Correcting Poor Typing Technique?

An anonymous reader writes "When beginning to use keyboards I did not pay much attention to touch typing technique. Instead, I eventually achieved decent rates by simply doing what felt natural to me. These days my qwerty typing speed is in the range of 90-110 WPM, probably more toward the lower end. While this isn't too shabby, I feel some awkwardness in my technique (such as not using my little and ring fingers when I really should). Has anyone been in a similar situation, wanted to fix it, and actually done so? What do you reckon is the best way to fix half-broken typing? Touch training sessions? Should I switch to Dvorak and pretty much learn typing from scratch, but properly this time?"

Comments

Dvorak

[sys.stdout.write]

Should I switch to Dvorak

No. Even if you gain speed on your keyboard, the ability not to suck on other people's laptops is totally worth the 20 WPM decrement or whatever.

Don't bother.

[Speare]

My opinion: if you can achieve over 80 wpm with your version of hunt and peck, you're not making many errors, and you don't need to look at the keyboard to keep up with live (typed) chat conversations, then that's really all you need. Higher speeds is just going to stress the tendons. If you are truly held back in pouring your ideas into the computer at this speed, then you should have employees.

Re:Don't bother.

[phantomfive]

Higher speeds is just going to stress the tendons.

In most cases this is not true. The worst tendon stress come from eccentric contractions opposing the main movement of the finger. If you try to type faster by 'pushing' your fingers harder, you are going to increase the muscle contractions and the eccentric contractions, which will be felt as stress in your fingers.

Getting to speeds of 90 or 110 wpm is almost impossible by 'pushing' your fingers harder, though. Your muscles just can't adapt fast enough when they are also fighting against themselves, so what you need to do is reduce the eccentric muscle braking. You need to only use the smallest number of muscles possible when moving your fingers to the proper place. This will feel like you are 'relaxing.' If you are moving faster by relaxing, this is what you are doing, reducing the eccentric muscle opposition in your body. Baseball pitchers have to learn to do the same thing to get the ball moving faster.

I'm ok with my poor typing technique...

[TheReaperD]

I'm personally fine with my awkward typing technique. I say if you've reached speeds that you're happy with and your typing method is not causing you any issues such as tendinitis, why change? I've never understood the obsession with you must do it "the right way."

But, this is my advice and it's worth what you paid for it.

Re:I'm ok with my poor typing technique...

[ClosedSource]

Actually, "the right way" is a leftover from the old typewriter days when speed was important and mistakes were forever.

After touch typing for 25 years I'm of the opinion that the ad-hoc techniques are less likely to damage you than the "right way".

On the other hand...

[Junta]

As someone who uses dvorak, it's a great deterrent to people who frequently need to borrow other keyboards for a moment...

Not to mention the amusement of watching them type something, look confused, repeat a few times before they say something.

In terms of speed, I don't know about that, but dvorak does leave me a bit more comfy as I leave the home row less.

Never been less important

[vlm]

If you believe the marketing folks, touch typing has never been less important now, than in the entire history of computing.

Everything is going to touch screen non-tactile smartphones, tablets, etc. Touch typing doesn't help much on ipods/iphones.

The idea of typing anything other than "english prose" using a keyboard is dead. All "commands" are given via mice and menus/ribbons. The concept of a "command line" is dead to 99% of the population.

Even worse, "leet txt sms speak" is the wave of the future. If it doesn't fit in 160 characters or whatever it is, then it is literally unthinkable.

Also the tools are dying. I can type pretty well on a clicky Model-M keyboard. Not so well on a mushboard.

90-110 WPM is fast

[xerent_sweden]

90-110 words per minute is typing really fast. The standard length of a word is five letters and if you measured with that word length you really have nothing to worry about. I couldn't imagine anyone writing faster than that.

How is this important?

[mcrbids]

I type perfect touch type style. At my best, I do about 90-120 WPM, same as you. I know I'm quite a rapid typist, almost able to keep up with natural-rate speech. If you are matching me, what are you really trying to achieve?

It's pretty obvious that whatever the metric, you are well within the realm of where other factors are far more likely to make a difference than typing speed. Of course, if you want to "touch type" like other "trained" folks, do like anybody else, and force yourself to actually do it.

I recommend any of the many touch-typing software packages out there. You don't even have to pay much, 30 seconds of GIS brought this up and it seems quite serviceable!

Re:How is this important?

[value_added]

The key part of "Repetitive Strain Injury" is "Repetitive". I'm pretty sure spending hours learning to touch type by typing ZCA CZA KLM LPN KPL over and over again from the traditional centered-keyboard home-row position is going to give you carpel tunnel a LOT faster than "normal" typing.

