In every keyboard that I have used, the keys are arranged so that the keys are staggered a small increment to the left from the previous row. Q is above and slightly to the left of A, and A is above and slightly to the left of Z. This pattern continues across the entire board. Case in point:
What is the motivation behind this design? I would think that a column layout would be easier to type on - and indeed, many ergonomic keyboards seem to go with a column layout, where Q is directly above A and so on.
Answer
This is largely a case of path dependency. Originally keyboards had to have a staggered layout to fit the mechanical linkages between the keys and the levers.
After that, it was what industry was tooled up to make, and what people were used to. And there hasn't been a big enough change to typing to get most people to change over to a matrix (non staggered) layout since. Just like most people still use a qwerty layout even though there are other better layouts around.
Keyboards without staggered keys are generally much easier to type on, but hard to find. For example, I built my own keyboard without staggered keys, which I love. You can see the right hand of it below:
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