While looking up what a clavier was, I somehow ended up reading Matt Gemmell’s 2018 blog post in which he describes the positive effects of buying a mechanical keyboard on his mental wellbeing.
I was introduced to mechanical keyboards by software developers. I’m used to hearing their praises sung in a dry, technical tone. Optimised travel distance. Words per minute. Fewer typing errors. A lot of true, but wholly uninteresting stuff. They talk about “clack,” sure, but in an ironic tone, like it’s too silly to be a genuine selling point.
Matt’s post covers the technical advantages, but also provides the best description I’ve come across for what’s actually good about these bits of kit.
From Mechanical Keyboards:
It’s pretentious and extravagant and intrusive, and those are all plus points for me.
[…]
They’re pompous and tactile, but more importantly they’re intentional machines. They make a celebration, and a sensory experience, out of the thing that they’re designed to do. Modern keyboards try their best to let you type with as little sound or movement as possible; they reduce the experience almost to the non-physical. Virtual keyboards on touch-screen devices actually achieve that dubious goal, and occupy an uncanny valley of uncertainty and precariousness because of it. Typing isn’t a stationary action, and nor should it be. It’s not a silent activity. And writing certainly isn’t either of those things.
