Dug up a more recent study from 2014 about typing speed, with the result of "median gross WPM was 36.3 with a median of 6 errors, giving a median net WPM of 30.4."
Notably this study was on physicians and not professional typists (or programmers), so that probably explains the relatively low score. Also the assessment text they present seems challenging:
“Patient is a 62 y/o female with PMH of HTN, DM, morbid obesity, asthma, renal cell carcinoma s/p right nephrectomy in 2001, CAD s/p PCI with c/o left sided chest pain since 2 days. Patient states that her chest pain is 8/10 in intensity, squeezing in quality (“like someone is sitting on my chest “), radiating to left axilla & has been worsening since 2 days. O/E, Vital signs are stable. Cardiovascular exam is WNL. EKG shows ST segment elevations in lead 2, V3-5. Echo shows EF of 45%, hypokinesis of the left ventricular wall.”
Frankly I think that even the HNers pushing normally 100+ WPM might struggle with that.
Frankly I think that even the HNers pushing normally 100+ WPM might struggle with that.
Yes, that was very difficult. I timed myself with that text -- 102WPM after 3 tries. My usual speed when writing prose, in chat, etc. is in the 140-150 range, with brief bursts over 200. This is because fast typists don't think of each letter as they type it; they write entire words at a time, aided by "muscle memory", so any unfamiliar words or series of symbols causes a return to character-by-character mode. Ask any fast typist to reproduce random strings of characters and their speed drops dramatically. In fact it's easier for me to type a word than think consciously about where each of the keys are and what fingers I used to press them.
I've always wondered what determines the ultimate typing speed of a touch typist. I typically type between 70 to 80 wpm, and have been for decades. I don't think I would have any hope of achieving 100+ wpm.
My experience of going from around 75wpm to an average of 105wpm through the last couple of months is that it simply takes persistent training. Not even intense training, I’ve been doing 10-15 min a day with some days just being just 5min, but almost never skipping a day.
Good places to train in my oppinion are keybr.com and 10fastfingers.com
I'm wondering if there are some fast types' of typists that are less limited by the the problem you describe and somehow developed high typing speed without the speed being linked too much to the exact content.
Indeed. My mother still types faster than I do. She does medical transcription, effectively listening to a physician (Often with a heavy accent) and typing out long reports that look like your snippet for 8 hours.
The field is rapidly automating, though, so at this point she primarily just edits reports (As opposed to writing them fully 10 years ago).
I find the claim that typing at 120 WPM "borders on the physically impossible" very funny.
The study they are quoting is based on data from 1993-1997. While the numbers feel bit low even for that era, I would expect noticeable improvement these days.
The big error rates are less significant than what the author thinks. Backspace was disabled in the test, and I imagine vast majority of the errors would have been corrected on the by the typist had they access to backspace. Of course one might also raise the question how much did the disabling of backspace disrupt the typists flow?
One only need look at sites like Typeracer to see that there's plenty of people doing "the physically impossible" now. The funny thing is, that site has a CAPTCHA for keeping out script cheaters, and I often score much higher on that than the races --- I've achieved 240WPM with 95% accuracy on that, whereas my usual speed is in the 140-150WPM range.
The keyboard has a big effect on speed too --- in the past decade or so, low-travel and low-force keyboards have become significantly more popular because they're less tiring to type on.
120 WPM (at even 5 characters per word) would put you with the very highest actions per minute gamers in the world in terms of APM - and they are just spamming keystrokes and clicks. Now, with both hands on the keyboard you could enter more keystrokes, but you would have to be accurate as well. World record is over 200 wpm, but if you're over 120, you're amongst the fastest. Here's a competitive typist only hitting a little over 120 on some exceptionally difficult text: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GDusA21cEA
Except that each "action" is one click. Whereas a word corresponds to ~5 clicks, assuming 5-letters-per-word average. This means that 120 WPM is analogous to 600 APM.
Yes, but that word is a sequence of actions in muscle memory, so you can't really think of it as being the same as an "action" in the sense of clicking on a unit or issuing a build command. It's like the difference between streaming I/O and synchronous I/O.
You could say the same thing about issuing gaming actions. Selecting a hatchery, then selecting larvae, and then building 3 drones, are all sequences of actions in muscle memory, analogous to typing one word.
> IMO, any errors on a typing test should fail it. Though this is likely somewhat biased from an older software dev.
My IDE will flag my error and offer a correction if I mistype a function or variable name; it'll offer autocompletion options from the first character. It'll warn of syntax errors in real time and provide niceties like syntax highlighting, automatic indentation and automatic bracket closure. Typos do occasionally cause grief even in a modern development environment, but they're a relatively minor issue. I don't think I'd notice the difference if somehow I could reduce my typing error rate by an order of magnitude.
