Typing Speed

In the world of typing and keyboarding, you will often hear about typing speed. Typing speed is a measure of how quickly you can type text and is traditionally measured in WPM (words-per-minute). In this measure, ‘words’ not does not mean actual words, but rather any set of 5 characters (and spaces). For example, the sentence ‘I can type really quickly’ would count as 5 words because it takes a total of 25 (5×5) keystrokes to type it.

Typing speed can be highly variable depending on experience, style and even equipment. A novice might type just 10 words a minute where an expert can achieve speeds in excess of 100 WPM. In general, touch-typing produces better results than the ‘hunt and peck’ method. Additionally, using a traditional (QWERTY) keyboard is more limiting than using the more intelligently designed (DVORAK) keyboard as the keys are arranged by frequency of use. For more info, read about the history of the QWERTY keyboard (which was actual designed to make typing slower to offset effects of sticky keys).

For a little fun, check out these videos showing the amazing typing abilities that some folks posses. I for one can only type a modest 45-50 wpm.

and one on an unconventional keyboard: