2021-02-21 22:46:45 (edited by redfox 2021-02-21 22:48:40)

So I've always been able to type decently quickly, not astounding or anything, but still...Anyway, I've found that I miss letters a lot, especially without me noticing, which makes me look worse at English than I am. Are there any general tips anyone can give to make me type better? I know that's a very open ended question, but I honestly don't really know.

As I was writing this, I thought of an example, I write questino and functino a lot... Could a better keyboard help some because my laptop keyboard that I use has really small keys?

[Edit]: I put this in the wrong room, could this possibly be moved to Off Topic? [/edit]

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2021-02-22 00:25:27

IDK happens to me too. Jsut thign taht, etc. It never feels wrong to me when I type those words thee wrong way.

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2021-02-22 17:34:28

If you aren't typing using a standard hand position, that is, fingers on ASDF and JKL;, you will be slower and have worse accuracy overall (or so I've been told). There's a program in the db, Rocky's Typing Tutor if I recall correctly, which goes over the positions, provides practice, and keeps track of your accuracy. It ultimately comes down to your persistence and dedication, however. Know you always misspell a word? Check it before sending that chat.

2021-02-22 20:37:36

Yeah I do it too, especially when sitting on my bed with this laptop on my lap. Oyu instead of you, jsut not just, etc. I also sometimes capitalize the first two letters of a word. This is the exact reason I always proofread, at least for school things.

2021-02-22 21:41:51

NVDA supports announcing spelling errors in Firefox, Chrome, Word, and most Win10 apps. I'd turn that on.

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2021-02-23 11:23:16

There's a small possibility it's actually your keyboard. To test, you can hold down both shift keys, and type:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

If it works, you should get that sentence in all caps. If not, it may be because your laptop's keyboard doesn't have NKRO.

HTH.

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2021-02-23 17:34:24

A mechanical keyboard may also help with this issue. It offers better response mechanisms for typists to know when they've pressed a key. This isn't a great solution for laptop users, but I thought I'd throw that out there.

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2021-02-23 18:12:58

I still do it, and have a mechanical.

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2021-02-23 18:21:15

I have a mechanical and sometimes still do it, but it actually got better immediately after getting the mechanical.

Sincerely,
Lucas.

2021-02-23 18:59:44

It depends which mechanical you get.  I have the cherry mx clear for example, which is intentionally such that you barely brush a key and it triggers.  This is because my particular typing problem is that I miss keys on a not-sensitive-enough keyboard.  I'm not a soft typist by any means, but when deviating from home row I only really brush some of them.

But some of the other cherry mx variants will only trigger if you bottom out the key entirely.  I don't remember which.  There's like 6 of them.  But it's easy enough to look up.

This won't fix the inversion problem where have is ahve.  I don't think there is a fix for that other than spellcheck or typing slower.  I at least can focus explicitly on my typing sometimes and get it right consistently that way, but that's not useful in a context wherein you're actually trying to do work.

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2021-02-23 21:10:34

On a mechanical for me it's very rare, minus holding the shift key for too long, and so I use a mechanical whenever possible. I'm in a hotel currently though, and will be for a little while, so having to just use my laptop's keyboard.

2021-02-23 22:51:43

Typing slower will certainly help. The issue seems to be that OP is typing faster than they're thinking through what they want to type. Even if you intend to type out "just" your fingers are jumping ahead to letters appearing later in the word, so you get things like "jsut" or "juts." I think there's even a name for this phenomenon, but it's slipping my mind.

Cherry MX Blues are the best for tactile response; however, they are loud, clicky, and not great for work environments. I have a keyboard that uses those switches and another that uses silent reds that is significantly quieter but lacks the tactile feel of pressing down on the keys. Fortunately they don't require fully bottoming out so that makes it nice. The more common ones (blue, brown, red) have 2-4 mm travel distances to actuate which is why they're so common.

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2021-02-23 22:56:40

I have reds and they respond about halfway through the key travel.

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2021-02-25 15:51:55

Unpopular opinion time.
For me, I've noticed my typing depends a lot on how alert I'm feeling. There are in fact times when I pretty much give up on typing because I'm too tired to type anything that makes sense, and then later I go back and edit what I wrote and I can't even read half of it because there are so many mistakes. But even when I'm doing well, my accuracy isn't great, I mean it's pretty good I guess but I make mistakes all the time.