Text-to-speech is horribly cumbersome for code, especially if you're using a language with a profusion of curly braces and semicolons.
Look up tables can sometimes just be a huge array of numbers. 137295.276 vs 137395.276 is the kind of issue I am talking about.
But really any kind of error even if the IDE catches it is still a distraction. As to errors and speech recognition I am more talking about text messages or online posts not code.
I’ve been typing since I was maybe 10 (I’m 46 now). I’m self-taught and do not type properly. My fingers don’t rest on the home row correctly. I reach across with my hands on some keys and so can’t use a split keyboard. When typing English (as opposed to writing code) my error rate is not great so I’m often correcting my errors.
Despite that, I’ve never felt my typing speed slows me down when writing (code or English). I’m sure if my typing were purely mechanical (taking notes, copying), I’d feel different. But when what I’m typing is something that’s being synthesized in my head, I guess I feel that the typing paces my thought.
That said, I should probably try to retrain myself some day to type correctly. Maybe with faster speed and fewer errors I’d realize I’m wrong.
I do recommend you give it a try. I was in a similar situation as you, although I made the conscious decision to teach myself "proper" typing when I was in my mid-20s. I don't think it has made my typing significantly faster -- maybe a little bit faster, with a bit fewer mistakes -- but I really felt the difference in how pleasant typing felt. Reducing my hand movements during typing has probably saved me from early joint / carpal tunnel / whatever problems.
I’ve probably been lucky in that I haven’t had any wrist pain and don’t really find typing uncomfortable but I’ll give it another try. I’ve tried twice before and didn’t stick with it.
It didn't take long, but I really forced myself to do all typing in the "proper" way. I would say two weeks at most, maybe four until it really sank in indefinitely. Obviously this is with a lot of typing, and you do need the luxury to be able to suffer through a few slow days.
Typing "properly" isn't necessarily the best way to type.
Let's number the fingers as follows: pinky is 1, ring is 2, and so on to the thumb, which is 5. In the following, a letter followed by a number means you type that letter with the corresponding numbered finger. If there is a ' after the number, it means right hand, otherwise left hand.
In proper touch typing, the word "unsigned" is: u4' n4' s2 i3' g4 n4' e3 d3
I find this is faster and less stressful: u3' n4' s2 i3' g4 n4' (e2 d3 | e3 d4)
That was what I was probably most likely to do before I learned proper touch typing, and I'll still do it unless I'm purposefully trying to stick to "proper". I say "most likely" because my typing was not fixed. It was more that I had a mental map of the keyboard and where my hands and fingers currently were, and I'd figure out an optimum or near optimum way to type the next word or two given those initial conditions, with no constraint that I end up in any particular position. Repeat for the next couple of words starting from whatever position the prior optimum sequence ended in. So how I typed any particular word would depend on what had come before.
Typing that way probably uses more mental energy--I wasn't consciously aware of it but something in my brain had to be computing all those varying sequences, and that cannot have been free. I know that if I was pulling an all nighter my typing would get sloppier when I was really tired, and if I switched to strict "proper" touch typing I'd do better.
I still use a mix, largely because I'm a big, wide guy using an Apple keyboard. Trying to keep my rest position on home row makes me look like I'm doing a poor impersonation of a T-Rex having a stroke. My comfortable rest position is more along the lines of w1 e2 r3 f4 and 5 just below the space bar, and left actually on the "proper" home keys. (The asymmetry is because my second monitor is on the left, so I tend to be turned toward the left).
My recommendation: learn proper touch typing. It gives you something that won't use extra mental energy and works reasonably well on most keyboards. It gives a base you can always stand on.
Don't force yourself to always use it on all keyboards, though, if you find something else works better for you, especially on the keyboard you use the most.
I've also never found the "standard" fingering to be optimal either, and instead go for "closest finger that's available", which is similar but not exactly the same as "proper typing".
Typing that way probably uses more mental energy
I'm not sure about that, because it happens almost unconsciously; I never have to consciously think about where the keys are or what fingers to use, "it just comes naturally".
Until now I've not thought about my "rest position" either, because unless I'm actually typing something, my right hand is probably on the mouse and my left resting elsewhere. But now that you mention it, when I pause in the middle of typing and look down, my fingers are sitting on the key they last hit. If I prepare my hands like they're about to type something, then my fingers are not resting on any particular keys either --- with the exception of f and j, they're resting somewhere between keys. I think it's all "muscle memory"; it's become so ingrained through practice that whereever my hands are they'll automatically find the right key when I start typing...
I recommend you try it. Even if it’s just for the comfort and ergonomics. You can try the ratatype. It’s a free online course that teaches to type without moving your hands.
