Facts

Typing and writing speed: facts and numbers

518 facts, each traced to the exact words of its source.

5 keystrokes per word10FastFingers counts a word as five keystrokes, which it says lets speeds be compared between languages and between tests.10FastFingers, n.d.
72 percent72 percent of the volunteers in the online typing study had taken a typing course.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
3.8 times900 words per minute is about 3.8 times the average adult silent reading rate for non-fiction of 238 words per minute.Calculated from other facts
A 1950s General Services Administration study found that after sufficient training, Dvorak typists matched their previous QWERTY speeds but did not surpass them.J. C. Bowen, MIT personal web page, n.d.
327 words per minuteA 1961 magazine report, quoted in a 2010 Language Log post, says Kennedy was timed in bursts of 327 words per minute, most often when he spoke off a prepared text.Mark Liberman, Language Log, 2010
A 2003 CHI paper found shortcomings in the two error statistics then used in text entry research, the MSD error rate and KSPC.R. William Soukoreff and I. Scott MacKenzie, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2003), pp. 113-120, 2003
A 2009 study found that the way errors are handled significantly changes every frequently used text entry error metric.Ahmed Sabbir Arif and Wolfgang Stuerzlinger, IEEE Toronto International Conference, Science and Technology for Humanity (TIC-STH 2009), 2009
A 2013 Max Planck Society news item headlined its piano research with the claim that pianists play as fast as experienced typists on a QWERTY keyboard.Max Planck Society, 2013
A 2013 survey says keystroke dynamics is inferior for authentication accuracy, because typing rhythm varies with injury, fatigue or distraction.Pin Shen Teh et al., PubMed Central, 2013
A 2013 survey says keystroke dynamics requires none or minimal alteration to user behavior, because background software captures the typing pattern.Pin Shen Teh et al., PubMed Central, 2013
A 2013 survey says user-defined typing is closer to a real-world scenario than fixed text.Pin Shen Teh et al., PubMed Central, 2013
A 2021 replication and meta-analysis concluded that the effect of typing versus writing notes by hand was not statistically significant.Association for Psychological Science, APS Observer, 2021
33 participantsA 2024 laboratory study at Tianjin University had 33 participants type English on keyboards with four common switch types: red, black, brown and blue.Jutao Li et al., Electronics (MDPI), 2024
A 2026 methods paper says the difficulty of the typed text can affect typing performance, adding variability that is unrelated to skill, so typing comparisons need to control for it.Emily A. Williams et al., Behavior Research Methods, 2026
A 2026 methods paper warns that extremely easy or hard text may compress typing speed scores, which makes it harder to tell typists apart.Emily A. Williams et al., Behavior Research Methods, 2026
40 words per minuteA 2026 U.S. Army job announcement requires a qualified typist, defined as 40 words per minute with three or fewer errors.U.S. Department of the Army, USAJOBS, 2026
35 words per minuteA Delhi Development Authority recruitment notice requires English-medium candidates to reach a minimum typing speed of 35 words per minute.Delhi Development Authority, 2024
40 words per minuteA federal announcement defines a qualified typist as someone who can type at least 40 words per minute on a five-minute sample with three or fewer errors.U.S. Office of Personnel Management, USAJOBS, n.d.
40 words per minuteA federal announcement for a GS-3 typist job makes 40 words per minute a selective factor, so candidates below it get no further consideration.U.S. Office of Personnel Management, USAJOBS, n.d.
40 words per minuteA federal Army announcement requires a qualified typist, described as 40 words per minute with three or fewer errors.U.S. Department of the Army, USAJOBS, 2026
0.9 secondsA four-character abbreviation such as sig and a space takes about 0.9 seconds at 51.56 words per minute.Calculated from other facts
500 words per dayA list of writers' daily targets gives Graham Greene's daily target as 500 words.The Novelry, The Novelry, n.d.
2,000 words per dayA list of writers' daily targets gives Stephen King's daily target as 2,000 words.The Novelry, The Novelry, n.d.
238 words per minuteA meta-analysis of 190 studies with 18,573 participants estimates the average silent reading rate for adults in English at 238 words per minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction.Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019
0.46 mean weighted effect sizeA meta-analysis of practice studies found that spaced practice beat massed practice, with a mean weighted effect size of 0.46 in favor of spaced practice.John J. Donovan and David J. Radosevich, Journal of Applied Psychology, 1999
0.79 intraclass correlation (computer typing)A one-sentence typing test was stable across two years, with an intraclass correlation of 0.79 for computer typing speed and 0.63 for smartphone typing speed.Raymond Hernandez and Stefan Schneider, Scientific Reports, 2026
29 years oldA person born in 1997 is about 29 years old in October 2026, the earliest birth year in Pew's Gen Z definition.Calculated from other facts
A stenotype keyboard has far fewer keys than a conventional keyboard, and the writer presses several keys at once.Wikipedia, n.d.
A study of 30 typists of varying styles and expertise found minimal difference in typing speed between touch typists and self-taught hybrid typists.Wikipedia, n.d.
A summary of the Dvorak evidence says later investigation showed the Navy experiments were at best biased and at worst fabricated.J. C. Bowen, MIT personal web page, n.d.
1,700 wordsA ten-minute presentation spoken at 170 words per minute, the lower end of the best-recognized range, needs a script of about 1,700 words of talking.Calculated from other facts
450 wordsA three-minute voice-over read at 150 words per minute needs a script of about 450 words.Calculated from other facts
A typing vendor says employers commonly ask a typing certificate to show the name, test date, test length, gross and net WPM, errors, accuracy, the testing organization and a proctor's signature.TypeQuicker, n.d.
5 minutesA typing vendor says many in-person certificate providers and public agencies use a five-minute typing test, so the test length should be checked before submitting a certificate.TypeQuicker, n.d.
12000 keystrokes per hourA typist at 40 words per minute enters about 12,000 keystrokes per hour at five keystrokes per word.Calculated from other facts
12,000 keystrokes per hourA typist at 40 words per minute produces about 12,000 keystrokes per hour.Calculated from other facts
250 characters per minuteA typist at 50 words per minute enters 250 characters per minute, because one word counts as five characters.Calculated from other facts
10000 keystrokes per hourA Western Australian training module sets the competency for a data entry operator at a minimum keyboard speed of 10,000 keystrokes per hour.Western Australian Department of Training and Workforce Development, Western Australian training system (TPS), 1994
According to its App Store listing, the PS Remote Play app lets you enter text on a PS5 or PS4 using the keyboard on your phone or tablet.PlayStation Mobile Inc., Apple App Store, 2026
According to Wikipedia, chorded writing lets a stenographer spell out whole syllables, words and phrases with a single hand motion.Wikipedia, n.d.
0.237 correlation coefficient (r)Across all participants, autocorrection use had a moderate positive correlation with typing speed (r = 0.237).Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
-0.183 correlation coefficient (r)Across all participants, word prediction use had a small negative correlation with typing speed (r = -0.183).Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
-0.36 correlation with error corrections (r)Across participants, faster typing was negatively correlated with uncorrected errors (r = -0.21) and with error corrections (r = -0.36).Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
0.73 correlation coefficient (r)Across the online typists, the share of keystrokes typed with rollover correlated with typing speed at r = 0.73, a high correlation.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
0.73 correlation coefficient (r)Across the study's typists, the share of keystrokes typed with rollover correlated highly with typing performance, r = 0.73.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
4.6 timesAdults read silently at 238 words per minute, about 4.6 times the 51.56 words per minute average of the large online typing study.Calculated from other facts
After adjusting for demographics, the correlations between typing speed and cognition were weaker but still pointed in the expected direction.Raymond Hernandez and Stefan Schneider, Scientific Reports, 2026
3.0 timesAgainst the 51.56 words per minute average in the 2018 online keyboard study, 153 words per minute is about 3.0 times as fast. The two studies have different participants and tasks, so this is arithmetic, not a measured comparison.Calculated from other facts
AgileFingers recommends the shifted cascade, which places the number 6 under the left hand, for better ergonomics.AgileFingers, AgileFingers, 2017, updated 2025
70 to 100 words per minuteAlphabetic shorthand systems reach a useful speed of 70 to 100 words per minute in a fraction of the time that stenographic systems need.Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, n.d.
15.3 corrections per person per dayAmong the 16 people who used autocorrection in the field study, the median was 15.3 automatic corrections per person per day.Daniel Buschek et al., ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018), 2018
0.81 AUCAnalysis of key hold times during ordinary typing distinguished early Parkinson's disease patients from controls with an AUC of 0.81 in a group of 42 patients and 43 controls.Luca Giancardo et al., Scientific Reports, 2016
250 words per quarter hourAnthony Trollope said his custom was to write with his watch before him and to require 250 words from himself in every quarter of an hour.Anthony Trollope, Project Gutenberg (ebook 5978, from the 1883 text), 1883
Apple gives the iPhone path to manage text replacements as General, then Keyboard, then Text Replacement in the Settings app.Apple Support, n.d.
Apple says that with text replacement, a shortcut becomes a longer phrase or word, and typing the shortcut in a text field replaces it with the chosen text.Apple Support, n.d.
Apple says you can create text replacements on a Mac that automatically replace certain text with other text or symbols, for example (c) with a copyright sign.Apple, Apple Support, 2026
Apple's Mac steps: open Keyboard settings, click Text Replacements, type the text to replace and its replacement, then click Add.Apple Support, Mac User Guide, n.d.
