Talk:Touch typing/Archive 1

Modifications section

"In some countries a slightly different system is taught. The left little finger is used for the keys ´ 1 2, the ring finger for 3, the middle – 4, the left index finger is responsible for 5 and 6. On the right side of the keyboard: index – 7 and 8, middle – 9, ring – 0 and the little – all other keys on the right side of the upper row. This modification is important in connection with the ergonomic keyboard, which is split into two parts."

What the heck does this mean? This section is completely unreadable. – 158.38.53.173 (talk) 17:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Words per minute

I am trying to find out what speed of WPM is as fast or faster than handwriting. It's important for my application of word processing in my classroom. Does anyone know? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.114.163.20 (talk • contribs) 22:41, 28 July 2005

See discussion at Talk:Words per minute. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.70.89.241 (talk • contribs) 20:37, 31 August 2006

learning touchtyping

This article describes some steps for how to learn to touchtype, and it pretends to be authoritative... I was taught touchtyping in high school and we did not use the method described here. We learned fff fff fff and then jjj jjj jjj and then fjf fjf jfj... so, I'm not saying that what I learned was better, but there isn't just one way to learn. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.174.107.130 (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Sense of touch?

The article says 'Touch typing is typing using the sense of touch rather than sight to find the keys.' Unless you're actually feeling the keys to find them, you're not using your sense of touch to find the keys. The way that a touch typist finds keys is based on their memory of the position and their spatial awareness.--Jcvamp 22:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

That's partly true, but a typist would typically use their sense of touch to find the keys that they initially put their fingers on or over. Otherwise, you're right and the article needs re-wording.   — Lee J Haywood 22:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I took a stab at rewording it.LxRogue 21:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Modifications

The modified system referred to doesn't seem to make much sense - unless I'm missing something, the right ring finger is left unused? Surely this is not correct. James Montgomerie 19:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, it was my mistake. You can see this in the german Version of this article. Draco flavus 07:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Is the suggested fingering in that KTouch screen shot correct?

The photo on the wikipedia page didn't seem right to me, so I went to the KTouch page, and all the screen shots there were different from what was supposedly a KTouch screen shot on the wikipedia page.

The images on the KTouch page show the number row as:

 left little finger:  ...12
 left ring finger:   3
 left middle finger: 4
 left index finger:  56
 right index finger: 78
 right middle finger: 9
 right ring finger:   0
 right little finger: -...

See: http://ktouch.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frontporsche (talk • contribs) 00:21, 30 July 2007

I too have learnt touchtyping (in the '60s) using left hand for 6 and right hand for 7. The existing chart on Wiki looks wrong to me. 219.78.136.121 (talk) 16:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

There seem to exist at least two versions of finegring. Please see the section Modifications ... in the article. This section was erroneously removed by an anonymous author. I have just restored it. Draco flavus (talk) 08:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank Draco for the restoration, but this still is a bit preposterous. Speaking of modifications, the fingering of the 'Modifications ...' section represents the old school while that of the main article represents 'modifications'. Touch typing was optimised for typewriter keyboards; the early typewriters have no '0' and '1' keys, and the numeric row is 1/2-key offset on top of the qwerty row --hence the old school of touch typing makes perfect sense. Touch typing the 'new' way on such a keyboard forces one to skew his wrists to the left, that is arkward. Keyboards nowadays come with '0' and '1', but as long as they are still arranged the same as old typewriters (numeric row 1/2-key offset on qwerty row), there is no point to promote this 'new school' as the norm. 210.177.142.119 (talk) 09:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I take your explanation. I really don't know, what is the old style what is the new style, how it has been taught 100 years ago. I have learned touch typing in Germany as it is described in Section Modifications. My friend learned touchtyping in USA according to the method described in the main part of the article. There exist "ergonomic" keyboards with the field split between 5 | 6 or 6 | 7 . The US-keyboards, I have seen enforce the touch typing method described in the main article. The few German (ergonomic) keyboards, enforced mainly the method described in the Section Modifications (once I have seen the 5 | 6 keyboard - maybe it was a mistake of the manufacturer). I think Wikipedia should not promote abything. Maybe it is the best idea to describe both methods parallel. Draco flavus (talk) 12:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Touch typing with one hand

Is there an article about typing with one hand here? An shouldn't it be mentioned here also? I thought I saaw a n article about it here long time ago and didn't find anything (was I dreaming?). And thought they might mention it in this article and the Typing article, both article didn't mention anything about it.---Lordthiefx (talk) 15:40, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Non-standard touch-typing?

Should the article make any mention of non-standard touch-typing? The way I and many other non-Americans I know tend to type could legitimately be called "touch typing", because it works the same way, but we hardly use the pinky at all (except for shift/enter). I think the "default" position of the hands is more to the sides and more relaxed that way (no need to use "ergonomic" keyboards). Then again, typing is not taught in most schools in this part of Germany, so it's probably just a natural evolution from typing a lot.

