Editorial: Is Graffiti Dying?

Posted By: Ed Friday, April 12, 2002 12:10:16 PM

Though the Graffiti system for entering text is an integral part of the Palm OS, there have been numerous signs recently that this relationship might be coming to an end. With lawsuits and Palm OS handhelds that don't use any form of handwriting recognition at all, are Graffiti's days numbered? News Editor Ed Hardy gives his opinion.

Is Graffiti Dying?

By Ed Hardy

For many years Graffiti has been synonymous with Palm OS handhelds. They went together like bacon and eggs, or Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Recently, however, I've begun to question whether Graffiti should be a part of the platform's future.

Handheld sales are growing but at a slower rate than in the past. I know, part of this is related to the economy but I think some of it comes from market saturation. Not that everyone who can benefit from a handheld has bought one, but most of the people who are willing to learn a new way of writing have.

How many of you have suggested some disorganized friend or co-worker get a Palm, only to be told "I don't have the time to bother with learning how to write again"? I know I have and I'd be willing to bet many of you have, too.

There is a great deal of resistance among your average Joe or Jane on the street to having to learn to write again and it is holding back sales of Palm handhelds. To many of you, I know that seems silly. You remember that it took you just a short time to get proficient with Graffiti and don't see why anyone should have any worries about it.

Maybe an ad campaign to show people how easy Graffiti is might help, but I don't have a lot of confidence that it would work. If there is something about your product that is keeping a large number of potential customers away, I don't think trying to change the customers is the best thing to do. Changing the product is better.

I don't think I'm the only person who feels this way, either.

Though Handspring put out two versions of the Treo, one with Graffiti and one without, I've heard from several company executives who say they expect the non-Graffiti version to sell better.

One of the big selling points RIM is using for the Blackberry is that you can just type your emails, you don't have to learn some arcane writing system.

Also, Sony's new NR series has a built-in keyboard and Palm offers a clip-on keyboard for the i705.

Finally, one of the best-selling categories of peripherals is keyboards of one kind or another.

Taken together, these seem like fairly compelling evidence to me that there is a lot of support for Palm handhelds without Graffiti.

No matter how we might feel about Graffiti, forces not under our control might bring its use to an end. A U.S. court has found that Graffiti infringes on a patent held by Xerox. Though the case is in appeal, if Xerox wins, it could demand that Graffiti no longer be included in the Palm OS or could charge a higher license fee that PalmSource is willing to pay.

Obviously, the end of Graffiti wouldn't mean the end of the Palm platform. There are several possible replacements.

One is to have the handheld recognize regular letters. Though less efficient than Graffiti, it has a much lower learning curve. All users would have to do is get used to not writing in cursive and putting all their letters in the same box, which wouldn't be called the Graffiti area any more.

This has the advantage of taking up the minimal amount of space on the handheld but is slower than the other main option.

This is to include a keyboard of some kind into the handheld itself, like the Treo and NR series have already done.

This is the option that gets my vote. The vast majority of potential handheld buyers already know how to type and would rather type than write longhand. However, manufacturers are still looking around for the most usable form of a keyboard that is only a few inches on a side.

There are a few dark horse candidates off in wings, like virtual keyboards where the user just types into the air. These look interesting and might even turn out to be practical... someday.

While Graffiti may have helped launch the Palm platform, I think it is now holding it back. The writing is on the wall; It's time to move on to some way of entering text that is more acceptable to the average consumer.

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Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?

speedracer5 @ 4/12/2002 12:24:29 PM #
I personally use a m505 with only Graffiti. I personally wouldn't like a keyboard only device. I like the m505 for its small size. A keyboard would only increase that or have small keys, which won't work well with my big fingers. Alot of keyboards have been sold, but what percentage of the users have these, and for those that own them, what percentage do they actually use them? I would think that the majority of the time user still enter data via Graffiti

------------------------------------------------------
I love the smell of burning rubber in the morning...
RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
PR @ 4/12/2002 12:30:33 PM #
i remember a long discussion on this about a month back after this story:
www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2944

there were about 2 people on this site out of 40 that liked a keyboard better than graffiti. i guess we are not average users, but still...

