Do you need to learn touch typing?
Touch typing (all ten fingers, home row, no looking) is the classic advice. The research is more nuanced: some of what touch typing teaches matters a lot, and some matters less than you'd think.
Touch typists were not faster on average
In a motion-capture study of 30 everyday typists, touch typists and self-taught typists were equally fast on average (57.8 vs 58.9 wpm), and some people using one or two fingers per hand went above 70 wpm (Feit et al., 2016). In a study of 168,960 typists, people who had taken a typing course were only about 5 wpm faster than those who had not (Dhakal et al., 2018).
What does matter
- Not looking. Self-taught typists spent about 40% of the time looking at the keyboard, touch typists about 20% (Feit et al., 2016). How often students looked at the keys was one of the biggest differences between skilled and less skilled typists (Pinet et al., 2022).
- The same finger for the same key every time. A consistent finger-to-key mapping predicted speed (Feit et al., 2016).
- Getting ready early. Fast typists start moving toward the next key before they need it, and keep their hands fairly still (Feit et al., 2016).
- More fingers, used consistently. Finger count was linked to speed in large studies (Dhakal et al., 2018; Pinet et al., 2022).
So should you learn it?
If you look at the keyboard a lot or use different fingers for the same key, learning a consistent system like touch typing is likely to help in the long run. If you already type without looking and use the same fingers every time, you may gain more from fixing your specific weak keys and errors than from relearning everything.
Expect a dip if you switch. People who learn touch typing often slide back to looking at the keys because it pays off right away (Yechiam et al., 2003).
Find your own weak spots
Boost Type records which keys, letter pairs and habits cost you the most time, then builds short practice around them. Three tests is enough to start.
Questions
Is touch typing faster?
Not automatically. In one study touch typists and self-taught typists were equally fast on average. Not looking at the keyboard and using a consistent finger for each key matter more.
How many fingers should I type with?
More fingers, used consistently, goes with higher speed in large studies, but some two-finger-per-hand typists exceed 70 wpm. Consistency matters most.
Sources
- Feit, A. M., Weir, D., & Oulasvirta, A. (2016). How we type: Movement strategies and performance in everyday typing. CHI '16, 4262-4273. doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858233
- Dhakal, V., Feit, A. M., Kristensson, P. O., & Oulasvirta, A. (2018). Observations on typing from 136 million keystrokes. CHI '18. doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174220
- Pinet, S., Zielinski, C., Alario, F.-X., & Longcamp, M. (2022). Typing expertise in a large student population. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 7, 77. doi.org/10.1186/s41235-022-00424-3
- Yechiam, E., Erev, I., Yehene, V., & Gopher, D. (2003). Melioration and the transition from touch-typing training to everyday use. Human Factors, 45(4), 671-684. yeldad.net.technion.ac.il/files/2016/12/type.pdf