Poll: Do you touch-type? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: Do you touch-type?

42 pointsmcobrien74 comments

Like most of you, I've had my hands on a keyboard for most of the day for many years now. I'm pretty fast, and I don't need to look down, but I wouldn't say I really touch-type. That is, I don't keep my fingers on the home keys and I only use three fingers of each hand. I make more mistakes than I should.

Am I the only one like this? Has anyone been like me and learned The Right Way? I'd love to cut down on the number of mistakes I make, but so far Mavis Beacon is mind-numbingly boring (and demotivating because I'm so much slower The Right Way).

Any tips?

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I took a typing class in high school; it was probably the most useful course I took over the entire five years. It has paid for itself literally thousands of times over in increased productivity (my cruising speed is around 100-120 wpm).

I'm with Steve Yegge: if you can't touch-type, your productivity will remain stuck under a pretty hard ceiling.

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirties...

I don't really agree with the Steve Yegge comment. When I am programming I spend upwards of 85% of the time thinking, not typing. As such I don't see how being at 80wpm (my sloppy sometimes-touch-sometimes-look typing speed) affects my productivity significantly.

Touch-typing isn't about WPM. It's about the fact that, once you're half-decent at it (and it only takes a few months) the fact that you're typing disappears. So you can write or code without even thinking about typing because the muscle memory turns your verbal thoughts into text.

Hunt-and-peck is more than fast enough (30-40 wpm for skilled hunt-and-peck typists) to crank out code but it's a lot easier to lose the state of "flow" and in programming, Flow is King.

Yes, its important to note here that touch-typing as well as all the talk around VIM and Co. is less about efficiency and more about reducing the cognitive load per step/instruction.

I still don't understand. Typing takes a definitive amount of time. Touch typing can cut that time significantly. I do agree with that. However, claiming that typing slowly makes you lose your flow appears a bit far fetched to me.

Here's my experience typing on a keyboard (familiar) vs. an iPad (unfamiliar): I can type almost as fast on an iPad, but because of the unfamiliar spacing I have to devote some cognitive energy to the task and occasionally my brain switches from what I'm thinking about (note-taking or programming) to moving my hands to the right place. It does occasionally break my concentration and make it somewhat harder to enter flow. I imagine that I'd have a similar experience if I didn't know how to touch-type.

The problem with iPad keyboards (and all other software keyboards) isn't just that they're unfamiliar compared to physical keyboards, but that they have no tactile feedback.

A touch-typist typing on a physical keyboard will know without having to look that he's pressed the right key and that the keypress registered. On a software keyboard one always has to look.

This makes touch-typing on a software keyboard virtually impossible.

that's because you're phrasing the claim badly. the claim is not typing slowly makes you lose flow, but that hunt-and-peck typing causes you to lose flow.. It's pretty simple imagination from that to hypothesize why that is the the case.

I took one in high school too, it was a choice between typing and woodwork. Most boys took woodwork, I knew I would need it for computers one day and I'm glad I did.

I also don't have problems with the characters that were not part of the lessons. I spent about 10 years on a US keyboard layout and then another 10 with a mostly UK keyboard layout, and then there's the UK Mac keyboard which is a strange combination of the two. I don't feel I have trouble switching between the types of keyboards, it's like switching between driving on the left and right hand sides of the road which I also got pretty used to.

I did too. I think it's good to invest in 'infrastructure' skills. Learning a good text editor (in my case, Vim) is another thing like this, I think.

I can touch-type "the right way" when I write text, but I cannot do it while programming. The link is broken when I have to use a lot of punctuation, parentheses and other strange signs the language of choice needs, as most of them should be pressed by the small finger of the right hand. I can press them without looking using other fingers, but it's not that fast.

So move your keys?

I've remapped left hand's home row to {[]} and QWE to ?() with a modifier.

I learned in high school on electric typewriters in '90 or '91. It was an elective then, but I certainly hope it would be a requirement today Still the only skill from high school that use every single day.

