Thread: Do You Touch-Type or Hunt-and-Peck

Originally Posted by Chimensch

Since this is a forum where we communicate by typing, and some of the posts are truly voluminous, I was wondering who touch-types and who hunts-and-pecks. If you touch type, how did you learn?

First formal instruction in elementary school. But I really learned to type over instant messaging with the ladies in early college. Unconventional characters mastered due to a Computer Science degree.

Originally Posted by Rajagra

If you need to practice typing, TypeFaster is great (and free!) It doesn't teach which fingers to use where, but if you already know that, this app will help you build up speed.

For an alternative keyboard layout, try Colemak. It does seem better than Dvorak. If you go to this speed test game, you can watch replays of people who have taken the test, it shows animations of where their fingers had to move. The playback of a Colemak test is a thing of beauty - you can see keystrokes appearing at breakneck speed while the fingers hardly ever move from the home positions. You couldn't get a better illustration of how bad QWERTY is.

(Even the Dvorak playbacks seem hectic compared to Colemak.)

Awww... 59 wpm

X Bit of both.

Depends on the machine. The computer is still eyes-on, while the typewriters I have had have been touch. I think the different levels of the keys helped in the touching. Everything being flat has me kind of discombobulated.

Originally Posted by Rajagra

If you need to practice typing, TypeFaster is great (and free!) It doesn't teach which fingers to use where, but if you already know that, this app will help you build up speed.

For an alternative keyboard layout, try Colemak. It does seem better than Dvorak. If you go to this speed test game, you can watch replays of people who have taken the test, it shows animations of where their fingers had to move. The playback of a Colemak test is a thing of beauty - you can see keystrokes appearing at breakneck speed while the fingers hardly ever move from the home positions. You couldn't get a better illustration of how bad QWERTY is.

(Even the Dvorak playbacks seem hectic compared to Colemak.)

I just pulled in 69. But I don't really give too much merit to those tests. There are words in there that I wouldn't normally use, odd uses of punctuation, single space after periods... I'm still happy with a 69 though.