Fact · Typing and writing speed
14.9words per minute
In a user study of the TwoStick joystick text entry method, entry rates started at 4.3 words per minute and reached 14.9 words per minute after five hours of practice, as reported by Castellucci and MacKenzie in 2008.
Checked against its source on October 17, 2026
In the source's own words
“A user study yielded text entry rates of 4.3 wpm initially, increasing to 14.9 wpm after five hours of practice”
UniGest: Text-entry using three degrees of motion, Steven J. Castellucci and I. Scott MacKenzie, Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), 2008, Related work, paragraph on joystick text entry.
Open the original- What it measures
- The figures come from a 2007 study of a controller method that uses two joysticks to pick a letter zone and then a letter within it. The 2008 paper reports them from the original study, which we did not open.
- What it does not show
- A controller method, not a console keyboard. It shows what practice on a gamepad can reach, not the speed of a typical player. The original study was small and is cited here through a secondary report.