Typing accuracy

Typing accuracy is the share of typed text that is correct, usually written as a percentage. Accuracy is the second half of every typing score, because speed on its own can be bought with mistakes.

Accuracy counts the errors left in the final text

The most useful accuracy figure counts the errors that remain in the finished text, which researchers call the uncorrected error rate. In a large online study of phone typing, the average typist had 2.3 percent uncorrected errors ¹. That means the final text was about 97.7 percent accurate ².

A second figure counts the errors made and corrected during entry. The two figures can tell different stories. In a controlled study comparing speech with the phone keyboard, speech produced fewer errors during entry, at a 5.30 percent corrected error rate against 11.22 percent for the keyboard, but it left slightly more errors in the final text, at 1.30 percent against 0.79 percent ³. A test that counts only the finished text will rate that speech output differently from one that counts every error on the way.

A professional standard is 95 percent

Accuracy is often a pass mark. To pass each part of the NCRA skills test, a court reporting candidate must have 95 percent accuracy ⁴. That standard is for transcription at high speed, but it shows how accuracy is used as a threshold rather than a rough guide.

Why accuracy matters for dictation and typing

Accuracy decides how much editing a draft needs. A draft at 97.7 percent accuracy, the phone average above, still has wrong characters that must be found by reading ². Errors that are real words, such as homophones, pass a spell checker, so they need a read-through by a person.

When you compare typing tests, check whether accuracy was counted on the final text or during entry, and whether the test lets you correct mistakes. A score with no accuracy figure cannot be compared with anything else.

How to report accuracy with speed

Report the two numbers together, as a speed and an accuracy for the same passage. A speed without accuracy hides the cost of the mistakes, and an accuracy without speed hides how long the text took. The words per minute entry explains the speed unit, and the guide to how typing speed is measured shows how tests combine the two.

Related terms

• Words per minute (WPM): the speed unit that accuracy is reported beside.
• Keystrokes per character (KSPC): a measure of how many key presses an entry technique needs.
• Dictation: speaking so that software writes the words as you say them.

Guides and questions that cover it

• How typing speed is measured: WPM, accuracy and tests
• Phone typing speed: how fast people type on phones
• Which typing test is the most accurate?