Ward Stone Ireland layout

The Ward Stone Ireland (WSI) layout is the standard steno layout for all mainstream English steno theories. Its steno order is:

STKPWHRAO*EUFRPBLGTSDZ

Key and chord placement

The WSI layout is designed such that its steno order allows for chords that follow English phonotactics (allowable sound sequences within English syllables). On their own, each key represents the sound it is labeled with. To write the word "hot", one would press HOT. Keys can be combined into chords to make up for the missing sounds not on the layout (e.g. "shot" is written as SHOT). The WSI layout allows for many of these simple combinations that match their spellings.

However, many sounds in English cannot be composed this way. Some sounds have be assigned key combinations that do not show up in English, such that there will be no ambiguity in the chord. For example, the "b" sound as in "bot" is given PW. Since "pw" is not a valid sound in English, it is safe to use this chord. All of these are also designed and placed such that they can be combined with other chords (e.g. combining PW for "b" and HR for "l" results in the "bl" consonant as in "blot").