Articulation rate is the number of orthographic syllables a speaker produces per second, excluding pauses.Julie M. Liss et al., Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52(5), 2009
9.0 hours per yearAt 10 uses a day on 250 working days, a 13.0-second saving per use adds up to about 9.0 hours a year.Calculated from other facts
9.1 hours per yearAt 10 uses a day on 250 working days, a 13.0-second saving per use adds up to about 9.1 hours a year.Calculated from other facts
6.5 minutesAt 153 words per minute, 1,000 words take about 6.5 minutes to speak into a recognizer, before any editing.Calculated from other facts
4.7 secondsAt 153 words per minute, 60 characters (12 words of five characters) take about 4.7 seconds to speak on a phone.Calculated from other facts
18.1 hours per yearAt 20 uses a day on 250 working days, a 13.0-second saving per use adds up to about 18.1 hours a year.Calculated from other facts
200 daysAt 30 minutes of practice a day, the 100 hours of retraining reported in the GSA study would take about 200 days.Calculated from other facts
150 characters per minuteAt 30 words per minute, counting five characters to a word, typing produces about 150 characters per minute.Calculated from other facts
1800 words per hourAt 30 words per minute, one hour of continuous typing produces about 1,800 words.Calculated from other facts
19.9 secondsAt 36.2 words per minute, 60 characters (12 words of five characters) take about 19.9 seconds to type on a phone.Calculated from other facts
200 wordsAt 40 words per minute, a five-minute sample is about 200 words.Calculated from other facts
14.0 secondsAt 51.56 words per minute, 60 characters (12 words of five characters) take about 14.0 seconds to type on a keyboard.Calculated from other facts
66.7 milliseconds per wordAt 900 words per minute, each word would have about 67 milliseconds, roughly a quarter to a third of a typical fixation of 200 to 250 milliseconds.Calculated from other facts
1,000 words per hourAt his stated target of 250 words per quarter hour, Trollope's pace works out to 1,000 words per hour.Calculated from other facts
0.9 hours per yearAt one use a day on 250 working days, a 13.0-second saving per use adds up to about 0.9 hours a year.Calculated from other facts
27.6 minutesAt the 36.2 words per minute average of phone typists, 1,000 words take about 27.6 minutes to type.Calculated from other facts
19.4 minutesAt the average online typing speed of 51.56 words per minute, typing 1,000 words takes about 19.4 minutes of pure typing time.Calculated from other facts
16.7 minutesAt the CBSE Hindi criterion of 30 words per minute, a 500-word draft takes about 16.7 minutes to type.Calculated from other facts
67 to 125 minutesAt the earlier reported composition rate of 8 to 15 words per minute with speech software, composing 1,000 words takes about 67 to 125 minutes.Calculated from other facts
At the end of the touch-typing program, keyboarding speed of the typically achieving students decreased, while the speed of students with learning disabilities somewhat increased.Hayley Weigelt Marom and Naomi Weintraub, Research in Developmental Disabilities, vol. 47, pp. 208-217, 2015
43.8 minutesAt the mean copying speed of 22.85 words per minute, copying 1,000 words by hand takes about 43.8 minutes.Calculated from other facts
15,468 keystrokes per hourAt the online average of 51.56 words per minute, a typist enters about 15,468 characters in an hour, counting five characters per word.Calculated from other facts
At the three-month follow-up, both the students with learning disabilities and the students without them were significantly faster than before the program.Hayley Weigelt Marom and Naomi Weintraub, Research in Developmental Disabilities, vol. 47, pp. 208-217, 2015
1936 yearAugust Dvorak and William Dealey patented the Dvorak layout in 1936 as a faster and more ergonomic alternative to QWERTY for typing English.Wikipedia, 2026
30 percentAverage phone typing in the Palin study, 36.2 words per minute, is about 30 percent slower than average desktop typing in the Dhakal study, 51.56 words per minute.Calculated from other facts
1.2 timesAverage silent reading of non-fiction is about 1.2 times as fast as the overall rate of conversational speech.Calculated from other facts
257 words per minuteAveraged over its full length, Eminem's 'Rap God' runs at about 257 words per minute.Calculated from other facts
Barbara Blackburn was recognized for a claimed fast typing speed using the Dvorak keyboard layout.Wikipedia, n.d.
212 words per minuteBarbara Blackburn's peak speed of 212 words per minute, from 1986, was self-claimed and was held for a brief time.Wikipedia, n.d.
Both the original and the replication found that typed notes contained more words and more verbatim overlap with the lecture than handwritten notes.Association for Psychological Science, APS Observer, 2021
500 words per minuteBrysbaert quotes Tinker (1958) as saying that even with easy material, 500 words per minute is very fast reading.Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019
200 to 250 millisecondsBrysbaert reports Seidenberg's rough estimate that fixation durations in reading average around 200 to 250 milliseconds, or 4 to 5 per second.Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019
Brysbaert reports that reading rates are lower for children, older adults, and readers with English as a second language.Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019
150 words per minuteBrysbaert uses 150 words per minute as the speech rate in his argument that the language system can take in about 300 words per minute.Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019
140 to 180 words per minuteBrysbaert writes that audiobooks are spoken at a rate of 140 to 180 words per minute, and that other estimates of speech rate are of similar size.Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019
1,000 words per minuteBrysbaert, summarizing Rayner and colleagues' 2016 review, states that reading rates of more than 1,000 words per minute are impossible without severe loss of text understanding.Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019
70 percentBy letter-frequency analysis, about 70 percent of letter keystrokes on the Dvorak layout fall on the home row, about 22 percent on the top row and 8 percent on the bottom row.Wikipedia, 2026
32 percentBy the same comparison, about 32 percent of typing on QWERTY falls on the home row.Wikipedia, 2026
CBSE calculates accuracy as net words per minute multiplied by 100 and divided by gross words per minute.Central Board of Secondary Education (India), n.d.
CBSE's net words are the correct words typed, so incorrect words earn nothing in the net score.Central Board of Secondary Education (India), n.d.
35 words per minuteCBSE's typing test sets its merit criteria at 35 words per minute for English and 30 words per minute for Hindi.Central Board of Secondary Education (India), n.d.
30 words per minuteCBSE's typing test sets its merit criterion at 30 words per minute for Hindi.Central Board of Secondary Education (India), n.d.
Clifton and colleagues' review of Keith Rayner's 40 years of eye-movement research says that when children read, they make more and longer fixations than adults do.Charles Clifton Jr. et al., Journal of Memory and Language, 2016
4 and 6 clusters (left and right hand)Clustering the finger-to-key patterns of the study's typists found 4 techniques for the left hand and 6 for the right.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
Clustering the keystroke data found that most users can be divided into eight groups of typists that differ in performance and accuracy.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
17 keys movedColemak changes the positions of 17 keys from QWERTY, and keeps the QWERTY positions of most non-letter characters and many popular keyboard shortcuts.Wikipedia, 2026
16 words per minuteCompiled norms show handwriting copying rates of about 5 words per minute in first grade, rising to about 16 by the end of middle school.Montgomery County Public Schools, Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland, n.d.
3.8 timesConversational telephone speech averaged 196 words per minute, about 3.8 times the 51.56 words per minute average of the large online typing study.Calculated from other facts
378 words per minuteConverted from words per second to words per minute, the fastest Guns and Ships verse runs at about 378 words per minute.Calculated from other facts
DIBELS 8 defines the blue benchmark goal as core support with negligible risk, where nearly all students in that range score at or above the 40th percentile on the criterion measure.University of Oregon, University of Oregon, DIBELS, 2026
12 to 20 miles miles of finger travel (estimated)Dvorak estimated that an average typist's fingers travelled 12 to 20 miles on a QWERTY keyboard, and that the same text needed only about one mile on Dvorak.J. C. Bowen, MIT personal web page, n.d.
74 percent fasterDvorak reported that at the end of the Navy study his typists were 74 percent faster on the Dvorak layout than on QWERTY, and 68 percent more accurate.J. C. Bowen, MIT personal web page, n.d.
52 hoursDvorak reported that retraining the Navy typists to the Dvorak layout took an average of 52 hours to bring their Dvorak speed up to their QWERTY speed.J. C. Bowen, MIT personal web page, n.d.
15 sentences per participantEach participant in the 2018 online study transcribed 15 English sentences.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
Earlier research found that success in touch-typing training does not guarantee that people keep touch typing in everyday use.Eldad Yechiam et al., Human Factors, 2003
Economists Liebowitz and Margolis wrote in 1990 that the best-documented experiments and recent ergonomic studies suggest little or no advantage for the Dvorak keyboard.Wikipedia, 2026
1,560 wordsEminem's 'Rap God' contains 1,560 words and runs 6 minutes 4 seconds, which Guinness lists as the most words in a hit single.Guinness World Records, n.d.
characters per second characters per secondEntry speed in text entry research is the total number of characters entered divided by the time taken to enter them, in characters per second.I. Scott MacKenzie, York University, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (author's research note), 2002
eSkill's typing test defines accuracy as the percentage of words typed correctly.eSkill, eSkill Support, n.d.
espanso, an open-source tool on GitHub, describes itself as a privacy-first, cross-platform text expander written in Rust.GitHub (espanso project), 2026
120 milliseconds between keystrokes (fast typists)Fast typists had an average gap of about 120 milliseconds between keystrokes, while slow typists had gaps of over 480 milliseconds.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
8.4 fingers used on average (fast typists)Fast typists used about 8.4 fingers on average, while slow typists used about 5.3.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
0.5 keystrokes per characterFor English, KSPC runs from about 10 for methods that use only cursor keys and a select key to about 0.5 for word prediction.I. Scott MacKenzie, Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices (Mobile HCI 2002), LNCS 2411, Springer, 2002
0.5 to 10 keystrokes per characterFor English, KSPC values across text entry techniques range from about 10, for methods that use only cursor keys and a select key, down to about 0.5, for word prediction techniques.I. Scott MacKenzie, Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices (Mobile HCI 2002), LNCS 2411, Springer, 2002
For participants who do not use augmentative communication, overall text entry speed with SpeakFaster was similar to conventional smart keyboards, while the motor action savings remained substantial.Shanqing Cai et al., Nature Communications, 2024
1.0000 keystrokes per characterFor the basic QWERTY keyboard, MacKenzie's calculation gives a KSPC of 1.0000, because each letter has its own key and each keystroke produces one character.I. Scott MacKenzie, Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices (Mobile HCI 2002), LNCS 2411, Springer, 2002
5 characters per wordFor words per minute, a word is defined as five characters, including spaces and punctuation.I. Scott MacKenzie, York University, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (author's research note), 2002
28 weeksFourteen lessons held every two weeks run for about 28 weeks, roughly six months, from the first lesson to the last.Calculated from other facts
Google's researchers describe Smart Compose as a system that gives real-time suggestions in Gmail to help people write email by reducing repetitive typing.Mia Xu Chen et al., arXiv (presented at KDD 2019), 2019
Guinness removed its typing speed records for electronic and computer keyboards from the 1987 edition onward, citing accuracy concerns.Wikipedia, n.d.
360 words per minuteGuinness World Records lists Mark Kislingbury of Houston at 360 words per minute with 97.23 percent accuracy, set at the NCRA's 2004 summer convention.Guinness World Records, n.d.