I'm afraid you don't understand the concept of technique. The idea is to be able to type ZCA CZA KLM LPN KPL over and over again without effort, strain, or injury, while developing the desired speed. If you can't do that, then, as any music instructor will tell you, you're not doing it right.

Musicians, incidentally, typically practise more hours in a day than anyone spends typing, and more hours than most of us spend at work (unless your a sysadmin). None of them require "ergonomic" fretboards or keyboards, and would balk at the idea of gel-filled rests for their arms, writs, or hands. What they do require is ideal technique and the dedication to endless hours of careful (and possibly boring) practice.

Then again, most people are lazy. Why exercise the weakest fingers? Why play scales? Why hold your wrists up? Why learn to sit with your back straight, when it takes more effort? Why indeed. Better to sit back in that bean-bag chair with a drink nearby and call it a day.

As for the article submitter, I'd suggest that if he wants to improve his technique, he'll have to "unlearn" his current one. That means learning (or re-learning) the rules so that he can break them, and then onnly if needed or desired. Stopping and going backwards so that he can move forward again, if you will. Musicians that deviate or otherwise use their own uniquely-inspired variations of standard techniques typically do so after years of pedagogic instruction and careful supervision. The ones that don't are one in a million. Everyone else is forever stuck at some level of mediocre proficiency (impressing friends and family, no doubt) and is talking out their ass.

If you can type anywhere near 100wpm with "non-standard" technique AND your typing is accurate AND your typing is effortless, then you're a one in a million. Changing your technique may offer improvements, but I suspect those improvements will be subtle, and the gains relatively minor. Me, I can probably learn to do a consistent 120wpm. Practically spekaing, though, it's not worth the dedication or the effort, so I generally coast along at 80-90. Laziness and comfort is not something to aspire to (or advocate), but in measured doses, can be a good thing.

Dvorak isn't better

[jjohnson]

Don't bother with Dvorak. The studies that showed Dvorak to be superior were methodologically suspect, and the reams of anecdotal evidence that Dvorak is superior is largely due to confirmation bias--the people who consciously switched improved largely because they were switching consciously (and trying to improve), and the people who don't see an improvement rarely brag about that.

Instead, a touch-typing program or other class will probably benefit you. A lot of the myths about qwerty keyboards are bogus, and you should see an improvement in your speed because you're spreading the typing load across more fingers and having to move your hands and forearms less than a fast, blind hunt and peck. A little practice on activating your pinkies will probably dovetail nicely with your existing skills, so the improvement will be quick.

Re:Dvorak isn't better

[jjohnson]

Here's the original reference mentioned in my link above. The high points of it are these:

(1) the research demonstrating the superiority of the Dvorak keyboard is sparse and methodologically suspect;

(2) a sizable body of work suggests that in fact the Dvorak offers little practical advantage over the QWERTY;

(3) at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands; and

(4) the QWERTY keyboard did not become a standard overnight but beat out several competing keyboards over a period of years.

Re:Dvorak isn't better

[xaxa]

That study is bad, and had an ulterior motive.

The Fable of the Keys is an article by some economists (who don't claim to know anything about typing) who are trying to disprove something called "Excessive Inertia Theory". Basically, "Excessive Inertia Theory" uses the Dvorak vs Qwerty history as anecdotal evidence for what the theory is describing: Dvorak is better, but people still use Qwerty because they don't want to go to the trouble of changing (nevermind that almost no one has heard of Dvorak...) The writers attack the theory by claiming that Dvorak isn't actually any better than Qwerty, and that's why it never became popular.

The holes are rampant in their argument, but the most telling is that the study they used was poorly conducted, probably biased, and the original data from it was destroyed. No other study has ever corroborated the results.

On the other hand, August Dvorak himself wrote an entire book called "Typewriting Behavior" about typing, Dvorak's area of expertise. (Instead of a book on Economics for example!) With the knowledge gained and research conducted in the writing of that book, he designed a keyboard layout. People who have used that keyboard layout almost unanimously attest to its improved comfort, efficiency, and ease.

A number of more in-depth responses have been written to "The Fable of the Keys" and its offspring, and I won't embarrass myself by trying to out-write these gentleman: Marcus Brooks: The Fable of the Fable and Randy Cassingham: Letter to REASON Magazine.

(Quoted from here

Ditch typing and go voice

[noidentity]

Go voice, you won't regret it. Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.

Re:Ditch typing and go voice

[pegasustonans]

MOD PARENT UP. So true, my ax fish window lament.

If it works, it's correct

[phantomfive]

Some years ago, I read a study by a woman who looked at the technique of several great pianists (eh, one keyboard's the same as another). She found there were some few things that they all played the exact same way. Her conclusion was that for these few things, they played the same way because there was only one way for the human hand to possibly do it. For the other things, their technique varied drastically. There was no uniformity at all in styles. Her conclusion was that if it works, it is correct.

