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    What would you want to see in "learn how to touch type" application?

    • Started by seart
    • 4 Replies:
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 04-Dec-2017
    • Posts: 3

    Hello everyone!

    I have switched from QWERTY to Colemak around 3.5 years ago and have been absolutely in love with it since. Started learning it around the time i went to university studying Computer Science. The thing that confused me was that almost nobody was touch typing, not students, not lecturers, I am not even talking about using different layout like Colemak or Dvorak.

    So now I have less than a year to graduate and need to get subject for my bachelors work, I am thinking about creating application to learn how to touch type that will be heavily based on Colemak and Dvorak (and of course QWERTY). Maybe it will show how much more your fingers move when typing with QWERTY compared to every other optimized layout and similar stuff like that.

    So my question is what would you want to see in an application like that? What were your problems when you were trying to learn how to touch type?

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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    Sounds interesting! I don't have any ideas right now, but keep us posted please. :-)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    • From: UK
    • Registered: 14-Apr-2014
    • Posts: 975

    There is a common assumption that most people touch-type, but your observations tally with my own: most people don't touch type, and certainly not using the "official" method. Probably even most of those who do have a reasonable touch-typing skill use their own ad-hoc techniques. The cause of this, of course, is the terribleness of Qwerty, which makes touch-typing unduly difficult. Once you transition to a good layout, like Colemak, it naturally encourages you to touch-type properly.

    And then there is the problem that pretty much every touch-type tutorial tells you to put your fingers like this https://www.ratatype.com/learn/ ... but in fact this is completely irrational as "angle-mod" type fingering (using index finger for the Qwerty C position) is much better.

    And then there is the problem of the huge space bar on standard keyboards causing extra inefficiencies by wasting one of your thumbs that could be doing something useful. And other related issues like commonly needed keys like backspace and enter located on the far-right, so you need to move your hands away from the correct touch-type home position.

    All these problems are barriers to a good touch-typing technique. It's as though just about every aspect of conventional thinking on keyboards, typing and layouts is obscured in a dense fog of stupidity.

    So good luck sorting all that out! :P

    Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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    • Registered: 04-Dec-2017
    • Posts: 3

    Just a quick update: got my subject approved today by university commission, so I am definitely doing it.

    I'm also thinking about making it so that application will make practice tasks based on the user, like what combination of keys give him the most trouble (longest time to press or the most mistakes made).

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    • Registered: 04-Dec-2017
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    stevep99 said:

    There is a common assumption that most people touch-type, but your observations tally with my own: most people don't touch type, and certainly not using the "official" method. Probably even most of those who do have a reasonable touch-typing skill use their own ad-hoc techniques. The cause of this, of course, is the terribleness of Qwerty, which makes touch-typing unduly difficult. Once you transition to a good layout, like Colemak, it naturally encourages you to touch-type properly.

    And then there is the problem that pretty much every touch-type tutorial tells you to put your fingers like this https://www.ratatype.com/learn/ ... but in fact this is completely irrational as "angle-mod" type fingering (using index finger for the Qwerty C position) is much better.

    And then there is the problem of the huge space bar on standard keyboards causing extra inefficiencies by wasting one of your thumbs that could be doing something useful. And other related issues like commonly needed keys like backspace and enter located on the far-right, so you need to move your hands away from the correct touch-type home position.

    All these problems are barriers to a good touch-typing technique. It's as though just about every aspect of conventional thinking on keyboards, typing and layouts is obscured in a dense fog of stupidity.

    So good luck sorting all that out! :P


    Thank you for the great info :)

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