Half-QWERTY is a one-handed layout built from all the keys one hand uses on a standard QWERTY keyboard, with the other hand's keys unused or absent.Edgar Matias et al., Human-Computer Interaction, 1996
Hunt and peck can reach good accuracy, but the typist must look away from the keys to see the text, so typing errors may not be noticed immediately.Wikipedia, n.d.
97.7 percentIf 2.3 percent of the characters in the final text are uncorrected errors, the accuracy of that final text is 97.7 percent.Calculated from other facts
4.2 timesIf speech runs at 153 words per minute, it is about 4.2 times the 36.2 words per minute average of phone typists in the 2019 online study. The two studies have different participants and tasks, so this is arithmetic, not a measured comparison.Calculated from other facts
26.7 words per minuteIf the 8,000 norm is read as key depressions per hour, it equals about 27 words per minute at five key depressions per word.Calculated from other facts
4-5 words per minuteIn a 1990 study, fourth grade students with learning disabilities composing by hand averaged 4 to 5 words per minute, well below their copying speed.Montgomery County Public Schools, Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland, n.d.
3 to 4 hours of practiceIn a 1996 experiment with touch typists, one-handed typing speed passed their hunt-and-peck speed after 3 to 4 hours of practice.Edgar Matias et al., Human-Computer Interaction, 1996
In a 2008 study comparing writers with low and high typing skill, the cognitive demands of typing itself were greater for the low-skill group.R. A. Alves et al., International Journal of Psychology, 2008
In a 2009 experiment, cueing skilled typists to attend to the letters of one hand slowed their typing and raised their error rate.Gordon D. Logan and Matthew J. C. Crump, Psychological Science, 2009
1,400 to 1,500 words per dayIn a 2012 interview, the novelist Sebastian Faulks said that his daily output usually settles between 1,400 and 1,500 words.The Spectator, 2012
22.85 words per minuteIn a 2014 study of 300 university students in South Africa, the mean handwriting speed in a short copying task was 22.85 words per minute.Denise Franzsen and Aimee Stewart, South African Journal of Occupational Therapy, 2014
6.3 words per secondIn a 2015 analysis, the fastest verse in the Hamilton song Guns and Ships had 19 words in 3 seconds, which the table lists as 6.3 words per second.FiveThirtyEight, 2015
In a 2015 longitudinal study of 62 children on an online touch typing course, the developmental curves plateaued sooner for the inner loop, the finger movements behind single keystrokes, than for the outer loop, words typed, so the inner loop seemed to need less practice to develop.Maaike van den Bergh et al., Perceptual and Motor Skills, 121(3), 727-745, 2015
In a 2015 writing study of 19 younger adults and 19 older adults, the speed of typing, measured as the time to type each key, was much higher in the younger group.Yoram M. Kalman et al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2015
In a 2016 CHI study of mobile keyboard suggestions, the authors found that the costs of attending to and using suggestions impaired average time performance.Philip Quinn and Shumin Zhai, Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM), 2016
In a 2017 comparison of one-minute samples, speech was significantly faster in TED talks than in university lectures, in syllables per second and in words per minute.Peter Wingrove, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2017
25 words per minuteIn a 2017 master's dissertation, the average typing speed of the gamified group rose from 8 to 25 words per minute by the end of the training, and its accuracy rose from 43 to 93 percent.Silence Chomunorwa, University of Cape Town, Department of Computer Science, 2017
0.98 AUC (area under the ROC curve)In a 2017 study, a machine-learning ensemble using keystroke timing separated early-stage Parkinson's from controls with an AUC of 0.98 across two separate groups of participants.Warwick R. Adams, PLOS ONE, 2017
103 peopleIn a 2017 study, keystroke timing was captured from 103 people, 32 with mild Parkinson's disease and the rest non-Parkinson's controls, while they typed on a computer keyboard.Warwick R. Adams, PLOS ONE, 2017
0.92 AUC (area under the ROC curve)In a 2018 study, a touchscreen-typing method separated early Parkinson's patients from matched controls with an AUC of 0.92, in groups of 18 patients and 15 controls.Dimitrios Iakovakis and Stelios Hadjidimitriou, Scientific Reports, 2018
In a 2019 computational model of expert typing with autocorrect, typists' aversion to typing errors sets a self-imposed limit on their upper bound typing speed.Nikola Banovic et al., MobileHCI 2019, as listed by the authors' lab, 2019
In a 2019 replication of the laptop versus longhand note-taking study, students who took longhand notes did better on factual questions than students who took laptop notes.The Learning Scientists, The Learning Scientists blog, 2019
270 words per minuteIn a 2021 study, listening comprehension was not hindered at 270 words per minute but showed a steep decline at 315 words per minute, with the same participants and matched texts.Victor Kuperman et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2021
In a 2022 mobile text-entry study, speech recognition produced a significant difference in entry speed in words per minute against typing, with a large effect size, and speech was the faster method.Johanna Kneifel et al., TEXT2030: MobileHCI 2022 Workshop on Shaping Text Entry Research in 2030 (ACM), 2022
In a 2022 mobile text-entry study, speech recognition was faster than typing, but the error rate for typing was lower.Johanna Kneifel et al., TEXT2030: MobileHCI 2022 Workshop on Shaping Text Entry Research in 2030 (ACM), 2022
In a 2023 study of fourth-grade students, reading speed was the main underlying ability that predicted keyboarding performance in both copying and dictation tasks.N. Gahshan-Haddad and N. Weintraub, Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 2023
In a 2023 study of high school students, typing or handwriting sentences while learning them gave lower recall than acting the sentences out or listening to them.G. B. W. Söderlund et al., Brain and Behavior, 2023
8 percentIn a 2024 EdWeek Research Center survey, 8 percent of administrators said their school or district taught keyboarding as a standalone class.Education Week, 2024
10,613 adultsIn a 2026 study of 10,613 adults, faster typing speed was generally associated with better cognitive functioning across domains.Raymond Hernandez and Stefan Schneider, Scientific Reports, 2026
153 words per minuteIn a controlled study on an iPhone, English text entered by speech reached 153 words per minute, against 52 words per minute on the built-in keyboard, 2.93 times faster.Sherry Ruan et al., Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2018
15.28 percentIn a controlled study, 14 older adults with no prior gesture typing experience entered text 15.28 percent faster by gesture (swipe) typing than by tap typing.Yu-Hao Lin et al., ASSETS 2018, Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 2018
In a crowd-sourced typing study, keystroke timing correlated with the letter, bigram and trigram frequencies of English text.Lawrence P. Behmer Jr. and Matthew J. C. Crump, Big Data in Cognitive Science (Routledge), chapter 14, 2016
10 words per minuteIn a field study that Palin and colleagues cite, people were almost 10 words per minute faster after practice with a gesture keyboard than with tapping.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
In a keystroke study of writing, the time between key presses differed significantly at commas and at full stops compared with ordinary word boundaries, with the gaps shortest between words and longest at full stops.Susanne Fuchs and Jelena Krivokapić, Frontiers in Psychology, 2016
58.6 percentIn a simulation study of AAC communication, an advanced word prediction system gave a 58.6 percent improvement in communication rate over letter-by-letter entry.Keith Trnka et al., University of Delaware (author copy of the paper), 2008
51.56 words per minuteIn a study of 136 million keystrokes from an online typing test, the average participant typed 51.56 words per minute, with a standard deviation of 20.2.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
78 words per minuteIn a study of 136 million keystrokes from an online typing test, typists faster than 90 percent of participants were those above about 78 words per minute.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
170 to 190 words per minuteIn a study of 200 students who heard one-minute radio news items, recognition of the content was best at 170 to 190 words per minute, with the faster speed paired with lower information density.Emma Rodero, Media Psychology, 2016
69 percentIn a survey by the EdWeek Research Center reported in November 2024, 69 percent of school and district leaders said their school or district teaches keyboarding in some capacity.Education Week, 2024
32.1 words per minuteIn a three-week field study of 30 people typing in their own apps, the mean typing speed was 32.1 words per minute.Daniel Buschek et al., ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018), 2018
In a transcription study, self-taught typists reached performance levels comparable with touch typists, even when they used fewer fingers.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
In a transcription study, self-taught typists who never learned touch typing reached speeds comparable with touch typists, even when using fewer fingers.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
In a two-year study of elementary pupils, both keyboarding approaches improved speed and accuracy, with the structured program giving stronger gains in second to fourth grade.Denise K. Donica et al., The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, vol. 9, no. 3, 2021
14.9 words per minuteIn 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.Steven J. Castellucci and I. Scott MacKenzie, Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), 2008
In an ETS study of eighth-grade students, copy typing was slower and had fewer long pauses than drafting.Fred Steck et al., ETS Research Memorandum RM-18-06, Educational Testing Service, 2018
one-third of the QWERTY learning timeIn an experiment run by Dvorak, 2,700 high school students who took Dvorak typing classes learned the layout in one-third the time it took to learn QWERTY.Wikipedia, 2026
57 percentIn an offline simulation, SpeakFaster, a text entry system built on large language models, saved 57 percent more motor actions than traditional predictive keyboards.Shanqing Cai et al., Nature Communications, 2024
36.2 words per minuteIn an online study of 37,370 volunteers typing on their own phones, the average speed was 36.2 words per minute, with 2.3 percent uncorrected errors.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
17 percentIn conversational telephone speech, about 17 percent of elapsed time carries no speech, by the difference between the overall and net rates.Calculated from other facts
60 words per minuteIn extended testing of Half-QWERTY, average one-handed speeds reached as high as 60 words per minute.Edgar Matias et al., Human-Computer Interaction, 1996
83 percent of two-handed rateIn extended testing of Half-QWERTY, subjects reached an average one-handed rate of 83 percent of their two-handed rate.Edgar Matias et al., Human-Computer Interaction, 1996
In Gears 5, players right-stick click to open the on-screen keyboard for the text-entry box, according to Microsoft's Xbox accessibility guideline 119.Microsoft, Microsoft Learn (Xbox accessibility guidelines), 2026
In hunt and peck typing, the typist presses each key individually, finds each key by sight, and uses only one or two fingers, typically the index fingers.Wikipedia, n.d.
