After several dozen iterative attempts and tweaking, my initial layout--which I proclaim the
Balanced layout--is shown below.

The main 30 keys are arranged like so:
UNSHIFTED
jfubz xwlcq
saenp mtoir
v,yh' kdg."
SHIFTED
JFUBZ XWLCQ
SAENP MTOIR
V(YH; KDG):
Try it out and compare it to other popular layouts at this
Keyboard Comparison Tool`1234567890[]
#jfubzxwlcq/=\
#saenpmtoir-*N
*Lv,yh'kdg."*R
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*L
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######XWLCQ?+|
######MTOIR_
######KDG):
#
*R
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#JFUBZ
#SAENP
#V(YH;
#
Results and Analysis:
Here we analyze the results from the comparison tool. My layout is the bottom one called
Balanced. First compare prose text and then source code.
PROSEThe selected text is from the first three chapters of
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens.
Overall Effort and Balance
Overall effort is right behind Colemak and Workman. On the other hand, effort imbalance score surpasses even Workman by a few percentages. Notice Colemak is very unbalanced, while Dvorak is the least balanced.
Effort for each finger
The goal for this test is to see whether the load is shared amongst each finger and each hand. As the title in the chart says, these should be around 11-12% for each finger. Dvorak and Colemak has only around 5-7% for the strong left middle finger; while right ring and pinky is used a hefty 10-20% of the time. Also, these two layout heavily rely on the right hand: 50% right hand and 40% left hand. Workman does a lot better by shifting the weight of the right ring finger onto the left middle finger; however, right pinky is still overused. Fortunately, both hands do about equal amounts of work. With the Balanced layout, some load from the right ring and pinky finger is distributed to the left ring and middle fingers. Thus, the difference between left and right hand is only about 4%, compared to the 9% to 13% in Colemak and Dvorak layouts, respectively.
Keys for each finger
Results from this chart is similar to the last. Dvorak and Colemak has very uneven distribution for the strong versus the weak fingers. On the other hand, Workman and Balanced is closer to the ideal curve for each finger. That is, the index and middle fingers do most of the work, while the ring and pinky fingers do much less. Moreover, the balance between both hands for these two layouts are more reasonable compared to Dvorak and Colemak.
One oddity in the bottom table is that Balanced layout actually has higher percentage in the bottom row compared to the top row. As I explained at the beginning, and by looking at the difficulty diagram, not all top keys are equal in effort and value. Not only that, some bottom keys are much easier to access than some top keys.
Finger travel
The results in this chart is different from the previous ones. Colemak and Workman have the least distance, Balanced is somewhat higher, and Dvorak even higher. However, if you compare the left and right hands, Balanced lives up to its name. The distance for each hand is very close in value, thus both hands are balanced and do equal amounts of work. Colemak has a difference of about 5%, Workman 10%, and Dvorak almost 30%.
Metrics
Here are several metrics and penalties--some of which I don't necessarily agree with or worry too much about. Nonetheless, Balanced values are comparable to Colemak and Workman.
One thing worth mentioning is row jumping. It is almost mantra among keyboard enthusiasts that the top row is preferable to the bottom row, and that placing less frequent keys on the bottom row will avoid row jumping. Yet the chart shown here clearly busts this myth. On the Balanced layout, two of the most common letters H and D are intentionally placed on the bottom row. One would expect that row jumping would thus be a big problem for Balanced. However, this is not the case. Row jumping on the Balanced layout happens a mere 0.3% more often than Dvorak and Colemak. If you type 1000 characters, row jumping happens 12 times instead of 9.
Pairs of consecutive keys typed with the same finger
A slight mark against Balanced is that it has three such pairs of letter-letter combinations typed with the same finger above 0.20%. Dvorak has one (GH), Colemak has none (its worst offender is E, that is E-comma), Workman has LY (and also E-comma, not surprising since it's based on Colemak). On the bright side, Balanced worst offender OL / LO is typed by the strong middle finger. Then again, 0.51% is really minuscule statistic.
CODESource code was in C++ from Firaxis' Civilization 4 SDK.
Overall Effort and Balance
Balanced layout ranked first and second in either chart. This is by no means definitive since programming languages vary wildly. Nonetheless, Balanced has the advantage of unshifted double quotes and the parentheses are brought down to the bottom row.
Effort for each finger
By exchanging the parentheses and angled brackets in Balanced, the consequence is that the efforts for each finger are relatively even compared to the other layouts and the total effort is reduced considerably.
The high pinky usage is most likely due to the extreme reliance on the numerals 1 and 0 and programming symbols such as !, =, etc..
Keys for each finger
Once again, the Balanced layout distributes the keys more evenly. Whereas other layouts over-work the index finger, Balanced moves some of that workload to the middle and ring fingers. For balance between each hand, Qwerty scores the best, with Colemak closely behind.
One glaring difference you can see is that number row usage dropped considerably when the parentheses are moved to the bottom row. The opposite would happen when writing XML and HTML where angled brackets are common.
Another peculiarity is that Balanced puts the moderate letters P and M instead of the more common H and D on the home row. Yet, it still has the highest percent of usage on the home row. One guess is that variable names tend to use those letters. Not surprisingly, Qwerty scores way behind in terms of utilizing the home row.
Finger travel
In finger travel distance, Balanced placed first by a decent margin; most likely due the movement of the parentheses to the bottom row. Again, each finger has relatively even workload compared to other layouts.
All layouts were quite unbalanced, with the right hand working about 10% harder than the left. This can be attributed to the fact that the opening and closing punctuations--parentheses, square and curly brackets--are placed on the right side of the keyboard. Thus, the right hand will be doing more work when writing source code.
Metrics
Not much to say here. There is not much difference between these layouts when it comes to writing source code.
Qwerty also pops up in same hand row jumping--about two to three times as often as the other layouts.
CONCLUSIONEvery popular layout has their advantages and drawbacks. Popular layouts such as Dvorak, Colemak, Workman, Maltron, and others--yes even Qwerty--are great layouts based on their design philosophy and constraints, technological era, and user testimonies. However, a few of us fanatics and idealists, such as myself, seek to find a layout that is closer to the ideal (or our own ideal) based on our experiences, goals, philosophy, and metrics. This layout that I propose--the
Balanced layout--performs very similarly to the up-and-coming Colemak. However, we cannot rely on algorithms alone to compare layouts--they may measure the incorrect or unnecessary properties and neglect other relevant properties. Human nature and other niceties must also be taken into account. Thus, the Balanced layout strives to implement ergonomic features that some layouts forgo or sacrifice for whatever reasons. These missing features include balancing the workload across each finger and both hands, being visually intuitive by emphasizing vowels, and optimizing the placement of commonly used punctuations.