The giant space bar, one of the things we inherited from the typewriter, doesn’t make sense anymore. We don’t have the technical limitations from over 100 years ago, so why not have fun with it?
When we started developing keyboards, we realized that both thumbs take care of one key; meanwhile, the left pinkie has to take care of ten. That did not seem fair, so we started developing the thumb cluster for our models to make things right.
Combined with the options offered by the configuration software, increased use of the thumb keys decreases stressful and unnecessary hand movements.
It took a lot of work to make the keys easy to access and almost impossible to press by mistake. We had to make keycaps with different heights and profiles to match the position of the fingers, but those changes also affected the position of the electronics.
With the Defy, we brought things one step further. The goal was to provide any user with keys at their fingertips regardless of hand size and flexibility.
The thumb cluster is a valuable tool for rearranging hard-to-reach keys, including shift, enter, backspace, and modifiers. Furthermore, it reduces reliance on the pinky finger, making it comfortable to navigate through different layers.