I’ve recently started trying to improve my typing speed, which has probably been held back by my somewhat unconventional typing style. Formal touch typing was never a part of my education, and while years of computer use eventually led to me being able to type without looking, I’m probably not as efficient as I could be.
Can you touch type - and with proper form? QWERTY, DVORAK or other layout?
I’ve actually leaned that in school, on a fully mechanical typewriter. But i don’t use this skill, as touch type is completely useless for programming.
I was never able to touch type up through middle of high school despite typing papers and taking formal typing courses. Once I got into online PC gaming and also programming I got good at touch typing very fast. Is typing a skill you use daily? Natural practice beats forced if you already have the fundamentals down. QWERTY for me.
Same. I tried really hard to learn it but gave up in frustration. 5ish years with plenty of computer use later I suddenly found myself typing without looking.
Yeah, ever since we learned it in middle school. QWERTZ
QWERTZ
How to tell us you’re German without telling us you’re German 😄
As a Belgian, we have AZERTY as standard, which is so much worse. I wish we could’ve followed the German instead of the French influence keyboard-wise.
Um. What?
I was under the impression QWERTZ was a German thing, seems it covers a much bigger area than that! Apologies!
Oh my god the AZERTY… I naively tried it out for like a week or two and quickly gave up on the idea. The numbers and symbols being the reverse of QWERTY was just way too much of a headache, especially for programming. Unfortunately workplace requires all work computers to have AZERTY so
especially for programming Indeed! I grew up with azerty and still got tired quickly of pressing shift for most of the most basic symbols. Before learning to code, I don’t really remember having issues with azerty.
workplace requires all work computers to have AZERTY
dang that’s tough. Usually they ask me what I’m used to, not sure if I could accept a job offer if it came with azerty 😆
Azerty isn’t even a good layout for French, that’s how bad is it. There’s a new and supposedly improved version of it, but nobody makes keyboards for it
I too live in Belgium and azerty is absolutely the worst, i hace it sometimes at uni. Luckily i grew up using qwertz, later switching to qwerty.
Argh sometimes even, that’s annoying! Luckily the changes are quite limited for non-symbol keys. Still I usually just add the qwerty keyboard layout if not present. This approach costs me the least time.
Qwerty and qwertz are pretty similar, recently even changed to qwerty full time only using qwertz (blind) for special german characters. Before uni we had mandatory school laptops in azerty, and indeed the best method than was to jusr change it in windows and blind type.
One of the most useful things we learned in school 100%
Been touch typing Dvorak for about 25 years, qwerty for about 10 years before that. My hands used to feel tired at the end of the day, when I broke my wrist the occupational nurse suggested Dvorak, so when it healed I taught myself to type Dvorak. Probably a few weeks to learn, six months to get speed. (The advantage of a cushy government job). I can type all day now without problems. If you’re going to spend any significant time at a keyboard, I personally think it’s worth investing the time to learn to type properly, whatever layout you choose to use.
Would you recommend switching to Dvorak for someone who already touch types very fast (80-90 wpm)?
Can you switch between the two easily?
Try typing my username in Dvorak :)
Now I’m trying to figure out what you name spells with the same keys on qwerty vs dvorak
Yep. One of the best investments I ever made tbh. It has paid so many dividends over time.
I can touch type most keys, though probably not with proper form. I have to look at some of the less common keys to find them with my fingers.
My schools did have formal typing classes but I wasn’t exactly a star student. I think my typing speed at it’s fastest was around 60 wpm, though I more commonly float around 40 wpm
Yes with one quirk. I don’t use the right shift, just the left. Not sure why I’ve ended up this way, or if it’s a common variation.
EDIT: looked it up. It’s very common
Yes, QWERTY. My dad made my brother and I use Mavis Beacon as kids (SHOUT OUT TO MAVIS BEACON!!!) and I had keyboarding class in middle school. WPM is 70 to 80 depending on what I’m typing.
Yes. My kids would laugh at me when I worked from home because I would not stop typing when I looked up to answer something they were asking me. I suck on the phone keyboard but good with QUERTY big keyboard. My fingers can talk on those
I do the same with my colleagues. Then again, I’m using the Moergo Glove80 tilted at 50° (3D printed stand), so I can’t see what I’m clicking lol.
I semi-touch type, with three fingers and one thumb, and form that looks like an arthritic hobo. But I still get the job done.
However, I can work a numpad or a ten-key calculator like a pro athlete.
Yup, I can type about 90-100 wpm on a QWERTY keyboard if it’s normal conversational English. Probably half that if it’s something that contains a lot of long technical words. The thing that got me over the hump with getting good at typing was a game called QWERTY Warriors. It was a Flash-based web game that I was playing like 20 years ago, so I don’t know if it’s around anymore, but it was a tower defense game where you had to defeat enemies by typing the word underneath them. It was a pretty painless way to practice touch-typing.
The people responsible for archiving the gold mine that is old flash games are really doing gods work out there!
This is incredible and I thank you for bringing this to my attention
I can touch type QWERTY, but I struggle on laptop keyboards because it’s easy to lose your position.
I have a Glove80 keyboard on my desktop, it’s very easy to stay put since the keyboard is made exactly so your hands are on the home row.
Same problem, I have a Cherry keyboard for the same reason. The old Thinkpads used to have proper keyboards, I don’t get why laptops all have keyboards you basically can’t type on nowadays.
I wish Framework had an option for a mechanical keyboard in there, although I understand that would mess up the whole rest of the design to accommodate it.
Yes, but definitely not proper form, as my left hand rests on WASD+CTRL/Shift+Space.
I’m around 100 wpm, so maybe it doesn’t matter.
While I completely understand people who can’t get to 100 wpm (much like people at 110+ completely understand me), I cannot fathom young adults who cannot touch-type (barring disability, obviously).
QWERTY layout. I was never taught teaching in school because I was part of the “you should already know how to type” 2k schooling. I can also type due to muscle memory ( much more easily on a non-flat keyboard ) but it’s not an efficient typing compared to someone my age from the past who was formally taught touch typing.
Edit:
It also doesn’t help that I usually use just my thumbs, index, and middle fingers to type usually.