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
Altema @ 4/12/2002 1:04:04 PM #
Probably. As it stands now, the majority of Palm users I know use grafitti for short entries, and use an alternate method when it comes to the long ones. I have a PPK which I love, but can do a few paragraphs in grafitti just as quickly as I could on paper. For longer emails, letters, and reports, I'll pop out the keyboard. Time-wise, grafitti gets used 90%, keyboard 9%, and using the Palm Desktop 1%. For the QUANTITY of entries, I would say over half of everything was keyboard entry. I would not write multiple pages using graffiti any more than I would write out the same amount on paper and pen. For a thumb board, I would probably draw the line at about two pages.

Of course, the PPK is a full sized keyboard, and a good typist can hammer along at a good pace. A thumb board is a different story, and if that was my only option as opposed to the PPK, I would use graffiti 97% of the time.

I thought that my wife would be a good canidate for the thumb board type keyboard, but she gave it back so I could get my money refunded. To her, even though she is not proficient at graffiti, did not like the complications. A capital "N" required alt-shift for upper case, then type "N" then another alt-shift on the thumb board to go back to lower case. She knows that all she needs in graffiti is an upstroke, then write the letter. Anything more complicated for the same results is just a waste of time.

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 1:36:57 PM #
first, the market is far from satuarated.
I just saw a poll number that say
about 10% of US has a PDA.

Many Palm owners are also waiting to upgrade
when there is one that is worth it.
I recently just upgraded from Vx to M515.
It is hard for me to pick up the Vx now.

As Graffiti, it is true that it can turn some people
away. But as more and more people have Palm, people
are less inclined to do so, as they think if you
can do it, I should not have problem.

Many years ago, I owned a Newton and looked at Graffiti. I thought how could I serve a software instead of the other way around. I never picked up
Graffiti, though it was free to me.
I am still not very good with Graffiti. But I never
feel it is a problem.

ted

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 3:50:55 PM #
I am one of those people who would NOT buy a Palm with a keyboard. I could be persuaded into using an onscreen keyboard (maybe), but I can't see any use for the thumb boards at all. I have very small fingers, I would be the ideal candidate for them. But I just can't see how it would be faster than grafitti. In fact I used to own an old Sharp Wizard, and would not upgrade when the new ones did not have the ability to write on the screen. (No letter recognition-just a scratch pad.) I did not use the To Do List, or the Calendar because I felt it was too much of a pain to use the keys. I entered the phone numbers I needed and used the "scrath book" function only. The reason I bought my first Palm was because you could write on the screen and it was smaller! I didn't mind learning grafitti, it's so close to "normal" writing, but I would mind having to learn the keyboard layout of any keyboard. And I would especially mind it if it increased the size of the PDA. I tried fitaly stamp because they claim you can get faster at it. I used their software game to try to learn it. I could not get faster than grafitti, and I could not use it when it was a little dark so I didn't keep it. (I'm sure you could get faster eventually, but one week is all I'm willing to spend on learning anything new.) I would NOT use a Palm for large entries, but for what I use it for, grafitti is absolutely perfect. If they invented something that does not add to the size, does not require any extra steps to use, and increase input speed without spending more than about a week of learning it, THEN I would change. Until then, if they discontinue grafitti, I will hunt down all the older models that have it. Palms do what I need them to do right now. And I can't imagine any future improvements that would be worth losing grafitti over...But this is only my opinion...
RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 7:51:36 PM #
Yes, yes, yes. I keep my palm in my pocket. Increasing size to add a keyboard would be distressful to say the least.

Graffiti took 2 days to learn and for me made the palm a useful tool. I dislike small keyboards and would not want a tiny keyboard on any handheld.

Hopefully I am not in the minority on this.

