But the layout is just one of the problems. The key staggering is also not very ergonomic. There are two cool keyboards featuring symmetric key positioning:
I personally don't suggest the truly ergonomic. While it's well designed from the outset, the underpinnings are a bit lacking. The existing firmware is buggy and has issues with Mac; and the programmable software has been promised for a while now but was never delivered. To boot, the company's support is nearly non-existent, except for - thankfully - their return process.
As mentioned by gokfar, I really look forward to the ergodox group buy
Author of The Keyboard Layout Project here. I'm familiar with Workman; it's a reasonably strong attempt, but I think it has a number of problems and fails to perform as well as Colemak or my own layouts.
Out of curiosity, do you have any references to support non-staggered keys are superior? I ask because (100 - ε)% of claims about ergonomics are completely unsupported by scientific research.
Not really. But you can take a look at Maltron keyboards, which are non-staggered and also curved. From what I can find on the web it seems that they have done some research.
The [Kinesis](http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/) Advantage is a cheaper alternative to Maltron that follows the same design pattern. It's the keyboard I use, and it's definitely more comfortable than a typical staggered keyboard, or even a simpler ergonomic keyboard.
But the layout is just one of the problems. The key staggering is also not very ergonomic. There are two cool keyboards featuring symmetric key positioning:
- Truly ergonomic keyboard http://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/index.php
- Type matrix http://typematrix.com