One useless and evil key on your keyboard

Current keyboard layout was born long time ago with release of IBM PC. Later it was changed with AT model where modern keyboard layout was born. Not every key is used how it was intendent. Some keys are doing nothing like Scroll Lock and there only few applications that uses it. Some keys doing stuff that most regular users are not aware of. For example: “Print Screen” or “Pause|Break” key. Numeric key on digital section to the right are also confusing to people because depending on Num Lock key they can do different roles. They can be keys or can be keys that move cursor.

But there is one key that not only useless but it actually probably most annoying key on your keyboard. And this key is Cap Lock. And for nitpickers, yes there is more annoying key called Sleep but most keyboard does not have it.

Ok, but what’s wrong with it? Let me explain.

1. Cap Lock in on the left side of keyboard. But its indicator is on other side of the keyboard. So, by looking at this key it is not possible to decide is it On or Off. Yes, long time ago there were keyboard where Cap Locks key itself have LED indicator but 99.99% keyboard these days have it on the right side.
2. Nobody ever using it. It simply doesn’t worth to remember it is function for regular user. It required so rarely that it is much simpler always to use Shift key instead. And yes, I know that some games actually using it for something unrelated like toggle key for Always Running for example but it still quite rare.
3. Imaging what happens for regular user when (s)he accidentally pressed it. From now on everything that user types will be in upper case. In few seconds (s)he realized that something is wrong and then short state of panic. What happened and how to fix it? Advanced user will quickly remember about Cap Lock key, but regular user could stick for some time. I personally see how some people start to use Shift key with Caps Lock on to type lower case letters because not everyone remembers what this key does. By the way the same happens with Num Lock key as well. I see person that enters a lot of numbers in Excel and he accidentally pressed Num Lock. He was so used to use numeric keyboard and when it stopped working, he had to use keys under functional keys row and his speed dropped enormously until I helped him. Yet on second time all he remembered that there is some key that could fix it and he went asking for help.
4. Windows does not help either. When somebody enters password there is not much help in Windows 10 to let you know what problem is.
5. Only small number of web sites attempt to indicate that you are using Caps Lock. Most of the time you will just stuck and think that you forgot password. Then you will chang password, but you will enter it in incorrect case. And then when you finally toggle Caps Lock off and attempt to enter password it will fail because you will use incorrect casing.

As bottom line I would remove support for that key from Windows. It should work for games, but Windows should ignore its state and always enter letters in lower case. At least in Latin like languages. Maybe allow to switch to upper case if you press Cap Lock, Pause|Break key and say Enter on numeric keyboard. In this case if somebody really need it they can still use but regular person will never press it accidently.