Weak Typing — the Lost Art of the Keyboard

mikejuk writes "How do you type? Hunt and peck? Two thumbs? Touch type? Two thumbs touch type? For the first time since the computer was invented, the standard QWERTY keyboard is challenged by new ways of inputing text. And yet even the iPad virtual keyboard has two useless dimples on the F and J keys. Perhaps it isn't time to give up on the home keys just yet."

Comments

Whole lot of nothing?

[artor3]

Is it just me, or is there nothing to the posted article?

A summary seems to be, "Over a hundred years ago, people learned to touch type. This is the best method! Or is it? Yes, it is, you should learn it. Oh, but it doesn't work on phone keyboards. The two thumb method is better for that. You should learn that one too. Yeah, it sucks that you need to learn two ways to type, but whatcha gonna do? Go get some training software and learn to touch type!"

Thanks for letting us know that typing is a useful skill, I guess.

Re:Whole lot of nothing?

[Spigot the Bear]

Thanks for letting us know that typing is a useful skill, I guess.

i wash soneo,e haf yold me thus yeard aho@@@

Re:Whole lot of nothing?

[kayumi]

> Is it just me, or is there nothing to the posted article?

How can you say that. This is a concise and insightful analysis
of the history of
the art and practice of the grandest of all
skills from its birth to its current sad state. It is also a great example of another greatly admired skill of using many words to
hide lack of content. The author lays bare
is deepest feeling and
the innermost workings of his brain (image used without permission from the
makers of Hannibal). We should
applaud the author for his efforts and the powers that be at /. for selecting this article as one being worthy for the attention of
not just a few of us but everyone.

Re:Whole lot of nothing?

[ross.w]

You could always add a bluetooth keyboard if that makes it easier

Re:Whole lot of nothing?

[tomhudson]

No - try reading the first letter of each line of the GP post - It's a Schwarzenegger Letter.

Re:Whole lot of nothing?

[sortius_nod]

You just gotta gets rhythm!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itz2ghPDiEY

Re:Whole lot of nothing?

[tycoex]

Personally I find that using Swype with my index finger decimates my two-thumb typing speed (and ease).

It really comes down to personal opinion though, but if you have trouble using thumbs to type I suggest you check out some of the alternative keyboards such as Swype.

Re:Whole lot of nothing?

[BrokenHalo]

Thanks for letting us know that typing is a useful skill, I guess.

If my first experience with computers had been with anything other than the Burroughs B3700 master console (known as the SPO, for Supervisory Printer Operator) back in the '70s, I might have attempted learning how to to touch-type. As it was, I am convinced that not even God could have done so on that machine, so I acquired a technique using thumbs and two pinkies of both hands which has served me fairly well for over 30 years.

I also used to be pretty damn fast with the old 10-button card punch. But be that as it may, when it comes to typing documents on a modern keyboard, I spend a lot more time considering exactly what I am going to write than I do pushing buttons, so my neanderthal technique is irrelevant.

typing class in school

[innocent_white_lamb]

When I was in high school I learned to type on big manual Underwood typewriters in typing class. I also learned some other skills in that class that seem to be going the way of a lost art, such as how to properly fold a letter to fit into an envelope.

In my opinion, typing class was the most useful class that I took in high school. I learned skills that I use literally every day.

Re:typing class in school

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree. Thought it sucked at the time that I had to learn, but now I can punch out this comment so fast, and accurate, it was totally worth it. And I also learnt other skills such as document formating, document naming conventions, and oh, how to not bash the crap out of keyboard...

Amazes me the things that are clearly important for life that are no longer taught - perhaps it should be a requirement of any degree or certification.

Re:typing class in school

[MightyMartian]

It's pretty pathetic. I learned on manuals and IBM Selectrics (now there was a kick-ass keyboard), and got my speeds up to 90wpm, a perfectly respectable typing speed for a secretary 20 years ago. It just galls me to look at kids nowadays fumble around on keyboards, getting pathetic speeds with horrific accuracy. The first thing my high school typing teacher did was to break the will of hunt-and-peck typists of their spirit, like some sort of office ed. drill sergeant. It paid off, no one in the class was below 50wpm at the end of the term.

