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    Colemak Experiences So Far

    • Started by Velgu
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    So I've been contemplating switching to Colemak for a while now, and finally made the plunge yesterday. I was mostly convinced by some of the comparisons on the Hi-Games tests as well as this website: http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer/ . I have chosen to do a mostly cold turkey approach, but with a bit of practice each day in QWERTY (about 10-15 minutes worth), in order to hopefully mitigate speed loss.

    My QWERTY typing speed is around 75 words per minute (based on the average of a 2 minute and 5 minute typing test on Hi-Games, I average around 80-85 in burst typing tests, such as Typeracer.) Luckily, it hasn't suffered at all yet from learning Colemak. Interestingly, I almost feel more precise, probably from being forced to practice Colemak so slowly.
    So far I haven't tested my Colemak speed in any timed tests, but based on TypeFu and Typeracer, my average seems to be 35-40 WPM.

    I enjoy using this layout a lot already, but I have had some mental blocks with certain keys, most notably J and K, and to lesser extents, U and F. I'm sure this will come with more practice.
    I also love the use of the cap-locks key as a backspace, it feels like a huge time/strain saver.

    I'll post some updates with my speed as it comes along.

    P.S. This message was typed in Colemak!

    Last edited by Velgu (15-Jul-2012 12:58:06)
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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    Welcome to Colemak! I hope you'll love it as much as I do.

    J and K are surprisingly rare in English, so you'll need time and practice to get used to them. Also, they've been moved from undeserved good positions to more fitting realms. Luckily, being rare they don't really hurt your speed much.

    U and F will come quickly I guess. The F lies on the old E position which is the most used letter of all so that's probably what causes a spot of confusion. The E has moved to your right middle finger from your left one which is one of the only two keys that switch hands in the QWERTY-to-Colemak transition.

    Many if not most will be a bit confused by R and S since the S moves just one finger to the left and is such a common letter. Again, time is the great equalizer. ;)

    Last edited by DreymaR (15-Jul-2012 13:23:35)

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    Any tips for working on accuracy? I seemed to have hit a block at about 45 words per minute, and I think it's primarily due to accuracy. My average accuracy in Typeracer seems to be around 90%-95%.

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    My tip would be to slow down a bit, and get into a steady flow. Then just type a lot basically. I've used Amphetype to "type-and-read" books, that's great exercise.

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    For accuracy practice, I recommend Typeracer accuracy universe
    http://play.typeracer.com/?universe=accuracy

    You have to type with 100% accuracy just to stay in the race.

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    That's frustrating, but efficient I guess. Depends a bit on your psyche... :)

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    Thanks for the tips! I really like the look of that amphetype program, I'll definitely check it out. I was actually considering doing that just by having a book on my desk in front of me and typing from it, but this program would definitely make this much easier.

    I took the advice of just typing really slowly and intentionally, and it has helped quite a bit! My average accuracy seems to be around 97%, now, and my typing speed is up to about 50 WPM. My short term goal is 65 WPM, which is the slowest I believe you can type without some loss of train of thought, and my long term goal is over 100 WPM.
    Also I did know about that Instant Death mode Typeracer, but I have to admit I find it a  bit too frustrating for now. Heck, I find it pretty frustrating even in QWERTY.

    Also I have started feeling the effects on my QWERTY typing speed at this point. I often reach for Colemak keys when I'm trying to type in QWERTY, especially when typing S/D, P, E, and backspace, whlch I am very used to being my Cap Locks Key now.

    Last edited by Velgu (17-Jul-2012 13:41:22)
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    I think that typing in both layouts bring more errors in both. I dropped Qwerty for good when I reached 30wpm or so in Colemak. My accuracy increased from 90 to 98% since then.

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    I am inclined to agree at this point. I have really started to enjoy Colemak, and my speed is increasing at a solid rate. So far I am now up to around 55-60 WPM. At this rate, I'll definitely be at 'least' as fast, if not faster with Colemak, than the speed I left off in QWERTY, by the end of the month.

    Last edited by Velgu (18-Jul-2012 15:45:01)
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    So, another small update. I kind of capped at 55-60 for a little bit until I decided to try something a bit different. I have a Leopold Mechanical keyboard with MX Cherry Browns. I was previously bottoming out all the keys, as I had been used to doing from my many years with most keyboards. I decided to try to just hit the 2mm point to activate all the keys, and it sped me up a fair bit quite quickly once I got used to it. I can now type about 65-70 WPM. I have been using Amphetype a lot to read books while typing. I really enjoy the program!

