Why I spent three months designing a 40% layout from scratch

A 40% keyboard has no number row, no function keys, and depending on the layout, might not even have dedicated arrow keys. Everything lives behind layers. People look at it and ask why anyone would do that to themselves.

The answer, for me, is that constraints force decisions. When you have 40 keys and you type everything, you have to think hard about what you actually type, how often, and what finger movements cost you the least. It’s the same instinct that makes me want to optimize pipelines — not because the existing thing doesn’t work, but because thinking about why it works the way it does usually reveals something.

Three months is too long. But I learned more about how I actually use a keyboard than I had in twenty years of typing on whatever was in front of me.

The layout is still a work in progress. Of course it is.