I was someone who had already done a lot of fiddling on the computer at that point so even as a high-school student I had a lot of self-trained semi-fast typing skills that I had to unlearn. I found the first month of the class really frustrating as a result, but eventually the new skills kicked in and I found myself typing much faster than I did before.

Touch-typing is a skill that involves muscle memory, and as such there's no real short cut to it and you'll find the process annoying and not engaging to your higher intellect. But stick with it. It's incredibly useful, I promise.

I learned to touch-type on a basic mechanic typewriter in the late 80s -- no electricity whatsoever, you had to hit the keys very hard to make it work. The teacher was an old style professional typist; she was almost able to hear each mistake (in a class of 20 people).

There was a huge screen at the end of the classroom that showed a keybord; when the teacher would say "A" she would lit the letter up at the same time. She made us type bizarre and unnatural sequences of letters just to practice some fingers. It was quite funny at times, but I don't think I ever saw her smile.

It was an optional course that didn't give any credit and that you had to pay for (the rest of my education was free, as this took place in France). Best investment I ever made.

We must have had the same teacher (not really, mine was in Georgia). The old mechanical typewriters forced you to make crisp keystrokes. I'm sure it made a huge difference in my typing ability.

I learnt to type on mechanical typewriters too.

They force a rhythm, and it's that rhythm which is useful when you're trying to increase speed.

I don't touch type now because I find it uncomfortable. I use three fingers on each hand. I'm very accurate, but not very fast. About 80 wpm.

There are much better typing tutors than Mavis Beacon though!

Another mechanical kb learner here.. but never took it long enough to get past learning the fingering stage.....I agree with the crisp keystrokes.... Now i guess my average should be around 40-50 wpm...

I have learned to touch type properly using http://www.typingweb.com and I think it's fantastic but I don't know how it compares to Mavis Beacon.

A S D F J K L semi!

Again!

A S D F J K L semi!

Again!

We will keep doing it until you got it right!

A S D F J K L semi!

Eddie in Row 3, come on now, keep up!

A S D F J K L semi!

Mrs. Tomjonovich, I cursed you then. I thank you now.

haha thats classic!

Did you learn typing in school? I wish i did...all my typing is self taught. Doesnt cause me too many issues except my accuracy is lower than i'd like.

i retrained myself to touch-type when i was 16.

only thing it took was forcing myself to not type any other way, no matter how slow i ended up being. within a month or two i was typing at my previous speed. (and continued to improve from there. these days i type faster than almost anyone who isn't training for competitions)

no tutorials, guides, books, teachers needed. just do it.

ps: yes, those two months are painful. try getting into a heated argument on irc and losing because you can't type fast enough. don't break your touch-typing-only rule. just try hard to type faster the right way! that's where the motivation comes from ;)

I have the same experience, but it took only a week or two to match my two-fingers speed. Talking for hours on IRC helped :)

I type between 85 and 105 wpm on average. I have a few inefficiencies that slow me down (I only use the right shift key, for instance), but by and large I'm very competent. My accuracy is over 99%.

I think the best way to learn to type is to do things that require typing, and play games. Programs like Mavis Beacon and their ilk are good for one pass through. You should run through the program to get to the point where you don't have to think about where the keys are any more. Usually this is around 20 wpm or so.

After this though, it's all about practice. I like to practice with TypeRacer.com. It takes just a minute or two per race and you'll be given a wide variety of things to type. Typer-Shark ( http://www.popcap.com/node/215 ) is another great game for drilling yourself.

And above all, typing regularly and avoiding shortcuts is the best way to improve your speed. If you read the newspaper daily, every day pick one article and transcribe it after reading it. If you use facebook chat or another Instant Messenger on the computer, always type out whole words instead of using short-hand. Simple things like this make your habit of typing more consistent and over time lead to great speed increases.

Every time we use the keyboard, we mentally split it into two sides, left-hand letters and right-hand letters, so why not learn one side at a time? It makes sense and, 15 keys instead of 30, it’s much easier. There are 4 fingers on your left hand and 4 home keys on the left side in the middle row, ASDF, so it’s easy to figure out what finger hits what key, but how to remember ASDF, it doesn’t make any sense. Animals in the Snow Dig for Food, yay! Type ASDF and say this sentence aloud. Do this 10 times.