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 8:39:06 PM #
The average palm OS user (I know a lot of them) will prefeer grafitty over a thumb keyboard.

Remember that average non power users (i.e. people that don't visit this site) don't buy accessories for their handhelds, so grafitty is their only option for text entry.

Also when these people are going to buy newer palms they will already know the grafitty alphabet.

Last, most of the people that use handhelds (like executives) value a lot the form factor (that's why the V, 5xx, and T615 where huge success) these people will preffer a small device to enter addresses and small notes, not a device with a built in keyboard.

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 10:22:30 PM #
Graffiti is great , I can even write without looking anymore it's like the think it & it's there. I jhope they never take it away.....
Although this is true the Sony Clie Peg-N760 wrecked their graffiti writing area by trying to increase its sensitivity - thinking they would improve it. The other Sony Clie versions are 10x better.
GO GRAFFITI.

- JCrusader Jesus reigns

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
Kesh @ 4/12/2002 10:52:03 PM #
Personally, I'd love to have a machine with a built in keyboard and virtual Graffiti software. Best of both worlds, really.

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/13/2002 2:19:48 AM #
I like virtual grafitti WITH virtual keyboard support - one of the most under rated/reported advantages of 'virtual grafitti' in my opinion. I wouldn't mind standard Palm OS virtual keyboard so much if it didn't disrupt the screen/interface and take up half of the already precious screen real estate. This gets around that problem. The new Sony's have this (NR series), do Handera virtual grafitti devices have this as well??? (i have never used/seen one of these).
RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/13/2002 11:47:56 AM #
I do not see the use of typing in such a small keyboard, if I wanted that I would get A sony picture book or a Windows CE called handheld. Then what is the purpose of being light and slim.

I think graffiti is very convinient. I thought of buying a keyboard for my M505 or my T615 (sony, not out yet the keyboard) But just to think of the extra bulk and need a flat surface!!! plus extra carrying thing. I really don't need it.

Graffiti is jus fine!!

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/13/2002 11:52:09 AM #
"first, the market is far from satuarated.
I just saw a poll number that say
about 10% of US has a PDA."

I think Ed meant that the early adopter market is saturated. 90% of the average Joe/Janes out there still don't know what a PDA is. Most likely, if you're reading this site and posting to it, you're part of the 10%, and therefore already see the benefits of graffiti.

"As Graffiti, it is true that it can turn some people
away. But as more and more people have Palm, people
are less inclined to do so, as they think if you
can do it, I should not have problem."

Just because a select few (10%) have PDAs, it doesn't mean that others (90%) will go out and buy one. Ed's point of the article is that graffiti is the main hurdle that most average users are not willing to overcome.

"I am still not very good with Graffiti. But I never
feel it is a problem."

Being good (or bad) with graffiti has nothing to do with the average user. He/she sees graffiti as an alternative input method--one that requires time (which we know as not alot) to learn.

Keyboards are a good idea for manufacturers because it takes Joe's/Jane's initial trepidations out of the purchase decision. Think of graffiti/keyboard feature as door. Some (readers/posters to PIC) view it as a benign gateway to digital nirvana. Others see it as Dante's entrance into Inferno with the warning enscribed above: "Abandon hope all ye who enter."

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/15/2002 1:22:38 AM #
"I like virtual grafitti WITH virtual keyboard support - one of the most under rated/reported advantages of 'virtual grafitti' in my opinion. I wouldn't mind standard Palm OS virtual keyboard so much if it didn't disrupt the screen/interface and take up half of the already precious screen real estate. This gets around that problem. The new Sony's have this (NR series), do Handera virtual grafitti devices have this as well??? (i have never used/seen one of these)."

Yes indeed, this is a proven feature on the Handera. It uses a virtual graffiti area, and you can add a program that places the keyboard IN the graffiti area. Not only that, but you can still write w/graffiti while the keyboard is visible! It's really a well thought and well executed concept.

Sean

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/15/2002 1:24:51 AM #
Forgot to mention that the Handera keyboard software is a free download from their website.

