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Master Forge: An Ultra-Fast Chord Keyboard with Unfortunate Aesthetics

By Rain Noe - September 24

in UX

A company called CharaChorder has produced this Master Forge product. It's a chord keyboard, that the company claims allows typing speeds above 300 words-per-minute. (For you non-writers, that's a staggering claim—I can do maybe 80-90 wpm and that's considered fast.)

Chord keyboards have a steep learning curve, as you've got to learn all of the combinations from scratch; a lifetime of QWERTY familiarity does you no good.

As amazing as the device is (if the testimonials are to be believed), my question is: Why on Earth does it have to look like that? Was any industrial designer even consulted?

Alien aesthetics aside, demand for the device is shockingly high: While they were seeking just $10,000 in funding, at press time they'd soared past $515,000, with 11 days left to pledge.

Here's the pitch:

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Dee An

2 months ago

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The aesthetics are dictated here by the use of bent sheet metal - a reasonable choice of material and process for a low production run product for enthusiasts. That this results in the 'stealth jet gamer aesthetic' but less pretentious is likely no disadvantage to its intended market.
Other chorded keyboards are on the market, many of them looking like peripherials from the1990s or accessibility aids.

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Dee An

2 months ago

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It may not be an unhelpful exercise to map out the current market for chorded keyboards (before commenting on a specic example), with prices etc. They usually run to a couple of hundred dollars, though some are cheaper, and Arduino-based models are featured on Instructables dot com (your fellow Autodesk sponsoree)

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Spencer Williams

2 months ago

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300 wpm seems a tall claim, but trained stenographers can attain that with steno machines (the closest analogue to this machine, as they are also "chording keyboards") According to a Quora response, court stenographers need to be able to chord up to 225 wpm:
"Now, if you're talking about the steno machine; we don't type, we stroke the machine. If I recall correctly we had to stroke 180 words per minute in narrative; 200 words per minute in jury charge, and 225 words per minute in testimony."
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-typing-speed-WPM-of-a-court-reporter

See also http://www.openstenoproject.org/

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Riley Keen

2 months ago

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Designer here. Lmao thanks for the feature

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