Since the dawn of man, keyboards have had little protruding nubs on the home row.
On Macs the nubs are on the F and J keys. On PCs they are typically on the D and K keys. Either way, they help the touch-typist to get their fingers in the right place without having to divert attention from what they are looking at on screen.
The strange thing is, these are the only keys with nubs. This helps with the heavily used keys. Our muscle memory helps our fingers find other letters around this center. But it’s difficult to accurately stretch those digits up to the digit row. It’s error prone and slows typing as one must carefully check typed numbers for accuracy. And typing numbers with accuracy is critical. It could mean the difference between a $6000 and a $7000 request. And unlike typing words, numerals cannot be assisted by automated spell checkers.
I’ve long wished for nubs up there on the number row to help me out.
Exactly which keys deserve nubs is a good university research project. The 5-6-7 keys I find difficult to get right without care. The 9 and 0 I find difficult also. So offhand I would guess that the 1, 6 and 0 would be good candidates.
By the way, did you notice the little in-joke on the onscreen keyboard on the iPad? Yes, you guessed it – the images for the F and J rows have little nubs on them. It’s surprising this one got through given Apple’s extreme discipline for minimalism. Har har. Yes, Apple, you’ve reduced us 60 wpm typists to hunting and pecking amateurs, and here’s the salt thrown in the wound in the form of nubs that can be seen but not felt. Good one.
Someone at Apple has a sense of irony.
The Dell keyboard I’m writing this on has a nub on the “5″ key on the number keypad.