Sean

RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/15/2002 8:04:00 AM #
Ever since we evolved form apes we have used our hands diffenently. Anybody that has use a thumb board immediately realizes that we were not made to type with our thumbs. Learn graffiti, its not that hard.
RE: Will keyboards alienate those who solely use graffiti?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/15/2002 11:18:51 PM #
Graffiti should be used in testing for driver's licenses. If anyone cannot learn Graffiti in a half an hour is certainly not intelligent enough to operate a motor vehicle, raise children, or eat a happy meal.


RE: Graffiti Sucks
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/7/2002 12:55:04 AM #
graffiti is Palm's way of saying 'Hi. We here at Palm are too much of a bunch of stupid azzes to do what Apple did with the Newton OS'. nobody who touch types wants to learn graffiti or type with their thumbs. dying? graffiti will be around forever, just like DOS, atari 800 computers, and pizza.

Who uses Graffiti anymore?

big_raji @ 4/12/2002 12:26:23 PM #
I've been using Palms for quite awhile, and my idea of a perfect solution has always been a good on-screen keyboard. I have to have the stylus out most of the time anyways when inputting data, either to pop up a menu, or to move my cursor. The idea of pulling out my stylus to move my cursor, then put it back to use a thumb-style keyboard seems just as inefficient.

A virtual grafitti area is something that I've always wanted. Unfortunately, I want color as well, so didn't go with a Handera. The closest I've come is to use an overlay keyboard that sticks overtop of the graffiti area... Quicktype is a freeware app that does this, which is what I use. Others that come to mind are Silkyboard and Fitaly, though I'm not too familiar with them.

I'm surprised that you haven't discussed on-screen keyboards in your article. I'm sure alot of people would want use some variation of an on-screen keyboard (QWERTY, FITALY, Etc) instead of a thumb-board.

---
What's Wrong With This Picture?
http://raj.phangureh.com/picture.html

RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
james_sorenson @ 4/12/2002 12:36:02 PM #
I'll have to admit that FitalyStamp has been far better than Graffiti or a "thumbpad" keyboard. A person is going to have a stylus in hand anyway to access menus and dialog buttons, so why not make the keyboard use the stylus like Fitaly? I use to own a keyboard, but I got frustrated in having to ready the stylus every time I needed to use a menu. Fitaly is the most efficient arrangement to access all characters in a small space. Fitaly also gives the benefit of still keeping stroke hacks. License them and the problem is solved.


-------
James Sorenson

RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
PR @ 4/12/2002 12:38:05 PM #
personally i find it much easier to use graffiti for short input, and my stowaway for longer stuff. i haven't found any of the on-screen alternatives to be of any use for me--just my opinion.

RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
c_blue @ 4/12/2002 1:03:18 PM #
When I left graffiti on the side my choice was the fitaly stamp mainly for its ability to access international characters "sliding" the letters. That's a feature I haven't found that easy to use in any other overlay yet and when you write 98 percent of the time in a different language than English this is a must.

C_Blue


RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 1:18:10 PM #
I use Graffiti most of the time. For longer tasks, I
use my Stowaway. I got a Newton 2100 and installed
Graffiti on it. With my sloppy handwriting, the Newton
had an easier time recognizing letter then words :)
Also I kept finding myself wnating to make punctuation
strokes in the HWR.

On my Visor, I added ScreenWrite Hack and that has
greatly increased recognition.

I hope if Xerox *does* win that they make Unistrokes or
Graffiti available. I don't think thumb typing is for me.

RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 1:20:02 PM #
FITALY Stamp is the best thing out there, period.

Not only is it a proven fact that it's faster....WAY faster than Qwerty.....it's also more user friendly than QWERTY, although few people realize this.

The ability to slide to insert capitals, numbers, parentheses, etc., just saves SO much time.

It took me about 10 minutes to get up to 20 WPM with Fitaly. I was at 35 about an hour later. I'm at 50+ now, although I quit using the practice app. after about 2 weeks.

