranium b (Neu-vb)

xz  wq m  g  j   #@ .: /* "! '?  
s  c  n  t  k   ,; a  e  i  h  
b  p  l  d  v   -+ u  o  y  f  
r   ␣  

Vibranium p/f/b/v differences

• The Vibranium variations are identified by the letter in the lower left corner.
  These are otherwise very similar, just mods of a basic layout. The performance differences are very slight, but I offer them here for those interested in the extremes of layout efficiency.

• With Vibranium variations, all of the 50 most common bigrams are either alternating hands, or comfortable in-rolls on the most capable fingers (ND, ST, NT, NG, EA).   HE and HA are also very common bigrams, and would normally be on the same hand, but Vibranium is designed with the expectation that the H-Digraph combos (th, ch, wh sh, gh, ph) would be used. The frequency of these bigrams outside of the H-Digraphs is relatively small, and with the H-Digraph combos they are easier (and faster) alternations.

• Swap columns WCP<->XSF. The most significant difference acknowledges the statistical weight of the H digraph combos (see above) and places the letters on the finger used by the combo, easing the total burden and cognitive load. This swap would relieve the pinky of some additional motion from covering three letters of similar-ish frequency, WCP, and instead tasks the pinky with more total use, but over a narrower domain, primarily S&F. The result: SC, SP, SW all roll inward, and SL is no longer an adjacent row step (slightly more comfortable?).  Vibranium b/p/v are perhaps very slightly favored, primarily because of the lighter usage on the pinky, and this being further offset much by the proposed H digraphs. Vibranium b would shift some burden to the ring finger, for a better distribution of total burden ( SH accounts for only 3% of the S occurrences, not as significant a proportion as with other H digraphs). Although the pinky would be used more with S on the pinky, it would focus that use on two letters rather than three, so maybe this swap may be preferable for you. (this would be the only Hands Down variation with the S on a finger rather than the left ring.)

• Vibranium b may be preferable to those willing to consider Adaptive Keys over reaching for the inner column. Typing MX would result in MB, and CB=SB, BC=BS, to eliminate the SFB on the pinky. If Adaptive Keys are not in your future, then any of the other variations (esp. Rhodium) still maintain the smooth flow with the bigrams involving B, without resorting to Adaptive Keys.

• Vibranium v has the lowest total SFBs of any Hands Down variation, and the best natural scissor avoidance (except for Mithril). Since BL/LB & MB are reasonably common, placing B on the vowel hand  uses alternation to avoiding scissor and SFBs. Similarly, swapping P<->F, putting P on the vowel hand, further reduces scissoring (thus less need for Adaptives), and improves alternation rhythms, but in turn requires H-Digraph combo to eliminate the PH SFB (I find H–Digraph combos faster and more reliable than Adaptives, so I have opted for this solution, and use PY for PH, hold for PHI). 

Rhodium

'z bq  h  g  "   #@ .: /* j! x?  
c  s  n  t  k   ,; a  e  i  m  
p  f  l  d  v   -+ u  o  y  w  
r   ␣  

• Rhodium rolls. retains H with the consonants making most of the common H digraphs roll easily.

  • This arrangement increases total rolling on both hands, though the in:out ration is closer to 1.2:1, and redirects (a.k.a. pinballing, trilling) are also slightly higher than the other R-thumb variations.  

  • Total pinky usage is very modest, without resorting to added features like H digraph combos. Rhodium may be preferred by those who do not want to deploy other features like H digraph combos or Adaptive keys.

  • Scissors: Scissors occur when two letters are typed by adjacent fingers, but on different rows. (I still consider this "stepping", wheras "scissoring" is jumping over the middle row, as scissors always imply something between.) Scissoring is particulary uncomfortable when it involves the ring finger needing to hit a key on the bottom row after the middle finger hits a key on the top row (or the inverse). Placing M with the vowels helps reduce total scissoring. Nevertheless, the WI, GL/LG,  BL/LB scissors can be unpleasant, and may be the Achilles' Heel of Rhodium.  

    • BH->BL/HB->LB are straightforward enough candidates for adaptives to solve this scissor.

    • GB->GL/BG->LG or simply GM->GL/MG->LG are reasonable candidates for the GL scissor. I ended up preferring the alternation with M->L before/after G, even though it's not as visually intuitive. The rhythm was surprisingly nice, and gave a bit more for the right pinky to think about.