Thus in your case I suggest that if you feel your fingering method for typing is slowing you down, then try to figure out what exactly is slowing you down and see if you can speed it up. That will be easier than trying to use some arbitrary rules that may or may not make a difference.

This is especially true when we are talking about arbitrary rules taught to beginners, where the teachers are often not experts, and the rules are often formulated to make it easier for beginners to learn, not to make you as fast as possible. Going back to the piano example, beginners are often taught to play with their wrists held high, fingers curved, playing on the finger tips. This is decent advice, but sometimes it's faster and more precise to play with your fingers straight and flat (Horowitz did this on fast black-note passages sometimes).

Actually I can give a ton of examples where the 'rules' weren't necessarily the best, and the people became the greatest in their field by breaking those rules (appropriately), but I'll leave it at, "if it works for you, use it."

Re:Dvorak

[Sir_Lewk]

Speaking from experience, typing qwerty is like riding a bike. No matter how many other vehicles you learn to drive, you never really lose the hang of it.

-1, uncomfortable truth

[langelgjm]

Whether Dvorak is superior in terms of speed or number of errors may be a toss-up, but as someone who first did hunt-and-peck, then learned to touch-type QWERTY, then relearned to touch-type Dvorak, my experience is that Dvorak is definitely more comfortable than QWERTY.

Besides, feelings of smug superiority can't be properly quantified in those studies.

If you're doing almost two words a second...

[The Archon V2.0]

... does technique really matter? I've had three kinds of experiences as far as typing.

School
Teacher: Here's a typing test.
Me: OK. (Types.)
Teacher: Your technique is absolutely horrible, you'll never be able to progress like that. If you're going to take typing you'll have to start in the beginner class and relearn from scratch.
Me: No, thanks.

Clerical job interview
Interviewer: Here's a typing test.
Me: OK. (Types.)
Interviewer: 90 WPM, only one error. You pass.

Technical job interview
Interviewer: You've been using computers since the Commodore 64 days and remember DOS. Yeah, we're not going to bother with a typing test. I'm sure you're fine.

My uncle was a journalist who typed with two fingers his entire career. His editor didn't care if he typed them by slamming his face on the keys, as long as the reports were on time and well-written.

So, unless you need to do something for ergonomic reasons or just a mad fit of self-improvement, probably not worth it. Your ring finger will get over the neglect.:)

Re:Why?

[mrclisdue]

I'm a touch typist, and I can type 150wpm.

Bear in mind that *everyone* greatly embellishes their wpm.

No citation needed, just leave the room and ask a few people...then test them if you really feel it would be necessary.

cheers,

Re:Why?

[oztiks]

I wonder what the avg typing rate is with this ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA

Re:I went the Dvorak route.

[0100010001010011]

I switched after High School. I learned about Dvorak in wandering the Internet (pre Wiki days) and thought it made sense. Even if the "X much faster" claims were biased, leaving the home row and less finger movement sounded good.

After my last project my senior year I figured this was the last time I would ever be able to 'switch' because from here on out it'd be College then Work nonstop.

Printed out a keymap and kept it next to the monitor. Kept up my IRC/AIM chatting. It took 2 weeks to get back to my 'old speed'. And within a month I was up +30 WPM where I eventually settled.

DV Assist is a great tool for Windows users who don't have admin access, I keep it on a thumb drive at all times, plug it in and run and switch. And it's not like you 'forget' QWERTY, it's always printed in front of you.

The worst is passwords.... I really don't "remember" my passwords. So a password: 1234',.paoeu is just the first 3 lines of the keyboard on the left... but when I go to a QWERTY keyboard I have to think it through...

Re:Why?

[Runaway1956]

Yep. I'm a touch typist. In high school, I was tested at 60 wpm, with some number of mistakes that the teacher found acceptable. In real life, I get 35 to 45 wpm, with few mistakes - usually spelling mistakes because I type on the fly. But, then, I've never worked as a typist, and only on rare occasions do I have to produce a document without errors. My skills have been adequate to my needs.

A hunt and peck typist who gets over 100 wpm sounds, like the guy who submitted the question, sounds like a load of crap to me. I've seen people who can type in the neighborhood of 150 wpm, and they DON'T hunt and peck with two or four fingers. They make full use of their fingers, no matter how large or small their hands are.

If I typed 100 wpm, I'd be proud of it, and not try to change anything, LMAO

Re:Why?

[Denihil]

2-3 wpm, depending on how fast you can move your penis and how long/hard you can sustain an erection.

xletters

[knewter]

I had the same problem, and I needed to fix it. I was a transcriptionist and got paid per page, so my typing speed directly impacted my pay. Typing properly will make you type faster, so I learned. You should use xletters. It's what I did. Just play the game for 15 minutes a day and do not allow yourself to use the wrong fingers to type. Done.