Now, what words can you type using ASDF? Type add, as, dad, fad and sad without looking at the keyboard.

But wait, there’s another letter in the middle row, G, and you don’t have any more fingers. The Food finger does double the work and moves over to G. Type ASDFG and say aloud Animals in the Snow Dig for Food Greedily. Do this 10 times. Now, type gad, gag, gas and sag without looking at the keyboard.

Next, the top and bottom rows. Place your four left fingers on ASDF and idly move them up to the top row and down to the bottom row. The Animals finger types Q on the top row and Z on the bottom row. Animals Queensland Zoo (or Qatar Zoo, Quebec Zoo, Qingdao Zoo). Type AQZ and say aloud Animals Queensland Zoo. Do this 10 times.

Top and bottom row associations for Snow, Dig and Food are: Snow White Xmas, Dig Easter Chocolate, Food Raw Vegetables.

Two keys to go. The hardworking Food finger also types T and B. Type FTB and say aloud Food T-Bone. Do this 10 times.

One home row sentence and 5 up and down association words and you have finished the left side in 35 minutes. This is the Nail It Now way of learning http://www.nailitnow.com.au

I'd recommend gtypist, if you're a CLI lover. A few minutes everyday of self-paced deliberate practice should get you touch typing in a matter of days.

I learned to touch-type on an ergonomic keyboard (in Dvorak no less), and when I use a normal keyboard it tends to feel uncomfortable because my wrists are positioned at a smaller angle.

So I'm in the odd situation that I both "sloppily" touch type in Qwerty on normal keyboards, so I can keep my hands at a comfortable angle, but faced with an ergonomic keyboard I can switch to Dvorak and touch-type.

Truthfully, I don't think 'proper' touchtyping is necessary, per se. I type without looking at the keys, but I only use - I think - three or four fingers of each hand, tops. No doubt proper touchtyping would be more natural for me had I learnt it from the beginning, but I haven't, and trying the proper way hurts my hands after a few hours. I'm able to keep up 100wpm with ease just by having typed a lot in my life. I don't think I'll ever need to type faster than that. Thus, I don't see a reason to learn to touchtype.

Also, I've always disliked those exercises where you have to type jj ff jj ff jj ff jjf jfj ffj fff fjf etc. etc. One of the reasons I can type fast is because I like to hold complete sentences (or blocks of text) in my head and then WHAM it all in on my keyboard. With these exercises, there is no such link, and I have to look at each specific character on my screen. It annoys the crap out of me.

Those exercises are just building muscle memory, so that when you get to complete sentences you don't have to look at the keyboard.

There's a niche in the market for a product that helps people unlearn poor habits and retrains them to use the correct method. (If those people want to. I agree that you have no need! I also find that my arms hurt if I use the correct method.)

I've been touch-typing since the 1st grade, one year after I learned to write by hand in English (not my first language). To me, typing is now substantially more intuitive than writing by hand. Most of my peers say that writing by hand is more intuitive and it's easier for them to concentrate, which completely baffles me.

The right way is relative. I was never taught to touchtype, but I end up spending hours every day typing, so it just developed naturally.

Looking at the natural resting place of my fingers, I do use the F and J keys for resting my index fingers, but I'm pretty sure that there are faster ways of touchtyping than the methods I use.

C jab yrgjd yfl. cb ',.pyf xgy mf t.fxrape co cb ekrpatv

( I can touch type in qwerty but my keyboard is in dvorak. )

I don't know why, but I found it slightly offending that you called not using the home keys "sloppily". But.. Then I realized you're right. My style is definitely sloppy..

