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?
Yes. I started with QWERTY, then I moved to Dvorak, then I moved to Colemak, and then I finally settled on Workman [1].
References
- Type: Webpage. Title: “Workman Keyboard Layout”. Accessed: 2026-02-23T01:14Z. Location (URI): https://workmanlayout.org/.
Yes, I can touch type. I had a computer class in my year of high school where they taught us all how to do it.
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 taught myself to touch-type with proper form after I built myself a split keyboard with the Dvorak layout (I figured since I’d never learned to properly touch-type with QWERTY it’d be as good an opportunity as any to pick up a better optimised layout). I gotta say, it does feel pretty great being able to type something with my eyes closed, or more practically, qouting stuff from a textbook without having to look at what I’m doing on my laptop.
left side only.
let’s call ot WASD-typing :D
No. And I’ve been programming for the past 20 years.
To be fair, programming is basically the art of making the computer do as much as possible with as little typing as possible.
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
Yes. You have no other choice when you’re blind. I prefer unlabeled keyboards.
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.
I can touch type, but not with proper form. I use a really fast “hunt and peck” method with my two index fingers and my other fingers for specific keys such as backspace, shift, space, ctrl, etc. I can typically type between 70 - 80 wpm with high accuracy.
Thats me, I the ring finger only gets involved if I need to press 2 of ctrl/alt/shift at the same time
I was never good at typing until I got a job programming. Never took a course or anything so I’m definitely not using proper form, but if you use a keyboard enough your fingers learn where the keys are.
A course might help, but like all muscle memory, the trick is to just practice it enough times that you don’t need to think about it anymore.
i touch type qwerty and dvorak. when i was working in a call center i started learning one-handed qwerty touchtyping, too.
No. I depress the keys with telekinesis.
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.
I don’t use all the right fingers but can type 80+ wpm, so you can be plenty efficient with enough practice.
