Fact · Typing and writing speed
The distribution of typing speeds in the online dataset is not bell-shaped; it is slightly positively skewed.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“The distribution is not a normal-form one; it shows slight positive skewness”
Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes, Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018, Section 'Words per minute'.
Open the original (DOI 10.1145/3173574.3174220)- What it measures
- The authors report the mean of 51.56 WPM with a standard deviation of 20.2, and note that the spread is large even among self-selected volunteers.
- What it does not show
- A skewed distribution means that a mean-based label such as average can mislead; percentile thresholds are more reliable for bands.