Correcting Poor Typing Technique? 425
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?"
I went the Dvorak route. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm ok with my poor typing technique... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
On the other hand... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
How is this important? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [sense-lang.org] and it seems quite serviceable!
Don't do it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm ok with my poor typing technique... (Score:5, Interesting)
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".
Re:Never been less important (Score:3, Interesting)
Switch to Dvorak, worked for me. (Score:2, Interesting)
Switching to Dvorak worked for me. As a life-long Qwerty hunter and pecker, teaching myself to touch-type on Qwerty was too difficult.
Of course, by doing so you will freak-out other people who try to use your keyboard, but I actually enjoy that. Plus, it's easy to switch back and forth.
Whatever you do, avoid discussing whether or not Dvorak or Qwerty is superior to the other. Dead-end conversation. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/18/210216 [slashdot.org]
If it works, it's correct (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Dvorak (Score:2, Interesting)
how were you rated? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Don't bother. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I went the Dvorak route. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [clabs.org] 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:Use a qwerty touch typing program (Score:3, Interesting)
"Hitting a wall" at 90-100WPM is like driving a car that "only" does 100MPH. Hardly anyone benefits from typing or driving faster than that.
Re:how were you rated? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
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. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Dvorak isn't better (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [dvzine.org]
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't believe the submitter actually does 110 WPM without proper technique, and specially not if his using less than 6 fingers. Because, that's all we use when typing. Few people use the pinkies. The thumbs stay in the space bar.
I learned myself to touch, and I don't follow any particular technique. I use between 5 and 6 fingers + Thumbs in spacebar and left pinky on the shift key.
When I say between 5 and 6, it means I type differently with my left than my right hand.
I barely use the thumb in my left hand. I mostly space with my right hand. I barely use the pinky on my right hand, mostly left pinky, always on shift. I use the 3 remaining fingers on my left hand. I barely use the ring finger on my right hand, mostly for backspace and for semicolon.
I tested myself on typingtest.com and got 73 WPM with the Astronaut test.
Mavis Beacon (Score:4, Interesting)
Mavis Beacon's like Tetris - it's been around since 1987 and ported to every platform that counts. And it can teach Dvorak too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Beacon_Teaches_Typing [wikipedia.org]
Anonymous reader (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can really type 90-110 wpm using improper technique, you are already typing faster than 99.99% of professional typists. I'd call out just about anyone who claims they can type more than 65 wpm or so.
Oh, and there are plenty of places on the web where you can learn proper technique. After that, it's just practice.
Damn, it took me five minutes to type this and I don't care.
Dvorak is a great mind exercise. Nothing more. (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't switch unless you feel interested in learning different and want to try to keep you brain fresh. There is no other reason to go though the aggravation.
Now personally, I find my biggest pet peeve is how the bumps on a PC keyboards are not on the D and K keys like they were on my Mac. When I am typing in a dark room, I want to search for the home row with my longest fingers. It causes horrible wrist strain trying to search with your pointer fingers for F and J. It boggles my mind who come up with that. It definitely wasn't a touch typist.
And then of course there is the minor problem with how laptop keyboards have absolutely no spacing for sections of the keyboard... Oh the woe of being a midnight typist!
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
The original poster probably meant CPM (characters per minute), not WPM. That's a measure some typing software uses, and that sounds much more plausible. Or maybe she's a genius.
Obligatory anecdotal evidence: I type at about 120 CPM with my version of hunt-and-peck (still using all fingers and some motor memory). I tried learning to touch type several times, eventually getting to almost the same speed. However, I figured as a programmer I am too often distracted with special characters and navigation, and also I spend most of my time thinking rather than typing, so touch typing doesn't really help much. Having to learn and switch between two layouts for different languages didn't help, either. So I switched back to my intuitive method, because it is less stressful and more comfortable for me, and it does the job just fine.
So, my 2 cents worth of advice to the OP: don't bother, unless you really have to type a lot of prose every day. You're doing fine already, or even great, if WPM is really what you meant.
