I use a Dvorak keyboard, so I can tell you what experiences I've had with it.
I started using it about a year and a half ago.
In about a week I had all the key locations memorized, but could only type about 5 or 10 words a minute.
About a week later I was going about 20 words a minute, and it started to feel more natural to type in Dvorak than in qwerty.
This seems to be a reasonable speed to learn it, but from what I've read, it usually takes longer if you try to retain your qwerty skills while learning Dvorak.
After I was about a month in I stopped doing the training because I felt I was fast enough(somewhat faster than I was in qwerty).
The Dvorak keyboard definitely feels more pleasant on the hands, more natural feeling to type on and you will probably will increase your typing speed.
If you are looking for speed, for most people there is not much more than a 10 or 20 percent increase unless they were slow typers to begin with.
Any claims of world peace and other massive changes should be taken lightly.
For me, the main reason to use it is that it feels much better to type.
This is basically because your hand moves from the home row much less. (30 something percent of the keys pressed in qwerty are in the home row, while in Dvorak it is about 70 percent)
The layout feels much more natural, and when you type nonsense it doesn't look as ugly. (aoesudoentisnoteudaosentu vs asd;fhsdlkg;lskdfhas;dlkf)
Having a laptop isn't a big problem, as you can just carry around a printout of the layout with you or set a picture of it as your desktop background until you memorize the keys.
As far as using qwerty while learning Dvorak, I'd try to avoid it as it usually slows down the learning rate.
There are some negative sides that most Dvorak fans don't mention.
While learning Dvorak, your qwerty skills might drop a little.
Although you won't care much about this once you get your speed in Dvorak up to what it was in qwerty, until then it can be rather annoying.
If you use public computers, occasionally (depending on OS/restrictions) it may not allow you to use custom keyboards.
Since it is designed with English in mind, If you spend a large percentage of your time typing in another language, it may slow you down or at least not help with that(this also includes programming languages).
Many programs need to have the keys remapped, or can't be remapped at all. (try alternating between q and w on a Dvorak keyboard(same locations as x and , in qwerty))
Personally, I know it was worth it for me, but I think it varies from person to person. I would recommend it for anyone who doesn't touch type yet. I would also recommend it for anyone who spends an extremely large amound of time typing and wants to put less stress on their hands. For those who are somewhere in the middle, it depends on their personal situation, so I wouldn't actively advise them to do it, but wouldn't discourage them unless they are far too busy to learn it.
Overall, I'd recommend it only if you can go about two weeks with slower typing, and don't need that hour or two a day.
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. My dvorak speed has gotten much better since I first tried it, though.
I sent them an email about it, but got no reply. Not that I'll ever afford one of those, of course ..