196 words per minuteIn large corpora of conversational telephone speech in English and Chinese, the overall average rate was 196 words per minute, counting all elapsed time.Jiahong Yuan et al., Interspeech 2006, 2006
25.2 words per minuteIn MacKenzie's worked example, a 43-character phrase entered in 20 seconds scores 25.2 words per minute once the timing adjustment is applied.I. Scott MacKenzie, York University, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (author's research note), 2002
1868 yearIn November 1868, Christopher Sholes changed the arrangement of the second half of the alphabet on his prototype typewriter, moving N to Z from right to left.Wikipedia, 2026
In that study, articulation rate was timed only on the speech itself: the time a speaker took to say the target syllables, leaving out pauses and dysfluencies.Julie M. Liss et al., Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52(5), 2009
40 to 70 percent of keystrokesIn the 136 million keystroke study, slow typists used almost no rollover, while most fast typists used rollover on 40 to 70 percent of their keystrokes.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
In the 1984 study, older typists were slower at tapping and reaction tasks but were not slower in speed of typing.Timothy A. Salthouse, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1984
50 percent of two-handed speedIn the 1996 study, subjects reached 50 percent of their two-handed typing speed after about 8 hours of Half-QWERTY practice.Edgar Matias et al., Human-Computer Interaction, 1996
15 errors per minuteIn the 1999 CHI study, fast non-secretarial typists could correct up to 15 errors per minute by keyboard, choosing from an N-best list of recognizer alternatives.Bernhard Suhm et al., Proceedings of CHI 99, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1999
In the 1999 CHI study, users first preferred speech for correcting errors, but with experience they learned to avoid the correction methods that did not work well.Bernhard Suhm et al., Proceedings of CHI 99, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1999
In the 2003 experiment, under a modified reinforcement condition the effect of melioration on touch-typing scores after training decreased.Eldad Yechiam et al., Human Factors, 2003
163 words per minuteIn the 2010 Ultimate Typing Championship final, Sean Wrona typed a standard 574-word text at 163 words per minute, which Wikipedia calls an unofficial world record.Wikipedia, n.d.
In the 2013 tablet study, word prediction further decreased typing speed on a virtual QWERTY keyboard, without improving the error rate.Élvio Rodrigues et al., Eurographics conference proceedings (Eurographics, DOI 10.2312/pt20131347), 2013
In the 2018 online study, WPM was calculated for each typed sentence as the transcribed length in words, divided by the time from the first to the last keypress.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
In the 2018 study, the uncorrected error rate was the Levenshtein edit distance between the presented and transcribed strings, divided by the length of the longer string.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
In the 2022 mobile study, speech recognition needed fewer operations per character on average than typing.Johanna Kneifel et al., TEXT2030: MobileHCI 2022 Workshop on Shaping Text Entry Research in 2030 (ACM), 2022
In the 2022 mobile study, the time participants spent reviewing each phrase before moving on did not differ significantly between speech recognition and typing.Johanna Kneifel et al., TEXT2030: MobileHCI 2022 Workshop on Shaping Text Entry Research in 2030 (ACM), 2022
In the 2024 study, tactile switches performed better than linear switches in typing speed and accuracy, in a pair comparison of blue and red switches.Jutao Li et al., Electronics (MDPI), 2024
74 percentIn the 37,000 volunteer phone study, over 74 percent of people typed with both thumbs, which was significantly faster than typing with one thumb or an index finger.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
52.1 words per minuteIn the CBSE worked example, a candidate who typed 521 words in 10 minutes has a gross speed of 52.1 words per minute.Central Board of Secondary Education (India), n.d.
77 percentIn the CBSE worked example, accuracy is about 77 percent: net speed of 40.1 divided by gross speed of 52.1.Calculated from other facts
35 words per minuteIn the Delhi Development Authority typing test, a candidate whose adjusted speed is below 35 words per minute does not qualify.Delhi Development Authority, 2024
In the ETS study, drafting an essay was characterized by relatively fluent typing and significant backspacing.Fred Steck et al., ETS Research Memorandum RM-18-06, Educational Testing Service, 2018
4.6 postures per personIn the field study, participants used 4.6 different typing postures on average, at least once each.Daniel Buschek et al., ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018), 2018
63 keystrokesIn the field study, people picked a word suggestion on average once every 63 keystrokes.Daniel Buschek et al., ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018), 2018
15.6 words per minuteIn the field study, the participant who picked suggestions most often, once every 11 keystrokes, was also the slowest typist, at 15.6 words per minute.Daniel Buschek et al., ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018), 2018
65 percent femaleIn the full phone sample, 65 percent of participants were female and 31 percent male, and the U.S. subsample was 51 percent female.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
0.003 Cohen's dIn the full phone sample, women averaged 36.0 words per minute and men 36.1, a gap of 0.1 words per minute with a Cohen's d of 0.003.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
In the Giancardo study, participants typed a folk tale on their own computer as they normally would at home, and were free to correct mistakes.Luca Giancardo et al., Scientific Reports, 2016
0.81 AUC for typing, against 0.75 and 0.61 for the tapping testsIn the Giancardo study, the typing measure was comparable to or better than two clinical tapping tests, alternating finger tapping (AUC 0.75) and single key tapping (AUC 0.61).Luca Giancardo et al., Scientific Reports, 2016
100 hoursIn the GSA study by Earle Strong, retraining QWERTY typists to Dvorak until they regained their earlier speed took 100 hours of training, more than the Navy test had claimed.Wikipedia, 2026
35 words per minuteIn the High Court of Jharkhand's Advertisement No. 01/2013 for English and Hindi stenographers, the eligibility criteria set the Hindi stenographer's typing speed at 35 words per minute, alongside 70 words per minute in shorthand, with 10 percent permissible mistakes.High Court of Jharkhand, Ranchi, 2013
25 words per minuteIn the High Court of Jharkhand's Advertisement No. 03/Admn. Misc., 2013, with a closing date of 22 February 2014, the eligibility criteria set the Hindi stenographer's typing speed at 25 words per minute, alongside 60 words per minute in shorthand.High Court of Jharkhand, Ranchi, 2014
In the IUI 2020 study, image captions written with predictive text suggestions were shorter than captions written without them.Kenneth C. Arnold et al., Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI '20), ACM, 2020
In the Japanese text input speed certification, candidates type the given question text exactly as written within the time limit, so the test measures copying rather than composing.日本情報処理検定協会 (Japan Information Processing Certification Association), 2026
1 character deducted per mistakeIn the Japanese text input speed certification, every mistake reduces the score by one character, at every level.日本情報処理検定協会 (Japan Information Processing Certification Association), 2026
0.45 standard deviationsIn the Noy and Zhang working paper, average evaluator grades for the treatment group rose by 0.45 standard deviations.Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang, MIT Economics working paper, 2023
37 percentIn the Noy and Zhang working paper, time taken on the second writing task fell by 10 minutes, or 37 percent, for the group with ChatGPT.Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang, MIT Economics working paper, 2023
In the office study, typing speed and accuracy both declined later in the working day.Marlon de Jong et al., PLoS ONE, 2020
In the office study, workers kept their typing speed up in the morning and, as a result, made more errors to correct.Marlon de Jong et al., PLoS ONE, 2020
40 to 70 percent of keystrokesIn the online dataset of 168,000 typists, slow typists used almost no rollover, while most fast typists used rollover for 40 to 70 percent of their keystrokes.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
52.7 percent femaleIn the online keyboard study, 52.7 percent of volunteers were female and 41.5 percent were male.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
20.2 words per minuteIn the online study, typing speed varied widely, with a standard deviation of 20.2 words per minute around the 51.56 mean.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
2.4 standard deviationsIn the online typing study, 100 words per minute is about 2.4 standard deviations above the average typist.Calculated from other facts
1.1 standard deviationsIn the online typing study, 30 words per minute is about 1.1 standard deviations below the average typist.Calculated from other facts
0.08 standard deviationsIn the online typing study, 50 words per minute is about 0.08 standard deviations below the average typist.Calculated from other facts
0.4 standard deviationsIn the online typing study, 60 words per minute is about 0.4 standard deviations above the average typist.Calculated from other facts
1.4 standard deviationsIn the online typing study, 80 words per minute is about 1.4 standard deviations above the average typist.Calculated from other facts
15 sentencesIn the Palin study, each participant's task was to transcribe 15 English sentences, shown one after another.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
In the Palin study, gesture typing and word prediction were both linked with fewer keystrokes per character.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
37.8 words per minuteIn the Palin study, native English users were the fastest group, at 37.8 words per minute, and people who never type in English were the slowest, at 25.6.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
In the Palin study, participants first read and memorized each sentence, then typed it as quickly and accurately as possible.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
37.7 words per minuteIn the Palin study, participants who reported using two fingers averaged 37.7 words per minute, significantly faster than the 29.2 of those who used only one finger.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
43.4 words per minuteIn the Palin study, participants who used autocorrection averaged 43.4 words per minute, faster than all other participants.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
35.7 words per minuteIn the Palin study, people who had taken a touch typing course for desktop keyboards averaged 35.7 words per minute on phones, slightly slower than the 36.4 of those who had not.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
32.2 words per minuteIn the Palin study, people who reported gesture (swipe) typing averaged 32.2 words per minute overall, against 34.8 for people who used no intelligent text entry feature.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
32.8 words per minuteIn the Palin study, people who reported word prediction alone averaged 32.8 words per minute, against 34.8 for people who used no intelligent text entry feature.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
In the patent's sample dictation test, pressing the push-to-talk button starts the counter or clock that times the user's dictation.Brian Marquette et al., United States Patent and Trademark Office (US 8,639,512 B2), 2014
13.22 words per minuteIn the phone study, average typing speed was 36.17 words per minute, with a standard deviation of 13.22 words per minute.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
In the phone study, people aged 10 to 19 typed fastest, although they spent less time on their phones than people aged 20 to 39.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
In the phone study, people using auto-correction typed faster, while people who manually chose words suggested by the keyboard typed slower.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
55.8 percentIn the randomized GitHub Copilot experiment, the treated group completed the task 55.8 percent faster than the control group.Sida Peng et al., arXiv preprint, 2023
50 to 90 words correct per minuteIn the report's summary of the research, Grade 2 students begin the school year reading about 50 words correct per minute and improve to about 90 by the end of the year.Gerald Tindal, Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon, 2017
1.63 words per minuteIn the results section of the blind-user study, average typing speed was 1.87 words per minute without word prediction and 1.63 with it.Mrim M. Alnfiai and Muhammad Ashad Kabir, arXiv preprint (later journal article), 2024
In the same 2008 study, low typing skill had a detrimental effect on the quality of the text the writers produced.R. A. Alves et al., International Journal of Psychology, 2008
just under 200 words per minuteIn the same 2015 analysis, the fastest tracks of the Hamilton score run just under 200 words per minute, while the five slowest run from 64 to 80 words per minute.FiveThirtyEight, 2015
70 percent of time spent on actual typingIn the same 2015 study, older adults spent about 70 percent of their time on actual typing, while younger adults spent about half of their time typing.Yoram M. Kalman et al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2015
15 words per minuteIn the same 2017 dissertation, the average typing speed of the control group rose from 8.3 to 15 words per minute, and its accuracy rose from 44 to 70 percent.Silence Chomunorwa, University of Cape Town, Department of Computer Science, 2017
In the same 2019 replication, longhand and laptop note-takers did not differ on conceptual questions.The Learning Scientists, The Learning Scientists blog, 2019
In the same 2024 study, turning on the keyboard backlight improved typing speed, refreshing feeling and pleasure.Jutao Li et al., Electronics (MDPI), 2024
40.1 words per minuteIn the same CBSE example, net speed is 40.1 words per minute, because only 401 of the 521 words typed were correct.Central Board of Secondary Education (India), n.d.