I wanted to learn touch typing properly, so I took a touch typing class in high school. But it wasn't a very good class and the teacher basically told me I didn't have to do anything to pass as I already typed 30-40 wpm faster than anyone else in the class... Guess she didn't know proper touch typing either

My hands fly everywhere on the keyboard when I type. I honestly think this might be better for minimizing RSI, as I switch between using different muscles for movement. There's really no system behind it

I once got told it looked like I was torturing my keyboard, not typing on it.

You pretty much described how I type. My hands may fly all over the keyboard, but 1.) I don't need to look at the keys, and 2.) I'm pretty fast. Ergo, I don't think there's a problem. (Not counting when I have to use a keyboard with those big keys and make an awful lot of noise.)

I type in a strange fashion: I hover my fingers over the home keys, but never let them touch unless I am depressing a key, and I only use my pinkies for the shift and enter keys. I make surprisingly few mistakes, especially considering that I don't look at the keyboard when I am typing. I also feel that I am able to type as fast as someone who uses the correct technique.

I would suggest that you only use the Mavis Beacon method as a guide; you need to work out what you are comfortable with. Just because touch-typing is considered 'best practise' doesn't make it right for everybody.

I touch-type quickly but poorly, and it's because of my father.

I was ten years old, writing BASIC programs on a Tandy CoCo2 that someone gave me. My father saw that between chores I was spending inordinate amounts of time with my CoCo2 hooked up to the family TV. He told several times that I should type with all of my fingers.

Then one day he walked over to the TV and turned it off. He told me that unless I use all of my fingers, I wouldn't be allowed to use the computer anymore.

The Dvorak Way. Touchtyping is just one of the benefits of switching to Dvorak. There is no point looking down there since there is nothing useful to see.

I was thinking of Dvoarking, but I use vim. And hjkl gets really confusing.

I learned both (Dvorak and Vim) at the same time, and it didn't seem any more confusing than any other part, though maybe that's because I didn't already have muscle memory for those keys.

Here is a cool trick to learn it:

1) learn the key's by heard for each row from left to right and vice versa until u make no more mistakes.

2) buy an old keyboard and cover the keys with color pads, for each finger_to_key match a different color

3) color your fingernails accordingly.

4) do your typing but now only with fingers of matching colors.

5) Enjoy the fun game

6) Get faster and faster

P.S.: I won the competition of being the winner learning touch typing fastest when I was a kid. The price was .......a new typewriter :-)

Touch typing tutor in the browser: http://typingclub.com/typing-qwerty-en.html

Well, I do tend to go back to the home keys, however, when programming it's using shortcuts all the way anyway. With the flash-game finger frenzy (http://www.gimme5games.com/play-game/finger-frenzy-world) I can type the alphabet in under 3 seconds, without using the "right way"

I typed the way that you're describing for years, but with my dissertation looming I decided that it wasn't good enough. Having tried and failed to pick up QWERTY touch-typing in the past (it was very easy to relapse into my non-touch style), I tried Colemak and it stuck. http://colemak.com/

I found GTypist helpful. http://www.gnu.org/software/gtypist/

During primary school I was given some introductory lessons to touch typing, although I didn't learn all the keys, I naturally learnt the positions of all the keys. It was only after I started learning that I realised what the bumps on F and J are for.

Since you should already know the positions of the keys, put your fingers on the home keys and try typing.

I was taught to type in school. The class was boring, and the program (All The Right Type) was easy to fool by pasting in text, but 3 years of repetitive typing taught me how to type the right way. Definitely one of the most valuable classes I've ever taken - it's made everything I do on the computer so much easier.

I learnt touch typing the right way ... however, I took at least 3-4 years to get here in steps (I first covered the letters area, after I got it right, I got the numbers right and then the braces etc... I am a hardened vi editor user so I had to get the curly brackets too within my "fingertips").

Good luck with your efforts.

Sometimes. It depends on what I'm typing. Documentation I mostly touch-type. Code, never. Touch-typing is one of those skills that pays with an economy of scale. The time it takes to place both hands on the home keys isn't justified when I will have to remove them too frequently.

I type fairly fast, but I don't touch type. I've been kind of trying to dig up the motivation to learn to touch type because I'm noticing not being a touch typist limits my vim speed(and makes some key combinations awkward).

Lots of good resources in these comments, guess I've got something to work on.

I'd guess the only 'odd' typing thing I do is that I only use the left side modifier keys. So for modifying a letter that is also typed with the left hand I am used to just simply 'shifting over' my fingers to account for the modifier. Anyone else do this or am I just weird?

I've kind of picked up this habit in recent months after buying a Macbook. I use my Windows machine's keyboard and mouse to control my Macbook via Synergy. Unfortunately, the right shift key doesn't register over Synergy on the Mac. :-/

There should be an option for cleanly, the wrong way. I took a typing class in HS but I don't remember any of the hand positioning from it. I touch type all the time but I have no clue about my positioning.

Years of AIM --> Quick error free typing without looking.

Depends on what I'm doing. If I'm writing out a lot of text, usually I'll stay hovered near the home row keys (but never resting my fingers on them). However, if I'm in vim, my hands spread apart some to give better access to Esc+Ctrl and Shift+:

Yes. Swedish Dvorak variation. Das Keyboard III. Lots of programming and time on IRC.

Did not touch type when using QWERTY. Switched and learn it correctly. On the flip side, I have no idea where the keys are located if I try to do hunt-and-peck typing now.

I failed typing class in 9th grade. Big fat "F".

Two years later I was touch-typing on my first computer, because I /had/ to in order to get the speed I wanted.

Motivation is wierd. :-)

[my handle, 'kabdib', is what comes out when you type my name and one hand is off home position]

Being able to follow what you type using the display instead of having to watch the keyboard instills a certain calmness. It's actually not so much about typing speed, more about adopting a less tiresome work process.

My touch typing has gone downhill steadily since I started spending hours working on a train - pretty much in any ergonomic-disaster position I fit.

This poll is a timely reminder to start doing some typing drills on a regular basis.

I had to learn to use my Kinesis (you just can't see the keys), also followed the lessons in http://www.typingweb.com which is I think an awesome service.

When I'm programming I've never managed to touch-type. Maybe it's because of signs and parenthesis and such. It really sucks to not being fast when you have a lot of code to write and not enough time.

I would say sloppily, never had any lessons. I have trained myself some time ago, but I ended up returning to the sloppy way, I ended up finding it faster (maybe its not but its how it works for me)

I learned touch typing in high school '90 not knowing what career I would be in. I can type very fast now and love the fact that I took the time to learn. Know your instrument!

The homerow nubs on the keyboards I use are starting to wear off (and one of them has totally come off), it really shows how a millimeter of plastic can throw off usability.

I touch type, but I always look at the keyboard when typing passwords (because I don't like backtracking when I make mistakes; I'd rather get it right the first time)

I switched two Dvorak two years ago and forced myself to touch type by buying a blank keyboard (HHKB2). The beginning was very frustrating, but it has payed of!

Mavis Beacon was the only game on my home computer when I was a child. I'm a little 'freestyle' at times, but in general I use the correct fingers.

I touch type. It's the result of almost 30 years behind a keyboard but I don't think what I do is the "right" way

I use 1-2 fingers on my right hand and 4 on my left. Got about 70wpm. Good enough for me.

It's easier with iPad if you only use three fingers of each hand.

A E O U H T N S <- A better home

Slifhtly sloppu toicj typing!

Mostly.

I started programming in high school, and my first job was a programming job. I noticed right away how quickly everyone typed, and not wanting to be left behind I downloaded Klavaro and spent some time learning how to touch-type.

I do it The Right Way, since that's how you're taught in Klavaro. It becomes easier on muscle memory to know that you only have to feel for that bar on the keyboard and then your fingers can do the rest on their own. I think Klavaro is great software if you want to learn it The Right Way. Dedicate 30 minutes to an hour each night, and you'll be uo-to-speed in less than a month.

I like http://keybr.com/

You can choose the French keyboard layout with this link. Thanks !

Its a shame I cant set it for the Portuguese(Portugal) layout.

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