I was never taught any "proper" method but trying out KTouch I reached speeds of 50-60 wpm, so I guess I'm not really "doing it wrong", although the official method could certainly improve my typing speed (though having to forget the positions I use intuitively would not be worth it).

It seems odd that the article and most references I can find only cover the formal system as I'm sure there are many touch-typists who never properly learned the "ten fingers system" as we call it in Germany. Is this a regional bias or are us "natural typists" just freaks of nature? -- — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 02:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Stamina tutor

An edit removed all mention of the method (and the product that can be configured to teach it) as nonsense. IMO it was worthy of removal bcz of non-notability (and it may have been inserted as spam). However, IMO the edit summary was false and abusive, and likely to have unreasonably suppressed interest in reviewing the removing edit. Others may want to further review that edit.
--Jerzy•t 23:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

F & J tactile properties

These never appeared that i ever saw on pre-PC keyboards. My assumption is this:

Typing used to be of two kinds:

1. touch-typing by trained typists (usually professional typist/secretary/receptionists, students, and writers) from a draft (or an address book, in the case of addressing envelopes), and
2. hunt-and-peck, by those needing the formality of typing and lacking access to a trained typist.

Typing from a draft gives little cause for removing both hands from the home keys (returning the carriage and turning a page on the draft take only one hand and are quick) -- only feeding in a new page, erasing an error, or answering the phone, as far as i can recall. When only one hand is removed, the other can be repositioned by feel with very little thought.

Now, there is a much more diverse collection of kinds of use, much of it reflecting function keys, cursor and editing keys, the 17-key "numeric" keypad, mouse manipulation, and external media insertion and removal; occasions to interrupt touch-keying long enuf to make it comfortable to remove the left hand from the keyboard are much more numerous, especially when contrasting modern touch-typists with pre-computer ones. Complete retyping from a draft is rare ("Don't you have a machine-readable copy of the old draft?") and is usually replaced by editing operations that may make cursor manipulation a big part of the operation. IMO, these make repositioning the hands on the keys much more frequent for touch typists, and the key bumps much more valuable.

Of course that is all OR, but maybe someone can find a more credible source (probably in human factors literature) that agrees with me. This would permit material more encyclopedic than our current bald mention that the bumps are there.
--Jerzy•t 00:35, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Non-standard key layouts on PC's inhibit touch-typing

The following edit was removed without comment. While I accept that it is unsupported by citations, and possibly POV, I suggest that it makes a very valid and important point. What do others make of this problem? Perhaps it can be better stated and supported?

Experienced touch typists can experience problems when trying to type on some computer keyboards, especially on laptops, owing to changes in key layout made without regard to the requirements of touch typing. A particularly serious problem arises when an extra key is inserted to the left of Z, so that the shift key is no longer easily reached by the little finger, which constantly hits another character. Touch typing requires the fingers to be arched over the keys so that any finger can move up or down a row without the others leaving the home keys. The little finger on the opposite hand to the character being typed is normally used to operate a shift key, but with the fingers arched it is impossible to move the little finger of the left hand sideways enough to contact the 'new' shortened shift key on the left. Some people keep the fingers flat, moving the hand around to get over this problem, but as this necessitates leaving the home keys it cannot be considered 'real' touch typing. The space bar, which is normally made much shorter in order to accomodate extra keys, can give problems on the left hand side, and the interchanging of CTRL and FN keys, as often happens, is also a problem. Manufacturers of laptops often seem unaware of the existance of a standardised method of typing that relies on fixed key layout. Another problem when touch-typing on laptops is that the right-hand thumb, which should be resting on the space bar most of the time, interferes with the sensitive touch pads, causing the typing to be constantly scrambled. On most laptops the touch pad can be easily disabled (Start - Control panel-Mouse option), but owing to the use of different custom drivers this is not always the case. --Memestream (talk) 12:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Muscle memory vs. sense of touch distinction

Note: This article states that touch typing is know their location through muscle memory, and then goes on to say that it's a particular method. It is possible to type using muscle memory without using the home keys of home row, some definitions of touch typing say that it is typing using the sense of touch and not by using muscle memory, I type using muscle memory but not the sense of touch is this touch typing?. This article needs to make the distinction. — Preceding text originally posted on Touch typing (diff) by 212.22.96.208 (talk⋅contribs) 23:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Broaden scope/rename?

Should we maybe move to broaden the scope of this article slightly and rename it typing technique or something like that? Touch typing is the main technique, of course, but this would allow better use of summary style at typing. Richard001 (talk) 07:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Merge Touch Typing with Home Row

That would be good to integrate them - Home Row has no significance apart from Touch Typing. Paulmnguyen (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Scientific studies

Is there any research to support the idea that this is the best way to type, or what is the best way to teach it? -- Beland (talk) 04:09, 27 October 2009 (UTC)