74 percentIn the same EdWeek Research Center survey, 74 percent of leaders in more affluent systems reported keyboarding instruction in grades K-2, against 51 percent of leaders in less affluent systems.Education Week, 2024
84 percentIn the same EdWeek Research Center survey, 84 percent of school and district leaders said their school or district teaches keyboarding in grades 3 to 5.Education Week, 2024
74.5 percentIn the same field study, the most popular typing posture was two thumbs, at 74.5 percent of each person's typing.Daniel Buschek et al., ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018), 2018
26 words per minuteIn the same online study, the slowest 10 percent of typists were those below about 26 words per minute.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
170 to 190 words per minuteIn the same study, listeners rated the 170 and 190 words per minute versions of the radio news as normal and easy to understand.Emma Rodero, Media Psychology, 2016
123 words per minuteIn the same study, Mandarin Chinese entered by speech reached 123 words per minute, against 43 words per minute with the Pinyin keyboard, 2.87 times faster.Sherry Ruan et al., Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2018
In the same study, more assertive suggestions reduced the number of keyboard actions needed to enter text and were subjectively preferred by participants.Philip Quinn and Shumin Zhai, Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM), 2016
65.63 words per minuteIn the same study, nonstandard typists averaged 65.63 words per minute.Gordon D. Logan et al., Association for Psychological Science, summary of Logan, Ulrich and Lindsey (2016) in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2016
58.93 words per minuteIn the same task, typists who had not learned touch typing entered text at an average of 58.93 words per minute.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
5.7 percent word error rateIn the simulated touchscreen study, combining a spatial model with a language model reduced word error rate from a 38.4 percent baseline to 5.7 percent.Andrew Fowler et al., Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2015
1.1 words per minuteIn the study, the average speed of untrained typists was about 1.1 words per minute higher than that of touch typists.Calculated from other facts
43 percent of participantsIn the survey, 43 percent of the study's 30 participants said they had learned and used touch typing.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
In the touch typing system, every finger is assigned to one or two columns of the keyboard.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
57.8 words per minuteIn the transcription task, touch typists entered text at an average of 57.8 words per minute.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
In the two-year elementary keyboarding study, one group used free web-based activities in the first year and the structured program in the second.Denise K. Donica et al., The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, vol. 9, no. 3, 2021
39.0 words per minuteIn the U.S. subsample of the phone study, participants aged 20 to 29 averaged 39.0 words per minute, slightly above the 38.0 for ages 10 to 19.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
0.22 Cohen's dIn the U.S. subsample of the phone study, the men and women difference in typing speed had a Cohen's d of 0.22, which the authors treat as a small effect.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
37.4 words per minuteIn the U.S. subsample, men averaged 37.4 words per minute on phones.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
In the U.S. subsample, the speed difference between autocorrection users and people who typed normally was not statistically significant.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
34.6 words per minuteIn the U.S. subsample, women averaged 34.6 words per minute on phones.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
79.99 words per minuteIn the Vanderbilt study, standard (touch) typists averaged 79.99 words per minute.Gordon D. Logan et al., Association for Psychological Science, summary of Logan, Ulrich and Lindsey (2016) in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2016
14.4 words per minuteIn the Vanderbilt study, standard (touch) typists averaged about 14.4 words per minute more than nonstandard typists.Calculated from other facts
In three studies, students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand.Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, Psychological Science, 2014
In touch typing each key is assigned to one finger, and each finger has a home position in the middle row to which it returns after pressing a key.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
In touch typing, all fingers rest on their home positions in the middle row and move only up or down toward their keys, so the hands stay in one position.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
50 words per minute (net corrected)Irvine Unified School District's Admin Assistant I posting requires candidates to type at a net corrected speed of 50 words per minute.EdJoin, for Irvine Unified School District, 2026
ISO/IEC 9995 is a standard series that defines layout principles for computer keyboards, and provides the base for national and industry standards that define the actual layouts.Wikipedia, 2026
2 to 4 yearsIt typically takes two to four years to learn the basic skills of a stenographic court reporter, according to Wikipedia.Wikipedia, n.d.
Joyce and Gupta's 1990 abstract describes the stream of latency periods between keystrokes as a unique digital signature.Rick Joyce and Gopal Gupta, Communications of the ACM, 1990
Keybr automatically generates lessons that focus on the learner's weakest keys.GitHub (aradzie/keybr.com), n.d.
KSPC is the average number of keystrokes needed to produce each character of text with a given text entry technique.I. Scott MacKenzie, Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices (Mobile HCI 2002), LNCS 2411, Springer, 2002
KSPC is the number of keystrokes a text entry technique needs, on average, to generate one character of text in a given language.I. Scott MacKenzie, Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices (Mobile HCI 2002), LNCS 2411, Springer, 2002
Learning touch typing can be stressful for the fingers and the mind at the start, but once learned it puts minimal stress on the fingers.Wikipedia, n.d.
60 to 90 words per minuteLiveChat, a vendor of live chat software, says live chat agents need to type 60 to 90 words per minute with minimal errors.LiveChat, LiveChat, n.d.
Many hunt-and-peck typists have the keyboard layout memorized and can type while keeping their eyes on the screen.Wikipedia, n.d.
Many websites and software programs teach touch typing, and most of them are free.Wikipedia, n.d.
360 words per minuteMark Kislingbury set a Guinness World Record in 2004 by writing 360 words per minute on a stenotype with 97.23 percent accuracy.Guinness World Records, Guinness World Records, 2004
111 to 291 words per minuteMeasured over elapsed time, the speaking rate of individual conversations ranges from 111 to 291 words per minute.Jiahong Yuan et al., Interspeech 2006, 2006
MedlinePlus says doctors usually diagnose Parkinson's disease from medical history and a neurological examination.National Library of Medicine, MedlinePlus, 2024
MedlinePlus says there is no single test for Parkinson's disease.National Library of Medicine, MedlinePlus, 2024
36 words per minuteMen and women typed at about the same speed on phones, about 36 words per minute each, in the full sample.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
Microsoft's list of Windows keyboard layouts includes Arabic (101), with keyboard identifier 00000401, introduced before Windows XP.Microsoft Learn (Globalization), n.d.
5 characters per wordMonkeytype computes speed by dividing the characters typed by five and by the test length in minutes, so one word counts as five characters.GitHub (monkeytypegame/monkeytype), main branch, n.d.
Monkeytype describes itself as a typing test that shows real-time feedback on typos, speed and accuracy while you type.GitHub (monkeytypegame/monkeytype), n.d.
Monkeytype's accuracy percentage is the number of correct inputs divided by all inputs, multiplied by 100.GitHub (monkeytypegame/monkeytype), main branch, n.d.
Monkeytype's missed-word practice sorts the words you missed by how often you missed them, and keeps only the top of that list.GitHub (monkeytypegame/monkeytype), main branch, n.d.
Monkeytype's pace caret can be set to a custom speed, which the code reads from a separate pace caret speed setting.GitHub (monkeytypegame/monkeytype), main branch, n.d.
Monkeytype's stop-on-error setting can be turned off, or set to word or letter.GitHub (monkeytypegame/monkeytype), main branch, n.d.
Most typists in the study performed at least a small share of their keystrokes with rollover.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
37.8 words per minuteNative speakers of English were the fastest group by English experience, with a mean of 37.8 words per minute on phones.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
370 words in one minuteNCRA reported that Mark Kislingbury broke his own record in March 2022 by writing 370 words in one minute at 95.4 percent accuracy.Journal of Court Reporting, National Court Reporters Association, 2022
8,000 or 10,000 keystrokes per hourNumeric entry speed on the keypad is measured in keystrokes per hour (KPH), and many data entry jobs require a certain KPH, often 8,000 or 10,000.Wikipedia, n.d.
O*NET defines the work of word processors and typists as typing letters, reports, forms or other material from a rough draft, corrected copy, or voice recording.U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, O*NET OnLine, 2026
O*NET lists locating and correcting data entry errors, or reporting them to supervisors, as the first of nine core tasks for data entry keyers, ranked by importance.U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, O*NET OnLine, 2026
43.98 words per minuteOn phones, 75 percent of participants typed below 43.98 words per minute, and the mean was 36.17.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
592 participantsOne group in the two-year elementary study used the structured program in both years and had 592 participants.Denise K. Donica et al., The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, vol. 9, no. 3, 2021
300 keystrokes per hour for each WPMOne word per minute is 300 keystrokes per hour when a word is five keystrokes.Calculated from other facts
OPM publishes no qualification standard for the federal Clerk-Typist series 0322, so the agency that posts the job sets the typing threshold.U.S. Office of Personnel Management, U.S. Office of Personnel Management, n.d.