Personally I never found mechanicals to improve my typing too much. I've gone back to slim membrane and I don't feel my performance has taken that much of a hit. But I'm probably weird like that. In fact, I'd venture to say that, if your keyboard has no real physical issues, your best bet is probably to practice on it, rather than switch to a keyboard that will supposedly make you type better. For me anyway, switching hurt me initially more than it helped; I spent probably the better part of 2 weeks after every keyboard switch asking myself why I had done this again, because I was literally making mistakes I never recalled making before, and when I eventually stopped doing that, I was still fixing dumb typos on a regular basis.

Now, if you feel like the key response of your keyboard is hindering your technique or is becoming uncomfortable or something, then I'd say sure, go for something different and that may improve your typing. But don't get caught up in that like I did, and search for the holy grail. I mean if you find your absolute favorite, don't hesitate, enjoy it! But I went through a really obsessive period where I was convinced I needed to find something revolutionary, but I didn't find it, not with the resources currently available to me anyway. That's not a fun phase to be in, btw. So I stopped caring and went back to basics since I didn't have an issue with them before I got curious about different keyboards. Eventually when I'm not lazy, I'll try to isolate the part of my technique that needs work if my typos bother me enough.

So that's basically all the advice I think I can give right now. Admittedly, it isn't much lol

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2021-02-25 16:41:10

Yeah, that's mostly true.  I type at over 80 words a minute, though.  haven't measured in a long time, but I can literally read off what I'm typing in a normal human voice.  At that point your keyboard becomes more important than it would be otherwise.

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2021-02-25 20:20:21 (edited by Lucas1 2021-02-25 20:22:35)

My typing speed on a mechanical is such that it doesn't even really matter if I slow down to avoid errors. When I type as fast as I can and never backspace and make a bunch of really annoying errors, my speed is 130 or 135 wpm. When I slow it down to 110, I'm pretty much completely fine. 135 is so fast that my mind can barely keep up anyways. On a keyboard that's not mechanical, I can type at about 110 and still make one or two errors per minute that I don't immediately catch as I'm typing and can therefore fix on the spot.

Sincerely,
Lucas.

2021-02-26 08:10:50 (edited by musicalman 2021-02-26 08:15:47)

Interesting. I haven't tested myself in ages, but last time I tried, I think I was around 90-110 at normal speed, and 120-130 if I tried really hard to be fast and let my accuracy tank. That was in high school though, so I might have increased slightly.

I wonder if another reason I never got into mechanicals is the same reason I don't like weighted keys on musical keyboards. I always prefer synth action/non-weighted. Not exactly sure why, other than maybe I prefer having something with a firm bottom which is easy to reach, and the mechanicals I've seen are not that. Sure the key travel for a mechanical is minimal with certain switches, but the bottom feels too deep. The clicky/tactile feedback doesn't do much for me. It's just part of the texture on the way to the true bottom. It's not distracting per say, it just doesn't feel like it helps. Same with the deeper membrane keyboards too, they're not shallow enough. And while I'm out of practice on laptop keys, I used to prefer them as well.

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2021-02-26 16:18:14

You can get switches without the feedback.  There's something like 20 or 30 kinds of mechanical keyboard switch on the market.  WASD keyboards sells a sampler for the Cherry MX ones I think, but there's a *lot* more than just those 6.

If you want to push yourself with typing beyond a certain point, the sensitivity is key.  As is having keys that are far enough part/with enough of a gap that you're not pressing extra ones, not that that latter consideration is specific to mechanicals.

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2021-02-26 22:31:38

Semi-weighted for the win. Synth is too light, no feedback. semi-weighted is just the right amount to give you that slap back to let you know you did a thing.

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2021-03-02 19:11:47

Something that wasn't mentioned here, I find that good posture and simple keyboard placement can make a world of difference. If you're slouching you have a better chance of inadvertently pushing one of your hands to the side or whatever. Also try and make a point not to type with your arms straight out, as that inhibits movement.

I've gotten used to typing on a keyboard tray, to the point that using an internal on a desk or whatever just feels kind of inefficient and for lack of a better term wrong.

I have a couple mechanicals on hand and am interested in testing these theories, does anyone know the most reliable way of blindly measuring speed? I'm looking for a website or program I can run so as to avoid the way I learned, which was to start a stopwatch, write the venerable quick brown fox phrase, wait until the chime and check line count. No wonder I scored above 100 every time without fail.