Up until the advent of cheap OCR, I was still being handed stuff to type from copy, and could get into that weird tstate where you no longer see words or sentences, but simply characters. Now, of course, I watch people scanning in a few pages and then spending 20 minutes fixing all the spelling mistakes, and thinking "Ah, my, 15 years ago I could have typed that two or three times over."

Re:typing class in school

[epine]

For me, at least, by the time I burst up to 120 wpm, there's not much left of my brain. Somewhere around that speed, it becomes like electronic circuit design once you hit a signalling frequency where you have to take into account transmission line effects. I think the brain has to begin sequencing physical motions in key clusters, like modems that modulate multiple bits per baud. I also think that if your hands don't stay extremely close to home position, just a small amount of sway from side to side is enough to induce typing mistakes at 120 wpm. This is over ten keystrokes per second. You're not making conscious adjustments for every keystroke.

I also learned on a heavy old Underwood. Thing was so heavy, it cost me about a word every time I used the shift key. Never got used to the feel of the Selectric at home and I never wanted to type at my accurate speed, so it was yards of white-out ribbon per page. Typing at my accurate speed on that machine was like driving 30 kph in a school zone; you're so much safer while you survey the evolution of architectural styles from 1890 through to the present.

I don't get this idea that something better will evolve for English language input short of a technology that figures out what you actually meant from your inarticulate gestures and grunts. Composing over the keyboard I get 90% of my plurals, possessives, and possessive plurals right at 90 wpm. There seems to be a lot of people out there whose tick marks are applied by a chef with a nutmeg rasp for plate appearance: just sprinkle them in to a pleasing density.

The real technology is to fix our language.
Hawaiian language

There are only twelve letters in the Hawaiian alphabet, plus the Êokina for the glottal stop, which is considered a consonant.

Steve Jobs is a funny man. He loves fonts, but hates keyboards. Qwghlm is well suited to a 4x4 keypad for typing madly with one hand like an accountant. Would Steve like that?

From having a program fix your inarticulate gestures and grunts to what you actually meant, it's just a short hop to having the program fix what you actually meant to what you everyone else wishes you had actually meant. Our devices will be having witty conversations on our behalf, and we'll be none the wiser, so long as the likes keep pouring in.

Sensationalist crap

[Nimey]

This sort of sensationalism never would have been allowed back when Taco was running things.

Re:Sensationalist crap

[NewWorldDan]

Maybe. But without Taco, you gotta wonder who's gonna post a dupe of it on Tuesday.

Re:Sensationalist crap

[JustOK]

In the Time of Taco, all stories, and verily, all comments, never stank of elderberries. Can we say that for all stories AFTER Taco?

Weak typing?

[Mensa Babe]

The term weak typing means something very specific in computer science, namely a property attributed to the type systems of some programming languages that have either implicit type conversion, ad-hoc polymorphism or both. Using it as the title of this story that has absolutely nothing to do with type systems whatsoever, together with putting it in the "developers" section and tagging it with "programming", is highly misleading as it make us all anticipate a story worth reading which it certainly is not. I can only sympathise with all of the fellow Slashdotters expressing their disappointment. It would be nice if the stories where better titled next time. Thank you.

Re:Weak typing?

[32771]

You could just read http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/ . Slashdot doesn't quite cut it anymore since the great dumbing down of 2008.

I use something other than touch/home keys

[Harald Paulsen]

I never learned touch correctly, but I do type pretty fast without looking by using a weird combination of fingers. I rest my hands in a sort of home-position, but then I use fewer fingers to type. It's what have worked best for me. To describe how I use my fingers would be very weird, but one could say for most of my typing I use 3 fingers on each hand, in addition to right thumb for space and right pinky for enter/return.

When I write code I usually spend more time thinking than typing, so speed haven't really been an issue. I score 60+ WPM and allthough that is a far cry from the 120WPM mentioned in the article it really is fast enough for me.

Re:I'm an outlier

[Tablizer]

Wouldn't that increase the chance of repetitive-motion injuries? All the load goes to just one hand.

Umm. No.

