Peer-reviewed research
Dynamics in typewriting performance reflect mental fatigue during real-life office work
Marlon de Jong et al., PLoS ONE, 2020 · DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0239984
Read the originalRead on October 16, 2026
- What it is
- The authors recorded the typing of university employees during regular office work for six consecutive weeks. They tracked typing speed, backspace use and wrong words across the working day to see how fatigue changes typing performance.
- How much weight it carries
- Peer-reviewed open-access paper with a natural office setting and a long recording period. It studies one university workforce, so the results may not carry over to every job or keyboard.
Facts taken from this source
- In the office study, workers kept their typing speed up in the morning and, as a result, made more errors to correct.
“In the morning, workers first maintain typing speed during prolonged task performance, which resulted in an increased number of typing errors they had to correct.” (Abstract)
- In the office study, typing speed and accuracy both declined later in the working day.
“During the day, they seemed to readjust this strategy, reflected in a decline in both typing speed and accuracy.” (Abstract)