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Saturday, January 10, 2009

Touch typing update - one year after

It’s been a year now since I switched to the Dvorak keyboard layout and learned to touch-type, so it seemed like a good time to assess progress so far.

I now consistently type between 60 and 70 WPM, depending on the day and the text I need to type. I’m reasonably happy with this, but when I originally switched, I was hoping that I would get up to 80-90WPM within a year. Also, I can’t really touch-type numbers, and I usually need to look at the keyboard to type some of the non alpha-numerical numbers that get used often when developing (e.g. ‘[', ']‘, ‘$’, ‘^’ etc.). Finally, typing still hasn’t really become as automatic as I’d hoped it would; to achieve high speeds, I still need to concentrate on typing, whereas I was hoping that I would have interned the typing to an extent that I didn’t really need to think about it anymore.

So, I think I’m going to start practicing again (in fact, I already started a little over Xmas). I’m kind of hoping to have resolved all of the above by June this year, so that I can finally stop thinking about typing :-)

posted by Nick at 3:20 pm - filed in dvorak  

3 Comments »

  1. Just wanted to say thinks for the Linux tips. I’m a ways behind you, just starting to learn Dvorak and having to use Qwerty still on a daily basis. I’ve been touch-typing Qwerty for 25 years and work in IT, so I don’t really have any chance of switching “cold”.

    Anyway, here is the site I’ve been using to train, hope it helps someone… https://learn.dvorak.nl/

    Comment by Tashlan — October 26, 2009 @ 6:57 pm

  2. Has your Qwerty speed decreased as you improve at Dvorak? I’ve considered giving it a try but I imagine it would be pretty difficult to go between the two.

    Comment by David — October 21, 2010 @ 2:00 pm

  3. @David Hi, I didn’t know how to touch-type before switching over to Dvorak, so it wouldn’t really be a fair comparison. I basically realised I needed to learn how to touch type, and given I had (mild) problems with RSI I thought Dvorak might alleviate (or at least not worsen) the symptoms. I haven’t had any problems with RSI in the past 2 years for what it’s worth.

    Generally speaking, people don’t seem to notice big speed increases when switching from Qwerty to Dvorak, but appreciate the increase in comfort. That would certainly echo my experience.

    Comment by Nick — April 4, 2011 @ 8:11 pm

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