Around the mid-90's I got the kids one of the "Famous Person teaches Typing" programs so they could try learning to type. It had a few typing games which they liked, but they didn't get far.
I thought I'd try it out to see if it could improve my typing. It asked my goal WPM, and I guessed high and put in 45, since I'd done abysmally in high school typing (actual electric typewriters... this was around the time that the earth's crust was starting to cool :-).
It then had me take a test to see how fast I could type now, so I'd have a baseline to start with to see how far I'd come... and I was easily able to do 72 WPM!
With respect to the original article, I wonder if this was on typewriters. There's a lot more stress typing there, as a typo is a lot "worse", in that you have to use an eraser, white out, etc.
I imagine that computer keyboards, with the painless backspace, makes things faster.
Does everyone mean the same thing by "wpm"? I almost always score over "125 wpm" on Typeracer.com, and there are plenty of people there who score higher than that. So I suspect there is some inconsistency in the counting between that site and the article. (I don't even consider myself especially fast.)
Keyboard layout matters. I used to type around 80-85 WPM on a standard keyboard with QWERTY layout. A little more than a year ago, I started getting into custom mechanical keyboards and built a split ortho Ergodox and switched to Colemak all in one go, and have had to re-learn how to type. You can see my progress here:
As you see, I'm quite a bit faster now then I was before. Not to mention the added benefit of reduced risk of RSI. It's been an interesting experience to completely rebuild muscle-memory. For the first month or so, I was not very productive, but it was during a not-so-busy period ;) In my opinion, it's a good investment for anyone who types a lot as part of their profession.
I switched to using the Dvorak keyboard layout several years ago and haven’t looked back. Never focused much on typing speed but I feel very well with Dvorak in terms of it reducing the amount of finger movement necessary.
When I switched I bought a TypeMatrix 2030 USB with two skins — one with Dvorak layout printed on it and one that was all black. Used the printed skin for like a week or so before switching to the black skin. Had no idea where almost any keys were but this forced me to learn where the keys were very quickly. Only took about three days from not knowing where any keys were to being able to touch type Dvorak quite well.
After having used the TypeMatrix keyboard and Dvorak layout for many years I finally found a mechanical keyboard that looked very compelling. I read about it a bit and decided to go for it and am very glad I did. The ErgoDox EZ Shine. It’s programmable so I defined a Dvorak-based layout for it that was similar to the layout of the TypeMatrix. One of the best things I ever did was to buy the ErgoDox EZ Shine keyboard, it’s great :D
I switched to Dvorak then Colemak then Carpalx. The most interesting part to me was that switching a keyboard cold turkey seemed to only take about a week of solid use before I got used to it. I think when a lot of people thing of switching keyboards they think "it took me years to get fully comfortable with Qwerty" and it scares them away or causes them to switch back in the first day or two thinking it'll take months.
I also vouch for my hands feeling better after the switch... I can't type in qwerty for extended periods of time without getting cramped but I rarely run into issues with other layouts. To be honest this is probably more important/impactful for me than speed.
Is that due to the layout itself or the fact that you are a) probably spending more time practicing (or at least focusing on improving) and b) unlearning bad habits you may have had when typing QWERTY?
Everybody is different, but there are plenty of people that type faster than 85 WPM with QWERTY.
Also, I'm not saying there's no reason to switch. I can believe some alternative layouts are more comfortable and/or better for your hands (these are far more important than raw speed, anyway). I'm just not convinced on the claims as to the size of improvements.
Either way, I can totally get behind self-improvement.
Oh, I think you're spot-on. I've definitely spent more time consciously practicing typing and I used to have some bad habits when typing QWERTY (e.g. using the wrong shift for certain characters or typing 'Y' with my left hand). In fact, what initially prompted my interest in custom ortho keyboards was trying to rectify some of my bad habits in QWERTY and finding it really painful on my wrists to touch-type the "proper" way using a standard staggered keyboard.
I think the biggest benefit for me has been exactly that - taking a whole new look at a skill I thought I had figured out - Or going beyond what I thought was my limit by approaching it in a new way. I think the numbers and WPM don't really matter, but it's a nice way for me to personally quantify my improvement and progress over time. That said, I think it would've been impossible to for me to do all this without discarding the familiar (QWERTY) and starting from scratch. In that sense, the layout matters.
The same question is answered by my own "study", a typing speed website that has been collecting data since 2008. It uses only simple words to avoid becoming a reading test (or worse, a typing torture test).
Halfway down the page at https://typing-speed-test.aoeu.eu/ there's a histogram of the statistics, built out of 46 million completed tests.
Because of the immense sample size, I've tried to keep the test compatible over time. Based on referrer logs I think the user base is incredibly diverse, although I have no specific statistical data on the participants.