I'm not naive enough to recommend to someone that they use FITALY to type a term paper, but I wouldn't recommend Graffiti either.

I'm in an office environment, so I use a lot of "irritating" characters like parenthesis, dashes, and hyphens when taking notes, addresses, etc.

NOTHING does it better than FITALY.

Trust me, I have every reason to be biased towards QWERTY....I type 73 WPM on it.

FITALY is the best....I wish it were on everthing.

RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 2:12:29 PM #
I use fitaly stamp and even though I usually can't remember where the letters are it's still much faster than Graffiti. I would like to see an on-screen keyboard like fitaly but with the ability to re-arrange the letters. I question the fitaly arrangement of letters. It doesn't seem more efficient than querty to me. I think I could have learned the fitaly keyboard much faster if it were arranged somewhat similar to querty.
RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 2:21:40 PM #
Fitaly has just as bad (or worse) a learning curve as Graffiti.

Since the point is that the most intuitive entry method is the one that will sell, I don't think Fitaly is the solution.

RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 2:57:21 PM #
All infidels will come to sudden end.
Hawkins and the Holy Graffiti will endure forever!!!
Fitaly
dagger2k @ 4/12/2002 6:09:27 PM #
Fitaly is great. I know it, most of the readers of this page know it, some other ppl know it, but it has the same problemas grafitti: it alienates users. It ain't any better for palm than graffiti, whaat's more, it would alienate some grafiti fans and it would still mean liscensing.

-Dagger
----
"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." -- Mark Twain
RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
james_sorenson @ 4/12/2002 6:16:23 PM #
Fitaly's letters are arranged so that a minimum amount of movement is required when typing common words. Think of it as the Palm-version of the Darwin keyboard (anyone remember those?). We really need to dump QWERTY, as it was originally designed to SLOW us down so that we'd quit jamming the old mechanical typewriters. Bad standards just don't seem to die.

In reference to the comment that Fitaly has as sharp of a learning curve as Graffiti: Not so! You can still "hunt and peck" the Fitaly Pad, but graffiti requires you to search the reference. I learned Fitaly a lot faster than I learned Graffiti (which I still stink at).

However, despite my long-winded defense to the Fitaly layout, I must admit that choice is good. If we EVER get a full-length soft-graffiti screen as standard, then Fitaly could provide the option for Fitaly, Qwerty, or Custom layout. Also, Fitaly allows you to drop to Graffiti mode with one click. Talk about the best of all worlds!



-------
James Sorenson

RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
james_sorenson @ 4/12/2002 6:24:09 PM #
Doh! I meant Dvorak keyboard, not Darwin keyboard. Geez, my memory is already going...

-------
James Sorenson
RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/13/2002 12:30:41 AM #
For me the benefit of Graffiti is that I can use it without looking. This is one of the reasons many people bother to learn to become touch-typists. It is not easy to be a touch-typist with a thumb keyboard or with an on-screen keyboard.


RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/13/2002 7:34:53 AM #
Quicktype/Fitaly overlays are cute, but they have one major drawback : you have to look while you tap. Anyone who's used a 'real' keyboard on a PC/laptop will have eyes set on the screen, not on the keyboard.

To make things worse, these overlays are built onto the 'invisible' part of the screen. Unlike the virtual Graffiti keyboard, you can't use them in a dark room (e.g. in a cinema should your work require you to do reviews or such like), or simply at night, in a car etc. The same goes for any thumbsize keyboard, which to me disqualifies them.

Handwriting recognition is nice (as with Windows CE) but I guess it takes substantial resources, but screen feedback would already be an improvement. In any event, for really quick notes I use Notepad or Diddlebug - sure, I have to manually translate off-line but that's the only way not to miss anything

Last point, why not extend the screen down to the graffiti area and make it all virtual, offering more screen real-estate?

