The first keyboard was actually laid out alphabetically. The reason it was changed to the QWERTY format was not necessarily for speed but because the keys kept on getting jammed when in alphabetical order. Typewriters were used to type, and since they were very mechanical, they were prone to jamming. A man by the name of Christopher Stoles who used the typewriter as a newspaper editor and printer actually designed and created the idea in the early 1870s.
The QWERTY layout actually helped to solve that problem, as this new layout spread out the most commonly used keys across the keyboard. This layout distributed the keys throughout the 10 fingers instead of the "hunt and peck" method used when it was laid out alphabetically.
