Typing speed hypthesis

[freephoton]

Hey guys, so I have a hypothesis about typing speed. First, my observation:

I played a Custom Text thing recently, but all the words were arranged such that each word needed to be typed entirely with the left hand or right hand in the QWERTY layout. I found it very hard to keep my speed up: I barely managed something in the 70s of WPM. (I usually can hit about 120-130 WPM.) I also noticed that the best result worldwide was about 90 WPM, and I think this test has had at least over 100 people play it.

So, my hypothesis: for those who use 2 hands to type or at least have a set of keys designated to the left hand and a set of keys designated for the right hand, a keyboard layout that increases alternation of hands would lead to faster WPMs.

I also think there is some theoretical support for this. For someone who types keys with four fingers in their left hand like me, I'm now using 4 fingers instead of 8 if I'm typing words that do not alternate. One would expect that this would roughly half my WPM, which is exactly what happened in that Custom Text. Further, the more one alternates, the more time one allows a hand to return to the home row if a finger needed to stretch to reach a key.

I do not think it would be difficult to construct a keyboard that maximizes alternation: put the most commonly used letter in English on the right home row, the second most common on the left home row, and continue to alternate.

With this in mind, I also wonder how QWERTY and other layouts score in terms of maximizing alternation.

Thoughts? Criticisms?

[toddhicks209]

In regard to what you said, your hands should never leave the home row; instead, you should simply slide fingers up or down to hit keys on the top and bottom rows.

[freephoton]

That's what I meant....

[Techieey]

I played a Custom Text thing recently, but all the words were arranged such that each word needed to be typed entirely with the left hand or right hand in the QWERTY layout. I found it very hard to keep my speed up

Can you share the link of that "practice text"?

With this in mind, I also wonder how QWERTY and other layouts score in terms of maximizing alternation.

I don't know about other layouts available, but it seems like a great idea. A child who doesn't know typing will find it easy, but to someone who knows touch typing will take time to learn this new pattern.

[Dvorak_Noob]

Dvorak or Colemak. Pick one, learn in, live it, love it.

[Ayasu]

I hear Colemak is pretty good for this kind of stuff, some guy I know is getting personal bests that are really close to my average, ~150 WPM, in a course of several months and it's really surprising how fast he improved. I use QWERTY but I have some software that I started using a few months ago, WhatPulse, that keeps track of how much I press each button on my keyboard and if I were to switch the layout to Colemak it shows that most of the keys I use end up on the homerow, essentially showing the minimized travel distance/time between keystrokes.
The reason E is pressed so often is because I play a game that requires me to do so, otherwise the values are mostly typing-related.

QWERTY

Colemak