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I have tried several times to relearn typing, but each time I've fallen back to my old ways. Has anyone actually been successful in learning how to type correctly from scratch? If so, how did you do it?
I have tried several times to relearn typing, but each time I've fallen back to my old ways. Has anyone actually been successful in learning how to type correctly from scratch? If so, how did you do it?
Learning to navigate with hjkl in vi was the turning point for me. I quit treating the bumps on F and J as "some weird thing that touch typists use" and made a conscious effort to always start with my index fingers resting on them, even not actively typing. Accurate vi movement becomes instinctual instead of having to hunt for the keys, and because I could navigate without leaving the home row, it turned into a virtuous cycle.
vi-style browser navigation add-ons further reduce the need to leave the home row. Vimperator and Pentadactyl were complete browser makeovers for vim enthusiasts, but they went away with the move to WebExtensions. I now use vimium which behaves mostly like a normal browser but retains the critical navigation keybindings. Even when simply reading a web page, I'm sitting right on the home row, with the two most-used keys (j to scroll down, and f to click a link) sitting right under my index fingers.
Switching to a laptop with a centered tenkeyless keyboard also helped a lot. There's no longer a temptation to have my hand float right. The trackpoint helps too - it's slower and less precise than the trackpad, but I make up the time by not needing to move down and back (the trackpad is still better when doing more than a single point and click though). When using a desktop with a traditional mouse, I center the QWERTY section of the keyboard and put the mouse on the left. I learned to mouse ambidextrously within a week or two and my hands no longer have to rest at weird angles.
Remapping Caps to Ctrl is another important home-row improvement. Ctrl is used frequently, usually chorded, and the ones on the bottom require contorting your hands to make it work. Bonus: I can use Ctrl-[ with my fingers still on f and j instead of reaching up to hit Esc, which is needed frequently in vi.
After making the conscious effort to position my hands correctly, everything else fell into place. My accuracy went up, which meant I had fewer times I'd have to look down and reposition, which meant I could achieve much better typing flow. I went from 30-40 WPM with poor accuracy to 60-80 WPM with pretty good accuracy over a couple years, without putting any additional effort toward training.
I have tried several times to relearn typing, but each time I've fallen back to my old ways. Has anyone actually been successful in learning how to type correctly from scratch? If so, how did you do it?
I have tried several times to relearn typing, but each time I've fallen back to my old ways. Has anyone actually been successful in learning how to type correctly from scratch? If so, how did you do it?
This said, some things will remain hard probably forever, if you have a short pinkie like me.
I've created this small project to fix my own typing and thought you might benefit from it as well. To calculate the WPM words with 5 letters are taken. To reach e.g. 80 WPM you'd have 150ms per character. The application uses ~1000 most common english words and only gives you the next word once you've cleared the word in the calculated time. The time is measured only as soon as you press the first key. Give it a try…
Feels like it needs some sort of feedback when you type too slowly to get the next word. Plus maybe making it a bit more obvious that you can select a target speed for the WPM.
Do you have any ideas for the feedback when your speed is to low? I am not a designer and struggle to find ideas that keep the UI as minimal as it is right now while improving the user experience.
edited/failed words should be silently saved to a separate list the performance of every word typed ranked 2/3/4/5 characters that occur consecutively should be analysed also to learn about user's weakness
all then can be used to reappear in optimal learning interval so user can improve :)
I have tried several times to relearn typing, but each time I've fallen back to my old ways. Has anyone actually been successful in learning how to type correctly from scratch? If so, how did you do it?
Split keyboard, a key map printed out and placed under the monitor (so you Don't Look Down), and moving to colemak (without changing keycaps, that is the important bit - if you want to stick with Qwerty, just use blank caps). Plus a lot of practice with programs like GNU Typist, keybr, typeracer, ratatype, speedcoder, keyzen-colemak, typelit.io ... This said, some things will remain hard probably forever, if you have…
I have tried several times to relearn typing, but each time I've fallen back to my old ways. Has anyone actually been successful in learning how to type correctly from scratch? If so, how did you do it?
I have tried several times to relearn typing, but each time I've fallen back to my old ways. Has anyone actually been successful in learning how to type correctly from scratch? If so, how did you do it?