Oral reading fluency (ORF) was generally defined as the number of words a reader gets right in one minute of reading aloud.Gerald Tindal, Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon, 2017
82 percentOver 82 percent of phone typists in the study typed with two thumbs.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
39.6 words per minuteParticipants aged 10 to 19 typed the fastest of all age groups on phones, with a mean of 39.6 words per minute.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
36.5 words per minuteParticipants aged 20 to 29 averaged 36.5 words per minute on phones.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
32.2 words per minuteParticipants aged 30 to 39 averaged 32.2 words per minute on phones.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
28.9 words per minuteParticipants aged 40 to 49 averaged 28.9 words per minute on phones.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
26.3 words per minuteParticipants aged 50 to 59 averaged 26.3 words per minute on phones, the lowest of the age groups in Table 4.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
24.3 words per minuteParticipants under 10 years old were the slowest age group on phones, with a mean of 24.3 words per minute.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
25.6 words per minuteParticipants who never type in English were the slowest group by English experience, with a mean of 25.6 words per minute on phones.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
1997 birth yearPew Research Center says anyone born from 1997 onward is part of the new generation that became known as Generation Z.Michael Dimock, Pew Research Center, 2019
80 words per minutePianoText, a text-entry mapping for piano keyboards, reached an achievable rate of over 80 words per minute in two transcription studies.Anna Maria Feit and Antti Oulasvirta, Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (ACM), 2014
Plover runs on Windows, Linux and Mac, according to the project's repository page.Open Steno Project, n.d.
200 words per minutePlover, a desktop application for stenography, says it lets users write at speeds up to 200 words per minute and beyond.Open Steno Project, n.d.
Popular Science reported in 2021 that Keybr is available online for free, supported by ads, with optional registration.Popular Science, 2021
Ratatype says a person gets its typing certificate by registering on the site and then passing its typing test.Ratatype, n.d.
10 to 15 minutes per dayRatatype, a typing tutor company, says daily training sessions of 10 to 15 minutes can significantly improve touch typing skills.Ratatype, Ratatype, undated
8 to 10 percentRatatype, a typing tutor company, says that its typing games can improve typing speed by 8 to 10 percent, based on data it has collected.Ratatype, Ratatype, undated
Ratatype's touch typing tips say not to look at the keys and to slide the fingers around until they find the home row marking.Ratatype, Ratatype, undated
Ratatype's touch typing tips say the shift key is always pressed by the pinky of the hand opposite to the one that types the other key.Ratatype, Ratatype, undated
Ratatype's touch typing tips say to hit keys only with the fingers that have been reserved for them.Ratatype, Ratatype, undated
Ratatype's touch typing tips say to press the space bar with the thumb of whichever hand is more convenient.Ratatype, Ratatype, undated
Rayner and colleagues conclude that claims of reading at super speed with good comprehension are overstated and not in line with research on language processing.Keith Rayner et al., Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2016
13.0 secondsReplacing a 60-character sign-off with a four-character abbreviation saves about 13.0 seconds per use at a keyboard speed of 51.56 words per minute.Calculated from other facts
Salthouse's 1984 study suggests that older typists kept their typing speed because they were more sensitive to characters farther ahead in the text than younger typists.Timothy A. Salthouse, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1984
3 to 7 charactersSalthouse's 1986 review puts the eye-hand span of average to excellent typists at three to seven characters, meaning how far the eyes run ahead of the key being pressed.Timothy A. Salthouse, Psychological Bulletin, 1986
Salthouse's 1986 review reports that the eye-hand span is larger as typists become more skilled.Timothy A. Salthouse, Psychological Bulletin, 1986
655 words per minuteSean Shannon's Guinness record recitation of the 260-word Hamlet soliloquy ran at 655 words per minute.Rachel Swatman, Guinness World Records, 2018
3.3 timesShannon's 655 words per minute is about 3.3 times the overall conversational speaking rate of 196 words per minute.Calculated from other facts
Slow typists left significantly more errors uncorrected than fast typists, which the authors suggest may mean they detect their own mistakes less well.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
4 times longer (at least)Slow typists' average gap between keystrokes was at least about four times the fast typists' gap, since slow typists averaged over 480 milliseconds and fast typists about 120.Calculated from other facts
Some historians reject the explanation that Densmore's letter-pair study shaped QWERTY, and attribute the letter groupings to feedback from American Morse telegraph operators.Wikipedia, 2026
Sony's PS5 keyboard page says to check the instructions for each device, and that not all devices work with the console.Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation Support, 2026
Sony's PS5 support page says that connecting a USB or Bluetooth keyboard to the console is a faster way to enter text.Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation Support, 2026
1.30% uncorrected error rate with speechSpeech produced fewer errors during entry than the phone keyboard (5.30% vs 11.22% corrected error rate) but left slightly more errors in the final text (1.30% vs 0.79% uncorrected error rate).Sherry Ruan et al., Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2018
5.6 percentSquared, the autocorrection correlation of 0.237 means autocorrection use accounts for about 5.6 percent of the variation in typing speed between people.Calculated from other facts
94 percent accuracyStandard typists were about 94 percent accurate in the Vanderbilt study, against about 83 percent for nonstandard typists.Gordon D. Logan et al., Association for Psychological Science, summary of Logan, Ulrich and Lindsey (2016) in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2016
95 percent accuracyStudents in the touch-typing program kept accuracy above 95 percent.Hayley Weigelt Marom and Naomi Weintraub, Research in Developmental Disabilities, vol. 47, pp. 208-217, 2015
100 words per minuteTeeline is the shorthand system recommended by the National Council for the Training of Journalists, which requires 100 words per minute for certification.Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, n.d.
33.3 words per minuteThe 10,000 keystrokes per hour benchmark equals about 33 words per minute at five keystrokes per word.Calculated from other facts
1 minuteThe 10FastFingers test runs for one minute and reports WPM, accuracy, and the number of correct and wrong keystrokes.10FastFingers, n.d.
10 per group typistsThe 1956 General Services Administration study by Earle Strong used a sample of ten people in each group, and found Dvorak no more efficient than QWERTY.Wikipedia, 2026
The 2003 error framework analyzes the presented text, the keystrokes and the transcribed text together.R. William Soukoreff and I. Scott MacKenzie, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2003), pp. 113-120, 2003
22 studentsThe 2003 experiment gave 22 students a touch-typing course followed by a period of typing their own homework, using a modified reward for looking at the screen.Eldad Yechiam et al., Human Factors, 2003
The 2003 study describes visually guided typing as a strategy in which the typist looks at the keys to locate their position, and treats it as a choice that touch-typing training can fail to replace.Eldad Yechiam et al., Human Factors, 2003
The 2003 study says that in typing, melioration is an intuitive tendency to pick strategies that give a better immediate performance than touch typing does.Eldad Yechiam et al., Human Factors, 2003
The 2013 tablet study concluded that a virtual QWERTY keyboard without visual changes was the fastest method for text entry among the ones it tested.Élvio Rodrigues et al., Eurographics conference proceedings (Eurographics, DOI 10.2312/pt20131347), 2013
20 young adultsThe 2013 tablet study tested its virtual keyboards with twenty young adults.Élvio Rodrigues et al., Eurographics conference proceedings (Eurographics, DOI 10.2312/pt20131347), 2013
26 and 36 words per minuteThe 2014 study's introduction reports that copying a sentence gives about 26 words per minute when people write neatly and 36 words per minute when they write as fast as possible.Denise Franzsen and Aimee Stewart, South African Journal of Occupational Therapy, 2014
30 participantsThe 2016 motion-capture study recruited 30 participants, 17 of them female, aged 20 to 55.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
The 2017 dissertation reports that the gamified group showed more interest in the training and spent more time on computers than the control group, and that the extra engagement went with better typing speed and accuracy.Silence Chomunorwa, University of Cape Town, Department of Computer Science, 2017
The 2017 dissertation's participants were grade 11 learners from a single township school in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.Silence Chomunorwa, University of Cape Town, Department of Computer Science, 2017
15 minutesThe 2017 SSC instructions allow 15 minutes for the data entry test for Data Entry Operator posts.Staff Selection Commission, Staff Selection Commission (copy hosted by sscer.org), 2019
The 2017 SSC instructions describe the data entry skill test as a qualifying test only.Staff Selection Commission, Staff Selection Commission (copy hosted by sscer.org), 2019
8000 key depressionsThe 2017 SSC instructions give a data entry norm of approximately 8,000 key depressions for Tax Assistant posts.Staff Selection Commission, Staff Selection Commission (copy hosted by sscer.org), 2019
5 characters per wordThe 2018 online typing study defines one word as any five characters when it computes words per minute.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
3 sessionsThe 2024 Arabic typing study reports that the mnemonic approach let students reach proficiency within three sessions.Nur Hanifansyah, Lisanan Arabiya: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa Arab, 2024
30 studentsThe 2024 Arabic typing study used 30 students from one university, chosen on their willingness to take part.Nur Hanifansyah, Lisanan Arabiya: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa Arab, 2024
The 2026 panel study measured typing against cognitive tests, including two labelled fluid intelligence: Number Series and Verbal Analogies.Raymond Hernandez and Stefan Schneider, Scientific Reports, 2026
1.5 timesThe 225 words per minute testimony standard is 1.5 times the upper end of normal speaking speed, which is 150 words per minute.Calculated from other facts
4.4 timesThe 225 words per minute testimony standard is about 4.4 times the 51.56 words per minute average in an online typing test.Calculated from other facts
60 characters per minuteThe 2nd level of the Japanese text input speed certification requires a net speed of about 60 characters per minute over the 10-minute test.Calculated from other facts
7.0 timesThe 360 words per minute steno record is about seven times the 51.56 words per minute average in a large online typing test.Calculated from other facts
138 words per minuteThe 6,507-word speech Kennedy gave to the National Association of Manufacturers would have an overall rate of about 138 words per minute if it took the full 47 minutes reported.Mark Liberman, Language Log, 2010
1.5 times the averageThe 78 WPM threshold for the top tenth of typists is about 1.5 times the online average of 51.56 WPM.Calculated from other facts
The Aalto researchers say an important goal for typing is to stop looking at your fingers.Aalto University, Aalto University, 2018
1982 yearThe American National Standards Institute designated the Dvorak keyboard as an alternative standard keyboard layout in 1982.Wikipedia, 2026
225 words per minuteThe Auburn University Outreach court reporting certificate lists building speed to 225 words per minute as one of the skills students learn, alongside steno theory and computer-aided transcription software.Auburn University Outreach (Office of Professional and Continuing Education), n.d.
1 yearThe Auburn University Outreach court reporting certificate says some students have completed their training in a year, but others take 18 months, two years or longer.Auburn University Outreach (Office of Professional and Continuing Education), n.d.