    • WY->WI is a highly recommended adaptive...depends on your board and fingers, of course, but the pinky-to-ring step can be unpleasant for some.

jz f  m  pq v   ;: .& /* '? "!  
r  s  h  t  b   ,| a  e  c  i  
x  g  l  d  k   -+ u  o  w  y  
n   ␣  

Finger/Hand Usage(ƒ) & distance(d) distribution※
Pnky Ring  Mid  Index  Thumb Thumb  Index  Mid  Ring Pnky
5.0  7.9   8.7  13.5   8.5  ƒ(%)  19.5  11.1  14.8  4.0  6.8
43.6 L R 56.4
2.6  8.1  12.0  18.2  8.8  d(%)  9.5  14.5  16.3  4.5  5.3
49.9 L R 50.1

Same-finger bigrams%†
  0.000 0.079 0.063 0.119   sfb(%)  0.296  0.122  0.084  0.064
Total   0.827%
cf. QWERTY 6.6%, Halmak 2.8%, Dvorak 2.6%, Colemak 1.5%, MTGAP 1.2%

Just as with the Olympics, the difference between
Gold,  Silver and Bronze can be statistically very small.
A different KLA, a different corpus, and the results might be different.

• Hands Down Platinum and Silver are obviously twins. You can tell them apart by their thumbs. Platinum prefers to exchange a bit extra distance for lowers SFB, whereas Silver would rather keep the delicate balance of distance, SFBs that distribute burden more evenly. You could consider Platinum to be Silver that has gone the extra mile to polish out any remaining SFBs. 

• NN is less common than EE or TT. Indeed NN is the least common double consonant of any of the letter-on-a-thumb candidates, with, EE and TT, at more than twice the rate as NN. (LL is the highest, and is the price to pay for Hands Down Platinum's crazy low SFBs. Alas nothing is ever free in layout design). N on thumb means the lumbering thumb won't be slowing you down trying to double tap (double-space is increasingly rare in modern typing). 

• Better for layers: N is just about right for balancing the workload the thumb has with the letter and frequent layer shifting. E, and even T, in English may be too frequent. The burden of high frequency letters that also appear doubled results on these slow digits results in what I call "thumb confusion". My non-space thumb does N and backspace, plus Nav and Num layers. It feels just about right. (double space is increasingly less common in English prose.)

• N on thumb is very comfortable in many languages, since N is the most common consonant in more languages than any other letter. (See at what I wrote earlier about Hands Down Alt-nx). Putting N on the thumb does mean that G needs to come down from the top row, its natural position for all the other Neu variations, so the hand isn't stretching to type the common bigram NG.

Adaptive keys, Combos, Semantic Keys, and Linger Keys from Hands Down Neu.

• Column Swap Proposal: Since outward rolling on ring-to-pinky is particularly uncomfortable (Hello Dvorak LS haters!), I've strongly considered simply swapping the right-hand ring and pinky columns to avoid the statistically much more common IC sequence being a ring-to-pinky roll (to be AECI on left-hand home, pictured above). Total stat's are fractionally better, because of the rolling, but at the same time fractionally worse because of the higher burden on the pinky (I is more frequent than C). It's a really close call, so I honestly think this is squarely in the realm of personal preference. Moving C&W in this way also makes the H digraph combos be perfectly symmetrical to those on the left hand, so the whole H digraph set is stupid easy to learn and master (took about a week, by each of those I know who've tried it.).

• Achilles Heel:  ICEY - Solved with above column swap proposal. But looking at these stats above shows that the original arrangement is a better balance of frequency/distance between the pinky/ring if pinky burden is a concern, so the below arrangement may be better for some.

jz f  m  pq v   ;: .& /* "! '?  
r  s  h  t  b   ,| a  e  i  c  
x  g  l  d  k   -+ u  o  y  w  
n   ␣  

jz g   m  pq v   ;: .& /* '? "!
r  s  n  t  b   ,| a  e  c  i  
x  f  l  d  k   -+ u  o  w  y  
h   ␣  

Finger/Hand Usage(ƒ) & distance(d) distribution※
Pnky Ring  Mid  Index  Thumb Thumb  Index  Mid  Ring Pnky
5.0  7.9   10.4  13.5   6.7  ƒ(%)  19.5  11.1  14.8  4.0  6.8
43.6 L R 56.4
2.6  8.2  12.7  18.2  8.1  d(%)  9.5  14.5  16.3  4.5  5.3
49.9 L R 50.1

Same-finger bigrams%†
  0.000 0.079 0.142 0.119   sfb(%)  0.296  0.122  0.084  0.064
Total   0.905%
cf. QWERTY 6.6%, Halmak 2.8%, Dvorak 2.6%, Colemak 1.5%, MTGAP 1.2%

Just as with the Olympics, the difference between
Gold,  Silver and Bronze can be statistically very small.
A different KLA, a different corpus, and the results might be different.