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    So, it has been almost two weeks since I started learning Colemak. I have been practicing (sometimes somewhat excessively) most days when I don't work, and I can consistently type above 70 words per minute now, occasionally reaching speeds of +80 (with my record being 87). I still continue to practice using amphetype, which I really enjoy. At this point all the key positions are completely fluent under my fingers, and I think it's now more a matter of developing more finger rolls, and fully developing the ones I already have (for a short period around 60 WPM, I had a tendency to type 'ion' whenever I meant to type 'ing', for whatever reason.)

    I hope to eventually reach 100 WPM, but I will likely stop practicing as much once I can consistently hit the high 70s to low 80s (my old qwerty speed), which shouldn't be long now. I had only learned qwerty typing a month before I  started Colemak (although with qwerty, I was quite fast even before I learned to touch type, able to use 2-3 fingers per hand to type around 70 words per minute), so I think I should eventually be able to reach 100 with Colemak, just through less intense usage.

    I don't know if this works for everyone, but for any tips I'd say have helped me so far, it was to avoid using the printout sheet as much as possible. Obviously I had to use one at first (I did a lot of my early typing using TypeFu), but once I felt I had a decent grasp of where every key was, I avoided looking at the layout sheet at all, and worked more towards getting all the keys further into muscle memory. This is actually another nice thing about amphetype, it is meant to train typing without a keyboard reference.

    Last edited by Velgu (28-Jul-2012 11:19:20)
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    Substituting 'ion' for 'ing' happens to others too. It's because they're both common trigraphs starting with 'i' I think.

    Whether to use an image or not depends on who you are I think. I rather like the little on-screen image in PKL, and I still use it sometimes to find out-of-the-way AltGr and dead key mappings.

    Nice progress, by the way! :)

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    Today on TypeRacer, I managed to get 102 WPM on a shorter quote, which actually surpasses my previous record on QWERTY of 100 WPM! Sadly I was unable to complete the test for proving that I'm a human, but still, I'm pretty happy with that.

    Although my overall average is still slightly lower than it was with QWERTY, I actually find I tend to fluctuate in both directions a lot more with Colemak at the moment. With QWERTY I was about 75-85 average, with Colemak I'm about 70-85 average now, all depending on the difficulty of the text I receive. Overall I'm almost caught up though, I scored 79 WPM on a 2 minute test on Hi-Games, where my old high score was 82.

    And yeah, that makes sense why people would confuse them, at the time I would often end up with combinations of them too, for example, 'iogn' or 'iong', and others like that.

    I also understand why it would be useful to have PKL's diagram around for alt groupings and such, but I actually almost never use AltGr myself, so I have no real need for it. I use Windows 7, and I just have Colemak installed at this point, and use the SharpKeys program to rebind the Caps Lock key to backspace. I carry around PKL in a USB stick in case I ever need it, but I don't use other people's computers very often.

    Last edited by Velgu (01-Aug-2012 06:22:03)
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    I believe congratulations are in order! :)

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    Thanks! And also thank you for recommending that Amphetype program at the beginning. Although I've stopped using it, it was nice for the first while, just so I didn't feel like all I was doing was practicing typing, I was also reading some books!

    Here's a small video of me typing a decent 87 WPM on a TypeRacer run!

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    I'm happy to say have surpassed my old QWERTY typing speed consistently now, averaging about 85-95WPM, with my record being 103 (and I successfully did the test to show that I'm a real person on Typeracer this time). Also, all my records here, are now achieved with Colemak: http://hi-games.net/profile/6122 .

    Last edited by Velgu (16-Aug-2012 06:48:26)
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    So it's been just over two months since I started typing in Colemak and I can honestly say that it has helped me greatly. Although I had known and used the QWERTY layout all my life, I only started touch typing on it two months 'before' I started working on Colemak. Comparing my progress between two months of QWERTY and two months of Colemak, the difference is quite impressive in my opinion.

    From this graph you can compare both my time with QWERTY and my time on Colemak. The dip you see around 2980 races is where I started using Colemak again on Typeracer. As you can see, I reached a long lasting plateau with QWERTY, a problem I haven't really found with Colemak yet.

    Very happy I started using Colemak, and I haven no intention of ever switching back to QWERTY.

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    With all popular keys right under your fingers I suppose all Colemak users type faster than when typing in Qwerty, but 20wpm gain of yours is quite impressive.

    Certainly a Leopold mechanical keyboard can produce 10wpm speed gain, and Colemak produces 10wpm gain more.

    Last edited by Tony_VN (20-Sep-2012 12:08:55)
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