Do you know that clean keycaps exist for mechanical keyboards? They’re keycaps with no lettering on them in any respect. They arrive in every kind of colours to suit your preferences, too. (The pastel colour choices really remind me of the marshmallows in a child’s cereal.) Whereas it seems cool on a purely aesthetic degree, personally, clean keycaps would make me need to scream.

An opinion piece about unlabeled keycaps over at PC Gamer reignited my emotions on the matter and impressed me to write down this text. Sure, there are some legitimate causes you may be enthusiastic about utilizing them, however sorry, Web: Clean keycaps are fairly foolish.

Why I’m salty

Okay, effective, clean keycaps would possibly choice in case you’re seeking to turn into a greater contact typist. That’s the follow of utilizing the keys with out them. There’s no level in wanting down at a keyboard if there are not any printed labels, proper? It’s type of like typing on onerous mode.

However why put your self by means of that problem? In the event you’re a newbie typist, going from a daily keyboard with printed labels to clean keycaps could be each disorienting and irritating. Personally, I’ve been typing on a keyboard for thus lengthy that it’s like second nature to me. Position-playing in AIM chatrooms as a child taught me to be fast and correct with my typing. With regards to the letter keys, I don’t actually want printed labels per se. It’s all muscle reminiscence at this level. I choose them as a result of I don’t know the place the heck the particular keys are with out them, nevertheless.

Ampersand? Who’s she? Extra importantly, the place is she? If I’m typing on a keyboard with clean keycaps, I don’t need to cope with the pointless guesswork or trial-and-error. It’s simply going to place me in a bitter temper, particularly the place I spend my days writing and enhancing and speaking with coworkers over textual content. I’m not seeking to spend money on something that complicates that. It’d simply take pointless outing of my day. I don’t need to spend the extra time attempting to determine the place obscure keys just like the pound signal (aka the hashtag for you youthful of us) are, and it’d be much more disorienting for individuals who aren’t veteran contact typists. With printed keys, I can see precisely the place I must press.

The one factor I can form of perceive about clean keycaps is the visible facet. From customized clay shapes to pastel pinks and blues, there are some actually superior designs on the market. In the event you take a look at the Twitter thread under, you’ll see some really stunning keyboard setups with clean caps. At present, I take advantage of a mechanical keyboard with RGB lighting. It’s not as fairly as these customized configurations, positive, but it surely’s useful and I just like the clackety sounds it makes. Whereas I deeply admire the artistry that goes into these customized designs, I strongly choose one thing that appears slightly boring however capabilities higher as a keyboard.