• Roll on in to home! The highest Inward rolls quotient of any Hands Down variation. (Only English has been evaluated.)

• H is among the most suitable alphas for putting on a thumb, since H is almost never doubled and double letters are hard to type quickly with the lumbering thumb. Together with the H digraph combos that would offload much of the burden of H, this makes the H thumb available for heavy layer work on small keyboards. 

Adaptive keys, Combos, Semantic Keys, and Linger Keys from Hands Down Neu.

• Column Swap Proposal: Since outward rolling on ring-to-pinky is particularly uncomfortable (Hello Dvorak LS haters!), I've strongly considered simply swapping the right-hand ring and pinky columns to avoid the statistically much more common IC sequence being a ring-to-pinky roll (to be AECI on left-hand home, pictured above). Total stat's are fractionally better, because of the rolling, but at the same time fractionally worse because of the higher burden on the pinky (I is more frequent than C). It's a really close call, so I honestly think this is squarely in the realm of personal preference. Moving C&W in this way also makes the H digraph combos be perfectly symmetrical to those on the left hand, so the whole H digraph set is stupid easy to learn and master (took about a week, by each of those I know who've tried it.).

• Achilles Heel:  ICEY - Solved with above column swap proposal. But looking at these stats above shows that the original arrangement is a better balance of frequency/distance between the pinky/ring if pinky burden is a concern, so the below arrangement may be better for some.

jz g  m  pq v   ;: .& /* "! '?  
r  s  n  t  b   ,| a  e  i  c  
x  f  l  d  k   -+ u  o  y  w  
h   ␣  

jz g  m  pq v   ;: .& '! "? /* 
r  s  n  t  b   ,| h  a  o  i  
x  c  l  d  w   -+ f  u  k  y  
e   ␣  

Finger/Hand Usage(ƒ) & distance(d) distribution※
Pnky Ring  Mid  Index  Thumb Thumb  Index  Mid  Ring Pnky
4.9  8.5   10.4  14.3   12.0  ƒ(%) 19.8   8.6  8.9  6.1  6.6
45.1 L R 54.9
2.7  9.9  13.3  20.7   10.4  d(%)  10.2  13.6  10.1  4.0  4.9
57.1 L R 42.9

Same-finger bigrams%†
  0.000 0.165 0.141 0.208   sfb(%)  0.224  0.222  0.157  0.054
Total   1.17%
cf. QWERTY 6.6%, Halmak 2.8%, Dvorak 2.6%, Colemak 1.5%, MTGAP 1.2%

Sprinter's Layout! The lowest distance traveled of any Hands Down variation.

The left index finger has a disproportionate percentage of the total movement.

• Maintains most of the rolling habit from  Hands Down Bronze.

• Adaptive keys and Combos from Hands Down Gold.

• Achilles Heel: The Wiccan Jr.

vz g  h  p  kq  /* (< {[ '! "?

r s n t f   j a e c i 

x m l d b   -+ u o w  y 

,; .:  ␣  ⏎ 

Finger/Hand Usage(ƒ) & distance(d) distribution※
Pnky Ring  Mid  Index  Thumb Thumb  Index  Mid  Ring Pnky
6.3  8.3  10.4  15.0  4.2  ƒ(%)  18.7   9.2  15.6  5.2  7.0
44.3 L R 55.7
5.4  9.5  12.5  20.7  5.1  d(%)  11.6   9.5  16.4  3.7  5.5
53.3 L R 46.6

Same-finger bigrams%†
  0.049 0.148 0.113 0.141   sfb(%)  0.407  0.082  0.026  0.039
Total   1.01%
cf. QWERTY 6.6%, Halmak 2.8%, Dvorak 2.6%, Colemak 1.5%, MTGAP 1.2%

Hands Down Élan puts word delimiters on thumbs (like ␣), with all symbols considered alongside letters, producing a layout that is as graceful with prose as it is code. Fully utilizing the untyped capacity of the other thumbs can be a logistical or cognitive challenge. Since word delimiters don't break up a word like letters do, and are lower frequency, it may have a more natural flow in conjunction with multi-function keys on the thumbs to handle Shift/Layers.  (Hands Down Élan was the design platform for the Hands Down Neu/Medtals variations)

• Combos gives speedy access to less common letters that have been eXtracted from the main layout (like the Alt-x layouts), yet they remain easily available in predictable locations with comfortable combos, and the stats were analyzed with the impact to each finger properly considered. 

  • VG for Z,
    PK  for Q. (or YU) 

  • Common H digraphs (TH, CH, SH, PH, GH, WH) are realized with combos (TN, CE, SN, PH, GH, WO).

  • For more programming flexibility, J as a combo on YW works well to free up another spot for symbols. 