Unfortunately, the database (small SQLite file available on request) is aggregated and I don't have any data on the development of the statistics over time.
The vast majority of people IMO don't need to type very fast. Only people whose sole job is to write(fiction writers, bloggers, etc). For developers there's always intellisense and text expansion anyhow
I can comfortable type for 10 hours straight on average 45 WPM continously (I've tested this already), anything more than that just seems like overkill. The fastest I can type at high accuracy is about 90 WPM, but I can't maintain it for more than an hour. I own a mechanical keyboard on a qwerty layout
But I also used to play competitive starcraft and my APM (actions per minute) would hit roughly 250 to 300, roughly at the same level as top korean players. It becomes incredibly stressful to maintain that level though.
I don't understand how people are typing at 120 WPM or higher with high accuracy though. You could type at 120 WPM in one minute, but what about one hour? 3 hours? 10 hours? What's the average there, etc? What makes you even want to type that fast anyways? I find I can't think and write at 90 WPM all that well, since I'm more focused on writing as opposed to thinking. Maybe 60 WPM if I really want to get something done faster, but not 90 WPM.
"Less than half the population of the world has the manual dexterity to wiggle their fingers at the speed of 50 words per minute or better."
This is so stupid. They are assuming that when you type fast, you push down with one finger, and when you get done you push down with the next, and so on.
But it has long been common knowledge that the key to fast typing is over-lapping keystrokes. That is, you start to push down with one finger, and before it gets all the way down you start pushing down with the next, and so on. The trick for going really fast is how closely you can space the stokes without getting them out of order.
Your comment has reminded me of an office mate from my university days.
Most of us type in an obviously sequential manner and you can almost imagine our fingers being the striking arms of an old, mechanical typewriter, flinging out one at a time to strike a letter. Some go faster or slower, but it seems like the same process at different speeds.
He typed like a line-printer, somehow rolling his hands up and down the keyboard and bashing out what looked and sounded like whole lines of text in a single pulse. It was as if he had a chording system for whole phrases, and his arm and hand movements would almost remind you of a concert pianist's.
Yeah, that is a good way of putting it. I am not as good as that guy, but though my finger speed is at best average, back when I was typing all day I could do about 90 wpm. My mother could do 120.
By the way, with overlapping keystrokes, the big problem with slow fingers is when you have to use the same finger for two strikes in a row.
Same here -- I jumped from about 70 on Qwerty to about 130 on Dvorak. I think it's almost entirely due to the fact that I now type "correctly", rather than anything great about Dvorak. (I don't really recommend switching to other people, but I don't have the motivation to move back.)
I used to type about 120 wpm. I switched to Dvorak, and never fully regained that speed. I can type perhaps 90-100 if I really push it.
However, I saw references to difficulty regaining your full speed after switching if you already typed fast, so I knew that beforehand. I switched for ergonomics, not for speed.
I also type fast enough for my purposes, so I never deliberately trained to regain all of my speed.
Just a minor note, if you already type quickly, the transition can take some speed off unless you actually want to deliberately train to make sure you regain all of your speed.
Having watched plenty of programming videos, I've come to the conclusion that many programmers are terrible at typing. As a terrible typist myself, I take great comfort in this.
I've hit 115 a few times on Typeracer on a mechanical keyboard with light switches, on good runs where I don't make typos. I am far from the fastest typist I know. It's certainly possible to hit 120, depending on how you count WPM. Most people don't think in terms of the "strokes per 10 seconds" definition used in the article. The average word is not 5 letters.
Taking "word" to mean "whitespace-delimited", the average word length in your comment is ~4.35 characters not counting the spaces. With spaces, that would be 5.35, which is pretty close to 5.
I typed at 105wpm when I was 20. QWERTY keyboard, no training, just six fingers, one thumb, youth on my side, and a lot of practice.
If you can deploy 20% more digits, and have an expert on hand during the early stages to give you advice on form and technique, then I'd expect 120wpm to be attainable...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3963776/
Notably this study was on physicians and not professional typists (or programmers), so that probably explains the relatively low score. Also the assessment text they present seems challenging:
“Patient is a 62 y/o female with PMH of HTN, DM, morbid obesity, asthma, renal cell carcinoma s/p right nephrectomy in 2001, CAD s/p PCI with c/o left sided chest pain since 2 days. Patient states that her chest pain is 8/10 in intensity, squeezing in quality (“like someone is sitting on my chest “), radiating to left axilla & has been worsening since 2 days. O/E, Vital signs are stable. Cardiovascular exam is WNL. EKG shows ST segment elevations in lead 2, V3-5. Echo shows EF of 45%, hypokinesis of the left ventricular wall.”
Frankly I think that even the HNers pushing normally 100+ WPM might struggle with that.