My Golden Fleece

As discussed in the previous posts, the best one-size-fits-all keyboard is chiclet style. For XXS for XXL size person, one-size-fits-all is not the best. Let's define such a body size for me.

Able-bodied. The hand size is normal. Not required to type super-fast. A heavy user of keyboard shortcuts. Required to type symbols much (i.e. hit number row keys and Shift keys often). No need to read the keytop legends.

The features for the body size:

17 mm key pitch

Shorter key pitch makes the keyboard smaller. Hitting number row keys is also easier. Many studies suggest 17 mm pitch doesn't harm speed or error rate compared to 19 mm.

2.0 mm travel

How many millimeters should the travel be? Long travel like traditional 4.0 mm is a bad habit from the non-electric typewriter era. Recent traditional looking keyboards have shorter travel than 4.0 mm. Long travel worses finger interference and typing speed. However too short travel causes poor experience. Where is the best?

Most chiclet style has 1.2 to 2.5 mm. Apple makes around 1.0 mm and I hear constant complaints for years. The best number should fall in 1.5 to 3.0 mm. A study suggests 2.0 mm. I think this is true from my experience.

Stepped like Cherry profile

R4-R3 has long step, and R3-R2 and R2-R1 has short step. R0 (nearest row) keytop angle is quite steep. Like the figures below:

I love the undulations of the step and keycaps. Chiclet style looks dull.

My Golden Fleece will have these features.

You might notice my Junana keycap cannot do 2.0 mm travel yet. AFAIK on the market there is no switch that has MX stem and 2.0 mm travel. I believe that the market of low profile switches will go to 2.0 mm travel soon. 3.2 mm is apparently too long for ergonomics yet.