To overcome the size problem, I came up with an idea that some will undoubtedly find incredibly stupid : have a virtual keyboard with only half the keys, but twice as big. You need all keys though, so I propose alternating halfs, left 500 milliseconds, right 500 milliseconds (or faster, with some heuristic adaptation). I'm serious, should I know how to I would give it a programming try. Grab-a-key(TM)

yves dot goulnik at roche dot com

RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/15/2002 1:28:20 AM #
"What's Wrong With This Picture?
http://raj.phangureh.com/picture.html"

Oh.....that was so WRONG!

RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/15/2002 8:24:53 PM #
Damn it man! You broke my streak of never pissing myself with that site!
-Bosco
RE: Who uses Graffiti anymore?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/15/2002 11:30:28 PM #
Graffiti should be used in testing for driver's licenses. If anyone cannot learn Graffiti in a half an hour, he/she is certainly not intelligent enough to operate a motor vehicle, raise children, or eat a happy meal.

Fitaly
epall @ 8/19/2002 6:45:56 PM #
About Fitaly Stamp not being able to be backlight. That is true about Fitaly Stamp but not so with Fitaly 2.0. Fitaly 2.0 is on-screen and replaces the normal on-screen keyboard. I personally use Fitaly 2.0 for just that reason. I love it and am up to 30 WPM, wayyy over what I could do with graffiti. I just can't wait for Fitaly 3.0 for Palm OS 5!!

acquired skills

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2002 12:28:23 PM #
I think that innefficient methods such as the standard QWERTY keyboard will always end up being more successful than any alternatives. People are very protective of their acquired skills. Just look at the DVORAK keyboard, which was more efficient that QWERTY, but has not been adopted on a wide scale. There was an article about this in Technology Review this month.
RE: acquired skills
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/13/2002 12:03:19 AM #
Um, no, Dvorak was *less* efficient, the only tests that showed it to be more efficient was the inventor's one, no one was able to duplicate his results.
The difficulty of changing such a standard is
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/13/2002 9:36:33 AM #
that 99.99999999999999999% of the keyboards you are going to run across in your movement from office to office are QWERTY style. No matter how good the new standard is, it is far more annoying to have to switch typing modes everytime you sit down at a different keyboard.

PDAs are different. I can't remember the last time that I let someone else use my Vx. Therefore there is plenty of room for all sorts of standards and styles of input on PDAs. Less recognized or adopted standards will have less support from vendors, but anything can be built if you are willing to pay for it. It doesn't make any sense to tell someone that your input style is better then what they use if they don't want to change, and you don't have to use their PDA.

Our problem is that industry would like to have as few different versions as possible. And would like to minimize any licensing required to manufacture someone else's design. From a manufacturing and marketing view, this makes lots of sense, because it keeps prices down.

One option might be to actually split the PDA into two destinct systems.

The screen/cpu/ram section, and an input section. By creating a standard for each, you might be able to choose the screen and power you want, and then connect it to the input style that you want.

If done right (which hasn't happened yet in the Palm world), different companies would pick up different styles of input. I might love a Palm graffiti area, but want the power and screen of a Sony, or Handera.

The obvious problem is then every PDA looks like a Frankenstien beast. Function over form?

Mike
miknny@yahoo.com


RE: acquired skills
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/13/2002 1:44:08 PM #
FYI: the QWERTY keyboard layout was not designed to slow down speeders using the Dvorak layout.

For more information, check out this URL:
http://web.mit.edu/jcb/www/Dvorak/

RE: acquired skills
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/15/2002 10:11:34 AM #
The qwerty keyboard was designed specificaly to slow down typists. Back in the days of keys making swinging bars with letters on them hitting the paper, if you hit the keys too quickly two bars would come up at the same time and get stuck. So the qwerty keyboard was designed to slow typists down a little by breaking up where the common use letters were and to spread out those common letters so that there was a bigger pause between them so that the bars would not get stuck.

Then, they also built in a little "marketing trick" in that you could very quickly type out "type writer" on the top line without the bars gettin stuck.

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