Re:Why?

[iamhassi]

My corrected speed is 65wpm according to typingtest.com calculating for speed and deducting for errors. Every job I've applied for has been very impressed with just 65, so I'd be very happy with a corrected 90wpm and I wouldn't bother fixing anything. Like the saying goes, ain't broke don't fix it.

Re:Why?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Bear in mind that *everyone* greatly embellishes their wpm.

I'm old enough to have taken typing in school - on IBM Selectric typewriters, no less - and feel as if I've got a reasonably accurate idea of what 60 wpm looks like. I have heard a lot of computer guys ("self taught" typists) guesstimate they can type 60 or 70 wpm, but when I watch them (not coding, just typing a letter) it's pretty obvious they're lucky if they're touching 30 wpm.

I take issue with the word "embellish" though - I just think they are crappy at estimating.

One thing I do find funny... when I was on a typewriter, I was pretty consistent at around 40-45 wpm (my "final" was about 60 wpm, but I'm almost certain the teacher lost track of time). However I have tested myself on a computer, and find I can easily do 50-60 wpm now because I don't have to worry so much about mistakes.

100WPM My ass. Or, Get off my lawn.

[DoninIN]

WTF? Guys, I can probably type as fast as anyone I know. I used to do 25WPM on an IBM selectric and if it's an online typing test I can probably get in the 60s or low 70s if I've been typing a lot lately. If you can properly type 100WPM you're awesome and need no improvement. Now... If as I suspect you've not been paying terribly close attention to the results of these tests, or you're including some kind of raw speed without factoring in the mistakes.... Or You've found a test that doesn't use the whole keyboard?
Sure maybe you can jam 100WPM if you're picking the content, but really? I mean on one of the reputable typing tutors that does things like make you use the whole keyboard, all the punctuation and type things like "The forge of the marigolds: Lo! Eleven, thirty-comes early| 35# of sheeps-head costs $87 despite your 11% discount."

Probably I'm just old, despite being a long time geek I learned to type simply because it was an easy class to take in high school. (I already knew how, because my handwriting is awful, so I took lessons young) On the one most of you didn't have to learn to hammer hard enough for a big old Royal manual, on the other hand most of you never knew the pure joy that was the action on the IBM selectric. Seriously, we need those for computers, I'll pay a couple of hundred dollars I don't care, that would be amazing.

I type Shenanigans on the OP

[DontScotty]

80 WPM means 6.5 characters per second - bull sh!t.

http://imlocation.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/how-fast-do-people-type/

"Notice that that out of the three thousand four hundred and seventy five applicants, not a single one could manage 120 WPM. And only the top 5% of applicants could manage 70 WPM or higher."

So - this OP is claiming to be in the top 5% of people who work in professional typing jobs?

Someone needs a re-test.

http://tinyurl.com/yb8zf95

Re:Biomechanics

[xaxa]

I am not a doctor.

I recommend Dvorak for the comfort. When people say it's more comfortable they (among other things) mean they don't have to "reach for an O" as often as they would need to with Qwerty.

For your whole post, typed with Qwerty, you reached for something on the top row 342 times. You reached for the bottom row 138 times.
If you'd typed it with Dvorak you'd have used the top row just 159 times and the bottom row just 61 times.

(There are other awkward moves that are reduced by Dvorak. For instance, CR, BE, EX, UN, MY -- top-to-bottom combinations on the same hand -- hardly exist. Something like grep -i '[zxcvb][qwert]' /usr/share/dict/words --only-matching | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n will help make good comparisons.)

Re:Why?

[amRadioHed]

So you're saying you use your ring finger for shift, control and enter? How is it stupider using the pinky which is closer and which requires much less wrist movement to reach with?

Re:Why?

[Trahloc]

Well he forgot to mention he also took woodshop. Didn't do as well there and left his pinkies on the table.

Re:Why?

[Rei]

Back in middle school, we had a typing class on a bunch of apples 2es. I got numbers ranging from 300 to a thousand or so words per minute. Of course, that was because I realized that it counted "words" based on how many spaces you typed, so if you held down the space bar, then backspaced, then held down space again, and so forth, then erased the whole thing and typed in the message you were supposed to type correctly, you'd get a huge score.

Re:Dvorak

[Pete (big-pete)]

switch to azerty. it is similar enough to be really irritating. Then, switch back. Hilarity ensues.

I ,oved to Belgiu, &à yeqrs qgo ) qnd these dqys I hqve no proble, szitching betzeen AZERTY qnd QWERTY in ,y heqd ) in fqct I use QWERTY qt zork qnd AZERTY qt ho,e; qnd szitching betzeen the, is seq,less.

-- Pete.