[nashv]

I RTFA. Besides the fact that the author seems capable of writing a 1000 page essay in an attempt to convince the reader that 'grass is green', the article also does not take into account that typewriters have staggered heights rows of keys.

Staggered keys are more suitable for touch typing - the P key is at a higher row than the L key, and this is good, because your little finger can be lifted up high easily to reach the P key. On many modern keyboards though, keys are flat - especially on the chiclet style keyboards most laptops have. This means you have to stretch your fingers far in order to reach some keys while adhering to the touch type system. No matter much you stretch, your pinkie is not going to reach the Backspace key for example, without some odd contortions of your hand. This is just inefficient and awkward.

Of course, the hunt and peck method is slow. The obvious easiest system to work with is what we do intuitively after some time on computers - use all your fingers and whichever finger is closest to hit the required key.

Re:I'm an outlier

[garcia]

You're not holding a drink. You're not kidding most of the people on this website dude. ;-)

Re:I'm an outlier

[SilverHatHacker]

Pretty much the last one.

Some people just can't learn

[MpVpRb]

I have been programming since 1972. Wrote a lot of useful code. Have a solid reputation as a master programmer. Made employers happy enough to pay me well.

But, I can't touch type. I tried to learn, but there is something about my brain that just can't get it. (I also tried and failed to learn how to play the piano.)

I don't view this as a handicap. I spend more time thinking than typing, so my overall productivity isn't affected. Besides..I can type fairly fast with 2-4 fingers.

I learned to type in a Compuserve chat room

[sandytaru]

The typing classes I took in high school really didn't help that much, considering we were using typewriters that were so old the ink was faded out even when we changed in a fresh ribbon - the actual keys had been worn down over time and just didn't strike as crisply as they did 50 years previously when they were installed! It wasn't until around 1996 when my parents signed up for Compuserve and I started hanging around in the Teen Spirit chat room that I learned to touch type and to type fast. Very fast. I also have the valuable skill of being able to read something from paper and type it blindly onto the screen without making too many mistakes, which is true touch typing and definitely a dying art. Unfortunately, chat rooms have been replaced with Facebook, where replying fast and furious is no longer necessary. Kids today are missing out.

The correct spot for the dimples are over the...

[icongorilla]

D and K keys. They are where you place your longest fingers in the home row. Only a moron would put them over F and J (but then that explains the layout of Qwerty). If you don't believe me, go into a pitch black room and try to feel out the home row. First using your index fingers, then using your middle fingers. Once you find the home row with your pointer fingers, it is a lot harder to seat your other fingers because you have to twist your hands to make them touch first.

The only time the dimples on the D and K keys makes sense is when you are staring at the keyboard. But that isn't touch typing now, is it? /end inflammatory dialog

Mandatory IBM Model M zealous fanatism in 3, 2, 1:

[Azure Flash]

Don't you dare call my typing weak. I'm using an original IBM Model M. My typing is so hard, if I did the same on your head I would probably crack your skull and cause lethal injuries. Mining companies call me in when their drill breaks, I type the rock into small chunks while they repair the drill. If I type in the air, it actually causes small shock waves capable of knocking down objects and pushing people back. I nail nails with my nails. I think you get the picture - the picture of a magnificent IBM Model M keyboard, that is.

Typing and Morse code

[meburke]

I believe the problem is that the computer input process doesn't suport efficient, fast input anymore. There is some type of computer psychosis that works against getting any work done. The whole, "type-a-little, stop, use-the-mouse, type-a-little" cycle is, IMO, detrimental to the whole thinking/producing process. The most productive programmers I know are the ones that use emacs or vi the most efficiently and have good typing skills. You can almost see the color changes in their faces when their skills are frustrated by some klutzy IDE. I suspect that the mental skills required to use things like Visual Studio and Eclipse are much different from the skills needed to think through and communicate thoughtful programming.

And that, to me, is the difference. Programming, for example, is a creative process using a high degree of problem-solving. The process of communicating this creativity to the system should not get in the way of purposeful thinking.