The authors attribute the advantage of two-thumb typing to frequent switching between the sides of the screen, which allows preparatory movements that shorten the gaps between keystrokes.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
15 words per minuteThe authors compare their phone data with desktop data gathered by the same method, and find average mobile typing about 15 words per minute slower.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
The authors conclude that, despite recent improvements, common ASR services lack reliability in accuracy.Korbinian Kuhn et al., arXiv (cs.CL), preprint, 2024
The authors found that untrained typists can be as fast as trained typists, although trained typists are faster on average.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
The authors hypothesize that substitution errors are common when typists are less consistent and have a poor mental picture of where their fingers are.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
The authors of the 1996 Half-QWERTY paper say their results are important for giving access to disabled users.Edgar Matias et al., Human-Computer Interaction, 1996
The authors of the 2008 AAC study state that the amount of benefit from word prediction depends in a complex way on the accuracy of the predictions.Keith Trnka et al., University of Delaware (author copy of the paper), 2008
The authors report that existing approaches for improving automatic speech recognition still fail to match trained CART captioners.Liang-Yuan Wu et al., ASSETS 2024, work-in-progress paper, 2024
The authors say the rate their piano layout reached parallels the rates of expert QWERTY typists.Anna Maria Feit and Antti Oulasvirta, Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (ACM), 2014
The authors state that CART captioning accuracy can considerably decline, which affects how well deaf and hard of hearing people follow the content.Liang-Yuan Wu et al., ASSETS 2024, work-in-progress paper, 2024
The authors state that text entry on touch devices is slower and more error-prone than on a traditional computer keyboard.Élvio Rodrigues et al., Eurographics conference proceedings (Eurographics, DOI 10.2312/pt20131347), 2013
The authors write that touch typing can be learned quickly but needs deliberate training of hundreds of hours to reach the performance rates reported in the literature.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
2.3 times fasterThe average online typing speed is about 2.3 times the mean handwriting copying speed of university students in one 2014 study.Calculated from other facts
33.6 percentThe average phone typing speed for ages 50 to 59 is about 33.6 percent lower than the average for ages 10 to 19.Calculated from other facts
238 words per minuteThe average silent reading rate for adults in English is 238 words per minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction.Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019
The AZERTY layout differs from QWERTY by swapping the A and Q keys, and the Z and W keys.Wikipedia, 2026
The blind-user study defines words per minute by counting five characters as one word, which is the convention used for typing speeds in this guide.Mrim M. Alnfiai and Muhammad Ashad Kabir, arXiv preprint (later journal article), 2024
The blind-user study found that word prediction did not enhance typing accuracy and increased both physical and temporal workload, compared with the default keyboard.Mrim M. Alnfiai and Muhammad Ashad Kabir, arXiv preprint (later journal article), 2024
51 peopleThe Carnegie Mellon keystroke benchmark collected timings from 51 people, each typing a password 400 times.Kevin S. Killourhy and Roy A. Maxion, Carnegie Mellon University, Dependable Systems Laboratory, 2009
The Carnegie Mellon keystroke study released its data and evaluation method, so other researchers can compare detectors on the same dataset.Kevin S. Killourhy and Roy A. Maxion, Carnegie Mellon University, Dependable Systems Laboratory, 2009
The Colemak community site says Colemak is now the third most popular keyboard layout for touch typing in English, after QWERTY and Dvorak.Colemak community, 2026
2006 yearThe Colemak community site says the Colemak layout was introduced in 2006.Colemak community, 2026
74 percentThe Colemak layout places 74 percent of typing on the home row, according to its own figures.Wikipedia, 2026
102 percent more finger movement than ColemakThe Colemak project says QWERTY needs 102 percent more finger movement than Colemak, and Dvorak about 10 percent more.Colemak project, n.d.
The Common Core grade 4 writing standard expects students to have enough keyboarding skill to type at least one page in a single sitting.National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010
The corrected method in the 2016 Feit study sums the time between keystrokes, leaves out breaks between sentences, and divides by the number of transcribed words.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
168000 participantsThe Dhakal and colleagues study analysed typing data from over 168,000 volunteer participants.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
0.72 skewnessThe distribution of phone typing speeds has a skewness of 0.72, a positive skew, so the tail on the fast side is longer.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
The distribution of typing speeds in the online dataset is not bell-shaped; it is slightly positively skewed.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
The Dvorak layout's designers claim that keeping more strokes on the home row means fewer finger movements, allowing a typist to type faster, more accurately and with less strain on the hand and fingers.Wikipedia, 2026
The economists Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis have noted that rigorous studies are inconclusive as to whether alternative keyboard layouts offer any real benefits.Wikipedia, 2026
The eSkill typing test calculates net words per minute by multiplying gross words per minute by accuracy.eSkill, eSkill Support, n.d.
463 studentsThe ETS study compared the writing of 463 eighth-grade students under three conditions.Fred Steck et al., ETS Research Memorandum RM-18-06, Educational Testing Service, 2018
The F and J keys have tactile markers, or key locator bumps, that let a typist find them by feel without looking at the keyboard.Wikipedia, n.d.
80 words per minuteThe fastest phone typists in the study reached over 80 words per minute.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
120 words per minuteThe fastest typists in the online study reached 120 words per minute or more.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
120 words per minuteThe fastest typists in the online typing dataset of about 168,000 volunteers reached 120 words per minute or more.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
51 participantsThe gaze study compared eye gaze with the typed character for 51 participants as they typed.Alexandra Papoutsaki et al., Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA 2018), 2018
170 words per minuteThe Guinness Book of World Records listed Barbara Blackburn as able to attain 170 words per minute in its 1976 to 1986 editions.Wikipedia, n.d.
5 minutesThe Iowa typing score is taken from a five-minute timed test that reports gross words typed and errors.State of Iowa Department of Administrative Services, State of Iowa, n.d.
The IUI 2020 authors found that suggestions boosted text entry speed, but with diminishing benefit for faster typists.Kenneth C. Arnold et al., Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI '20), ACM, 2020
1,506 participantsThe Jakesch et al. 2023 study was an online experiment with 1,506 participants who wrote a post about whether social media is good for society.Maurice Jakesch et al., Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM), 2023
The keyboard study compares its measures by fast versus slow typists and by trained versus untrained typists.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
The keybr.com project is released under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3.0, so its code is open source.GitHub (aradzie/keybr.com), n.d.
The largest difference between fast and slow typists was in substitution error rate, where a wrong character replaces the intended one.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
The LICENSE file in the main branch of Plover's repository is the GNU General Public License, version 2.Open Steno Project, n.d.
The Lin et al. study found that one main reason gesture typing was faster for older adults is that they entered whole words in gesture typing, while they often fixed individual letters during tap typing.Yu-Hao Lin et al., ASSETS 2018, Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 2018
The motion capture study found three predictors of high performance: a letter is always pressed by the same finger, upcoming keystrokes are actively prepared, and hand movement is kept small.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
168,960 participantsThe online typing study analyzed 136,857,600 keystrokes from 168,960 participants, most of whom finished all 15 sentences.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
0.513 skewnessThe online typing study reports a skewness of 0.513 for its words per minute distribution, a positive skew with a longer tail of faster typists.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
The online typing test's users were mainly younger people from the US who wanted to test and improve their typing, so the sample is not representative of all typists.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
3.8 timesThe overall conversational speaking rate is about 3.8 times the keyboard typing average from the online study. The figures come from different samples.Calculated from other facts
96.5 words per minuteThe overall speaking rate of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address was 96.5 words per minute, the second slowest of the inaugural addresses in the past 60 years.Mark Liberman, Language Log, 2010
The paired test in the blind-user study found no significant difference between the typing speeds of the two keyboards.Mrim M. Alnfiai and Muhammad Ashad Kabir, arXiv preprint (later journal article), 2024
The patent says a dictation system may accept macros that enhance effective words per minute, because one short spoken phrase can produce a longer text.Brian Marquette et al., United States Patent and Trademark Office (US 8,639,512 B2), 2014
The patent says dictation words per minute may be adjusted for errors, or errors may be reported as a separate metric.Brian Marquette et al., United States Patent and Trademark Office (US 8,639,512 B2), 2014
70 percentThe phone study reports that with only one or two fingers people type about 70 percent as fast on mobile devices as on full desktop keyboards.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
0.2 percentThe phone study's age analysis excluded 0.2 percent of participants, who were older than 60.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
September 2018 to January 2019The phone typing study's data were collected between September 2018 and January 2019.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
The QMK firmware documentation says Plover with arpeggiation needs no changes to the keyboard and is supported on any other QWERTY keyboard.QMK Firmware documentation, n.d.
The QMK firmware documentation says that if a keyboard supports NKRO in hardware and NKRO is enabled as a USB endpoint, you can chord with the keyboard when using Plover.QMK Firmware documentation, n.d.
The QWERTY article reports that some studies on keyboard layout have suggested that, for a skilled typist, layout is largely irrelevant.Wikipedia, 2026
1874 yearThe QWERTY design is based on the layout of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter, which E. Remington and Sons sold from 1874.Wikipedia, 2026
The QWERTZ layout is widely used in German-speaking Europe.Wikipedia, 2026
350 words per minuteThe record for fast writing in Pitman shorthand is 350 words per minute, set in a two-minute test by Nathan Behrin in 1922.Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, n.d.
The same DIBELS 8 table sets the core-support minimum for oral reading fluency at 131, 159 and 159 words correct per minute in fourth grade, 139, 149 and 157 in fifth, 151, 157 and 160 in sixth, 152, 161 and 164 in seventh, and 142, 156 and 159 in eighth, at the beginning, middle and end of the year.University of Oregon, University of Oregon, DIBELS, 2026
183 words per minuteThe same meta-analysis, using 77 studies and 5,965 participants, finds an average oral reading rate of 183 words per minute.Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019
The sample was people interested in testing and developing their typing skills, so it is not a random sample of the population.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
4.6 timesThe silent reading rate for non-fiction is about 4.6 times the keyboard typing average from the online study. The figures come from different samples.Calculated from other facts
5 charactersThe speed in words per minute on the How We Type test counts one word as five characters long.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
1 point deducted per errorThe State of Iowa asks for net words per minute, calculated with one point deducted for each error.State of Iowa Department of Administrative Services, State of Iowa, n.d.
6 monthsThe State of Iowa requires a typing score to be signed and dated within the last six months by an authorized person.State of Iowa Department of Administrative Services, State of Iowa, n.d.
