
How Fast Do People Type? (2007) - userbinator
https://imlocation.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/how-fast-do-people-type/
======
zokier
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."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3963776/](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.

~~~
userbinator
_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.

~~~
u801e
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.

~~~
talltimtom
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

------
zokier
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?

~~~
Retric
IMO, any errors on a typing test should fail it. Though this is likely
somewhat biased from an older software dev.

Really though if you can accept errors then speech recognition is much faster.
So, typing is mostly about precision.

~~~
jdietrich
> 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.

~~~
Retric
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.

------
js2
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.

~~~
nhaehnle
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.

~~~
js2
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.

How long did it take you to retrain yourself?

~~~
nhaehnle
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.

------
chris_st
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.

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patsall
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.)

~~~
zokier
The article seems to be using average of 6 characters per word ("120 WPM means
12 strokes a second"), which sounds pretty typical to me

~~~
stan_rogers
Five characters plus a space. It's a long-standing standard measure (it was
_old_ old fifty years ago when I were a wee lad).

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yuhe00
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:

[https://www.keyhero.com/profile/yuhe00/](https://www.keyhero.com/profile/yuhe00/)

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.

~~~
codetrotter
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

My layout: [https://configure.ergodox-
ez.com/keyboard_layouts/qppwjy/edi...](https://configure.ergodox-
ez.com/keyboard_layouts/qppwjy/edit)

~~~
ythn
How do you insert spaces with that layout?

~~~
1123581321
The ⎵ symbol represents spacebar.

~~~
ythn
Ah, it was showing up as a box in my browser

------
Juerd
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/](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.

------
melling
“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.”

Do we figure out how to get people to type faster or cut the Gordian knot and
remove the need to type?

------
Kagerjay
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.

------
woodandsteel
"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.

~~~
saltcured
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.

~~~
woodandsteel
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.

------
miguelrochefort
I used to type at about 45 WPM.

Then I switched to Dvorak, the Kinesis Advantage keyboard, and learned to
touch type.

I now average 90 WPM on Typeracer and peak at around 115 WPM.

~~~
patsall
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.)

------
nhebb
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.

------
patient_zero
here's the site i use to check my speed. (you can use backspace if you want
to). [http://thume.ca/keyzen/](http://thume.ca/keyzen/)

cold, i'm about 55wpm. I am comfortable with this.

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lichenwarp
I'm on colemak and just hit 51wpm, what have I done to myself, somebody help
me!

------
booleandilemma
Do I get to use IntelliSense?

~~~
tazard
Wouldn't that hurt your wpm because you never get to type more than half a
word?

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dandigangi
Well I feel better now. I do about 80-120 words a minute.

------
__s
120wpm involves stenography

~~~
nerdponx
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.

~~~
tomsmeding
> 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.

~~~
nerdponx
Interesting. My only other explanation, then, would be the technical nature of
the typing sample, discussed in another comment thread here.