As for smartphones and tablets, etc., I have developed a rudimentary Morse code tab for my Windows 7 Tablet (Fujitsu convertible) that allows me to enter text at about 40 wpm through 4 "hot spots" on my touch screen. I just hate the gesture/ thumbpad interface provided by some systems. When it is done it should convert to a Windows 7 smartphone. I can teach Morse code to most people in less than 30 minutes.

FYI:

I learned to type in the early 60's on manual typewriters. My highest speed was around 90+ wpm achieved on an IBM Selectric that the Army had in our data center in Alaska. (Anybody remember that the input device on the IBM System 360 was a Selectric?) I had keypunching skills, teletype skills and tape-punching skills which were all relevant to computer programming and administration over the years. Commercial and military Morse code was transmitted by tape transport at a steady 60 wpm and if the printer was down I could listen and copy on the typewriter.

My skills have dropped drastically due, in the most part, to lack of drill. (I also have a little chronic numbness in my pinky and ring fingers on my left hand.

Also, I started turning off the screen when I was writing articles and stories to discourage my tendency to interrupt the flow of writing by immediately editing my typos and grammar. (I went from producing less than 1000 words per hour to producing about 4000 words per hour on first drafts.) Unfortunately, I developed a bad habit of looking at the keyboard which further deteriorated my touch-typing skills. Six months ago I was typing at an effective rate of 25wpm on my desktop, and less on lmy laptop. Through practice, I'm back up to about 70+wpm.

The keyboard seems to make a difference: I switched back to an IBM PC AT keyboard. It is heavier than hell, has spring-loaded keys and makes quite a bit of noise, but it feels like the old selectric keyboard and immediately increased my typing speed. I'm about to replace it with a Unicomp version that has the extra 2 function keys http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/customizer.html . I've also heard good things about the Cherry keyboards.

there's an inherent speed problem

[alizard]

75 word per minute world record for thumb typing

An experienced typist on a conventional keyboard might be good for 75-90., the world record is 200+. Few of us will ever remotely approach these speeds, this indicates what's physically possible for humans operating human hands. 10 fingers is faster than 8 fingers and two thumbs.

Which is why serious document production is going to be done on conventional keyboards, not virtual or thumb for the foreseeable future. If I have to type a 66 page document (that was a few months ago) I'm using all my fingers on a physical full-size or close to it keyboard.

Re:Dvorak

[Pentium100]

Compatibility.

If you learn to type on Dvorak, even if it is better/faster/etc, if you want to use another PC it most likely has a Qwerty keyboard, so you either have to change the layout (may not always be possible) or use the keyboard as is, probably less efficiently than you would if you had learned to use Qwerty from the start.

If you use a measurement system that is different from anyone else, you will have problems communicating. Now, while the US system is standard in the US (so you can talk to some people without problems), as soon as you want to talk to someone from a different country (which uses metric) someone (maybe both) has to google what the measurements are. If you say that your car goes x mph and does y mpg I have to go to google or wolfram alpha to convert those numbers to km/h and L/100km. Then I will give you some measurements in metric and you will have to convert them. It makes the conversation slower and harder.

Re:Dvorak

[Skreems]

I really like the standard Dvorak setup that comes with Windows and Linux for coding. It's actually more convenient for some common code symbols than QWERTY, and since I spend half my time typing emails or other non-code things it pays off on both sides.

Re: Weak Typing

[tomhudson]

I use languages that support STRONG TYPING, you insensitive clod!

Re: Weak Typing

[Will.Woodhull]

In Perl the typing is context dependent. So it is very fast in the easy parts but then you have to slow down for the hard parts.

Does the speed matter?

[RogerWilco]

I think touch typing is an important skill for those jobs where words/minute matters. But I think that in the world today, 95% of what people do with a computer is limited by how fast they can think, not how fast they can type. it's nice if you can type without having to look at the keyboard, but beyond that, in today's world speed is not a requirement.

Especially the case where there is a (hand)written text that needs to be copied is becoming very rare, which according to the article was the reason that touch typing was invented. Today most information goes from mind to keyboard, and is then copied electronically from then on. Rarely does a written text have to be re-typed. Of course there are some exceptions and some other cases where words/minute is still relevant.