The statutory computing programme of study for England asks Key Stage 1 pupils to use technology purposefully to create, organise, store, manipulate and retrieve digital content.Department for Education, GOV.UK, 2013
22 keysThe stenotype machine has 22 keys, and its printed steno paper has one column for each key.Wikipedia, n.d.
The study concluded that the structured keyboarding program gave stronger outcomes when used over two consecutive years, especially from first grade to fourth grade.Denise K. Donica et al., The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, vol. 9, no. 3, 2021
The study found significantly lower quality for streaming speech recognition, the kind used for live events.Korbinian Kuhn et al., arXiv (cs.CL), preprint, 2024
The study found that letter pairs typed by different hands or fingers predict typing speed better than letter repetitions do.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
44 students with learning disabilitiesThe study included 44 students with developmental learning disabilities and 30 students without them.Hayley Weigelt Marom and Naomi Weintraub, Research in Developmental Disabilities, vol. 47, pp. 208-217, 2015
11 ASR servicesThe study measured eleven common automatic speech recognition services on recordings of university lectures.Korbinian Kuhn et al., arXiv (cs.CL), preprint, 2024
The study's lead researcher says the rollover strategy is possible only for highly practiced letter combinations, and only when performance does not depend on visual attention.Aalto University, Aalto University, 2018
The study's lead researchers say that slower typists make more errors and take a long time to find and correct them, which holds back their speed.Aalto University, Aalto University, 2018
14 bi-weekly touch-typing lessonsThe study's touch-typing program had 14 lessons held every two weeks, using software that logged the time and accuracy of each key.Hayley Weigelt Marom and Naomi Weintraub, Research in Developmental Disabilities, vol. 47, pp. 208-217, 2015
9.6 to 10.2 percent equal error rateThe three top-performing of 14 keystroke-dynamics detectors reached equal error rates between 9.6 and 10.2 percent on that benchmark.Kevin S. Killourhy and Roy A. Maxion, Carnegie Mellon University, Dependable Systems Laboratory, 2009
The typingtest.me site says some employers may require a proctored or vendor-issued typing certificate, not a free self-generated one.Mahadi Hassan, typingtest.me, 2025
The typingtest.me site says the free certificate it generates is not proctored and has no external verification link.Mahadi Hassan, typingtest.me, 2025
19 to 72 years oldThe typists in the 1984 study ranged in age from 19 to 72 years old, and in speed from 17 to 104 net words per minute.Timothy A. Salthouse, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1984
14 typistsThe U.S. Navy selected fourteen typists for a 1944 study of whether retraining them to the Dvorak layout was feasible.J. C. Bowen, MIT personal web page, n.d.
1475 participantsThe U.S. subsample used for the matched comparison had 1,475 participants.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
The University of Oregon's DIBELS 8 benchmark goals set the core-support minimum for oral reading fluency at 35, 57 and 76 words correct per minute in first grade, 85, 117 and 128 in second grade, and 105, 141 and 136 in third grade, at the beginning, middle and end of the year.University of Oregon, University of Oregon, DIBELS, 2026
The US Common Core grade 3 writing standard asks students, with guidance from adults, to use technology to produce and publish writing using keyboarding skills.National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010
The Vanderbilt researchers concluded that nonstandard typists could type almost as quickly and accurately as touch typists, provided they could see the keyboard.Gordon D. Logan et al., Association for Psychological Science, summary of Logan, Ulrich and Lindsey (2016) in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2016
24 typists per groupThe Vanderbilt study recruited one group of 24 standard typists and a group of 24 nonstandard typists.Gordon D. Logan et al., Association for Psychological Science, summary of Logan, Ulrich and Lindsey (2016) in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2016
24.5 yearsThe volunteers in the online typing study had a mean age of 24.5 years, with 75 percent aged 11 to 30.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
The Wikipedia article on Barbara Blackburn says her records were removed from the 1986 edition of the Guinness book.Wikipedia, n.d.
Tindal's 2017 review says grade 4 students begin the fall reading just under 100 words correct per minute and improve to about 120, a gain of less than one word per week.Gerald Tindal, Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon, 2017
12 times characters per secondTo convert characters per second into words per minute, multiply by 60 seconds per minute and divide by 5 characters per word, which is the same as multiplying by 12.I. Scott MacKenzie, York University, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (author's research note), 2002
1,000 characters in 10 minutesTo earn the 1st level of the Japanese text input speed certification, a candidate must type at least 1,000 net characters within the 10-minute test.日本情報処理検定協会 (Japan Information Processing Certification Association), 2026
600 characters in 10 minutesTo earn the 2nd level of the Japanese text input speed certification, a candidate must type at least 600 net characters within the 10-minute test.日本情報処理検定協会 (Japan Information Processing Certification Association), 2026
Touch typing originates from the 1890s and is the technique taught in typing classes.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
Touch typists keep their gaze on the line of text on screen, while non-touch typists look down at the keys just before each press.Alexandra Papoutsaki et al., Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA 2018), 2018
Touch typists practice finger movements so that they can enter text without looking at the keyboard.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
20 percent of timeTouch typists spent about 20 percent of the time they were copying text looking at the keyboard.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
2.3 fingersTouch typists used about 2.3 more fingers per typing task than typists without training.Calculated from other facts
8.5 fingersTouch typists used an average of 8.5 fingers in the transcription task.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
5 words per minute (trained over untrained, average)Trained typists in the online sample averaged about 5 words per minute faster than untrained typists, a small difference next to the spread of about 20 WPM within each group.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
1.02 percent uncorrected errors (trained typists)Trained typists left fewer errors uncorrected than untrained typists: 1.02 percent against 1.23 percent.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
8 fingers used on average (trained typists)Trained typists used about 8 fingers on average, against about 6.5 for untrained typists, a pattern similar to the fast and slow comparison.Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
Treatment participants in the Jakesch et al. study were shown suggested text generated by a large language model.Maurice Jakesch et al., Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM), 2023
16.7 words per minuteTrollope's target of 1,000 words per hour is about 16.7 words per minute of writing time, a little above the 8 to 15 words per minute reported for composing with speech software.Calculated from other facts
TypeQuicker says punctuation often needs Shift combinations and symbols that slow typing flow, which is why a punctuation-free test measures pure speed. The page gives no measurements for this.TypeQuicker, n.d.
TypeQuicker's symbols test uses the same WPM calculation as its standard tests, and every special character counts toward the overall character count.TypeQuicker, n.d.
Typing speed increases gradually with practice, and a speed of 60 words per minute or higher is achievable, though the rate of increase varies between people.Wikipedia, n.d.
38.02 words per minuteTyping with two thumbs was the fastest phone technique in the study, at a mean of 38.02 words per minute.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
TypingClub says its service is, and will always be, free for individuals and schools, with an optional paid school edition.TypingClub (edclub), 2026
TypingTest.com defines accuracy as a comparison of the characters or words typed correctly with the total typed.TypingTest.com, n.d.
1 minuteTypingTest.com says a one-minute test suits a quick check, and 3, 5 or 10 minutes can give a steadier measure.TypingTest.com, n.d.
5 characters per wordTypingTest.com says that most typing tests use a word equal to five typed characters.TypingTest.com, n.d.
Typists who do not look at the keyboard but do not use the home row either are called hybrid typists.Wikipedia, n.d.
6.2 fingersTypists who had not learned touch typing used an average of 6.2 fingers in the transcription task.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
40 percent of timeTypists without touch-typing training spent about 40 percent of the time they were copying text looking at the keyboard.Anna Maria Feit et al., Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
2.0 times as muchTypists without touch-typing training spent about twice as much of their time looking at the keyboard as touch typists.Calculated from other facts
Using the opinionated language model affected the opinions expressed in participants' writing, and it shifted their opinions in a later attitude survey.Maurice Jakesch et al., Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM), 2023
236 words per minuteWhen silences and non-speech noises are removed from conversational telephone speech, the average net speaking rate is 236 words per minute.Jiahong Yuan et al., Interspeech 2006, 2006
When the space bar is pressed, Half-QWERTY maps the characters of the missing hand onto the remaining keys in a mirror image.Edgar Matias et al., Human-Computer Interaction, 1996
Wikipedia defines a steno machine as a specialized chorded keyboard or typewriter used by stenographers for shorthand.Wikipedia, n.d.
350 words per minuteWikipedia reports that handwriting speeds up to 350 words per minute have been reached in shorthand competitions.Wikipedia, n.d.
Wikipedia says a keyboard with two-key rollover can reliably detect only two keys used at the same time.Wikipedia, 2026
Wikipedia says Colemak supposedly makes it easier to learn than the Dvorak layout for people who already type in QWERTY, without losing efficiency.Wikipedia, 2026
1932 yearWikipedia says Dvorak and Dealey applied for a patent on their keyboard layout in 1932.Wikipedia, 2026
3 keysWikipedia says keyboards without isolation diodes can produce ghosting effects when as few as three keys are pressed together.Wikipedia, 2026
Wikipedia says keystroke dynamics is part of a larger class of biometrics known as behavioral biometrics.Wikipedia, 2026
Wikipedia says that both two-handed and one-handed touch typing are possible.Wikipedia, n.d.
Wikipedia says the common belief that QWERTY was designed to slow typists down is false, and that the layout was meant to speed typing up.Wikipedia, 2026
Wikipedia says the economists Stan Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis wrote articles in the Journal of Law and Economics in the 1990s.Wikipedia, 2026
1878 yearWikipedia says the QWERTY layout became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 of 1878.Wikipedia, 2026
Wikipedia says the QWERTY layout was devised and created in the early 1870s by Christopher Latham Sholes, a newspaper editor and printer.Wikipedia, 2026
Wikipedia says there is evidence that placing often-used letter pairs farther apart increases typing speed, because it encourages alternation between the hands.Wikipedia, 2026
68 letters per minuteWikipedia's words-per-minute article gives the average copying speed for adults aged 18 to 64 as 68 letters per minute, about 13 words per minute.Wikipedia, n.d.
Wikipedia's worked example of home-row placement puts the right thumb on the space bar.Wikipedia, n.d.
70 percentWith only one or two fingers, people type about 70 percent as fast on a phone as on a full desktop keyboard.Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019
Words correct per minute (WCPM) is the number of words read in one minute from a sampled passage, minus the words read incorrectly, which include misidentified words, hesitations and omissions.Gerald Tindal, Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon, 2017