Re:Try typeracer.com (Score:3, Interesting)
typeracer is also a great competition for the office workplace. it's great to see how well the "mad chatters" do, because error free gives a higher score. I would like to see less formal paragraphs to type, something that looks like chat between two people.
Re:Dvorak (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Never ever switch to Dvorak because you think it'll make you faster. If it does, it's only because you have poor technique; as another reader comments, your typing speed is more determined by the time it takes you to create the content, than how long it takes you to output it.
Switch to Dvorak to get a much more comfortable typing experience. Trust me on this: Switching from Qwerty to Dvorak probably isn't something you notice as being particularly more comfortable (it always feels "like typing"), but once you're fluent in Dvorak and using it 90% of the time, you really do notice borrowing a Qwerty keyboard.
Notice that I do use Qwerty (and now, Qwertz) keyboards often. I can't properly touchtype with them—I need to keep half an eye on the keys—but I have the same style of technique as when typing, meaning my hands are mostly covering most of the keyboard/kezboard. After I've convinced myself I'm using qwerty/qwertz, which usually takes about two words, a sentence at most, I'm fine. This took some time to develop, my hint is not to be too phased about using the crutch of half an eye. Just don't try reading the keys you can't see, you'll just make something bad even worse.
Dvorak (Score:3, Interesting)
At the end of my college career, I noticed my hands and wrists were getting strained, so I spent my last semester switching to Dvorak, Emacs and the Kinesis Ergo Contoured [kinesis-ergo.com] keyboard from qwerty, vi and the Microsoft Natural keyboard.
There's endless debate about these things, and apparently some questions about Dvorak's research methods. There's also new keyboard layouts that are supposedly about as good as Dvorak without sacrificing usability and faster to learn (I'm talking about the Colemak [colemak.com] specifically). Ultimately it is very hard to make a strong recommendation for any of these switches based on a solid, unarguably scientific basis.
However, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that most people who switch to Dvorak and the Kinesis keyboard experience some combination of reduced hand strain and faster typing. My personal impression is that the Kinesis does more for strain and Dvorak does more for speed and comfort. I personally had reached a plateau in the 75-90 WPM range with qwerty and now I think I'm in the 110-125 WPM range. I don't think Emacs had anything to do with the changes. The control/alt/etc. keys are hit with the thumbs on the Kinesis, and the escape key is still in Siberia, but in practice I don't think either one has any tangible ergonomic charm once you're using Dvorak.
Lately I have noticed that there are some keys which I type strangely. But I was taught on a typewriter and I learned the classical method--I even continue to find use for the caps lock key, a victim of a lot of unnecessary derision in the programming community. I sometimes hit keys that should be hit with the pinky with my ring fingers. I don't think it's worth worrying about too much if you're not looking at the keyboard, it doesn't feel uncomfortable, and it's not slowing you down. The greatest danger, IMO, is discomfort, followed by speed and accuracy problems. Accuracy is the least of my concerns, really. I can usually feel when I've typed something wrong and I correct it often without looking at it.
If you're looking at the keyboard, you would probably benefit from starting over from scratch, and if you're going to do that, it would probably help to switch keyboard layouts at the same time. It'll prevent you from getting more frustrated at the relearning process.
Don't switch to Dvorak. (Score:3, Interesting)
I attempted and actually succeeded at this some years ago.
I was a fast 100+ WPM typist on QWERTY keyboards and, after typing on QWERTY boards for 22 years (started in 7th grade, 1974), I learned to type on a Dvorak board. It was difficult, but finally learned it, could touch type almost as fast as I could on a QWERTY board.
However, that experiment pretty much ended there. Sure, I could use my Dvorak board on my own computer, but refused to lug it to work (or anywhere) where I might need to use a computer that, of course, only had QWERTY boards.
Unfortunately, it's a QWERTY world, and trying to maintain knowing two keyboard layouts by touch, was difficult. Not un-doable, but hard to keep separate when burning up the keyboard typing stuff.