• Adaptive keys: Quickly rolling gives alternate characters.

  • GP produces MP.

  • PH yields PL, GH yields GL. 

• Linger Keys: Linger on paired symbols (, {, [, ", to get its mate ", ], }, ). (or hold shift to get the mate, alt to get the other symbol.)

jz g  h  pq v   ;: .& /* '? "!
r  s  n  t  b   ,| a  e  c  i  
x  f  m  d  k   -+ u  o  w  y  
l   ␣  

Finger/Hand Usage(ƒ) & distance(d) distribution※
Pnky Ring  Mid  Index  Thumb Thumb  Index  Mid  Ring Pnky
5.0  7.9   10.9  13.6   6.3  ƒ(%)  19.6  11.2  14.6  4.0  6.9
43.7 L R 56.3
2.6  8.1  14.0  18.2  7.8  d(%)  9.9  14.3  15.7  4.4  5.2
50.5 L R 49.5

Same-finger bigrams%†
  0.000 0.079 0.050 0.119   sfb(%)  0.296  0.122  0.084  0.064
Total   0.764%
cf. QWERTY 6.6%, Halmak 2.8%, Dvorak 2.6%, Colemak 1.5%, MTGAP 1.2%

Hands Down Platinum is the rarest of layouts,
with stunningly low SFBs, yet still eminently usable.
A different KLA, a different corpus, and the results might be different.

• Hands Down Platinum and Silver are obviously twins. You can tell them apart by their thumbs. Platinum prefers to exchange a bit extra distance for lowers SFB, whereas Silver would rather keep the delicate balance of distance, SFBs that distribute burden more evenly. You could consider Platinum to be Silver that has gone the extra mile to polish out any remaining SFBs. Hands Down Platinum has among the lowest SFBs of any layout (50% fewer than Colemak, 88% fewer than QWERTY), and fewer than any other Hands Down variation.

Adaptive keys, Combos, Semantic Keys, and Linger Keys from Hands Down Neu.

• Combos: 

  • Common H digraphs (TH, CH, SH, PH, GH, WH), are all quick combos that respect shift and caps lock states, reducing keystrokes. Note that H rarely precedes these letters.

• Adaptive Keys: GM becomes Gl, PM is Pl, and dozens more of these statistically derived sequences increase comfort  and speed. Adaptive Keys also respect shift and caps lock states. 

• L on thumb is the magic sauce for Hands Down Platinum that yields the astoundingly low SFBs. That's because L is a liquid letter that loves to be blended with almost any other consonant, and is the 10th most frequent (in English, and many other languages), so it sticks to everything. The drawback here is that  LL is in the top-50 English bigrams, but being the same letter means the finger isn't moving as far as a typical SFB (SS is next at #76), and a slick LingerKey or Repeat Key can address this pilllup. (I don't use Repeat Keys, and the LL hasn't been much of a reported problem from those who've adopted Hands Down Platinum.)

• Putting H between P & G for the GH & PH digraphs, means M is kicked down from the top row, its natural position for all the other Neu variations. Of course, you could add the H Digraphs, discussed above, eliminating the H as a separate keystroke for these very common digraphs (so common that some treated as separate letters in some languages).

• Column Swap Proposal: Since outward rolling on ring-to-pinky is particularly uncomfortable (Hello Dvorak LS haters!), I've the above (from the first draft) to avoid the statistically much more common IC sequence being a ring-to-pinky roll Total stat's are fractionally better, because of the rolling, but at the same time fractionally worse because of the higher burden on the pinky (I is more frequent than C). It's a really close call, so I honestly think this is squarely in the realm of personal preference. Moving C&W in this way also makes the H digraph combos be perfectly symmetrical to those on the left hand, so the whole H digraph set is stupid easy to learn and master (took about a week, by those I know who've tried it.).

• Achilles Heel:  Everything has a price.

  •  LL is the most common repeated letter in English; even more than EE (Dash), TT (Gold) or RR (Titanium), NN (Silver). Putting this double letter on a slow thumb may not be comfortable in the long run? I use a repeat key (Adaptive Key rolling X after L yields LL) to make the LL a bit faster, but is it worth it? HH (Bronze) may be the best balance of alpha on thumb,  rhythm and SFBs.

  • ICEY - Solved with above column swap proposal (above). But looking at these stats above shows that the original arrangement is a better balance of frequency/distance between the pinky/ring if pinky burden is a concern, so the below arrangement may be better for some.

jz g  h  pq v   ;: .& /* "! '?  
r  s  n  t  b   ,| a  e  i  c  
x  f  m  d  k   -+ u  o  y  w  
l   ␣