How to Type Faster: What the Research Supports

The habits best supported by research are simple: keep your eyes on the text, stay accurate instead of rushing, use your fingers consistently, practice deliberately and regularly, and measure your progress with repeatable tests. Most "how to type faster" lists promise far more than that, and few of their tips have been tested. This guide sticks to what the evidence supports, labels our own suggestions as suggestions, and says where nobody knows.

The main source is the largest typing study we know of, Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes (Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta, CHI 2018), which recorded 168,960 volunteers. It describes what fast typists do. It does not prove that copying those behaviours will make you fast, and we treat it that way.

What fast typists do differently

The study compared fast typists (the top 10%, above about 78 WPM) with slow typists (the bottom 10%, below about 26 WPM). Its main differences:

• Steadier rhythm. The average gap between keystrokes was about 239 ms across everyone. For fast typists it was about 120 ms, with very little variation (a standard deviation of 11 ms). Slow typists averaged over 480 ms, and sometimes as much as 900 ms, with large swings.
• More fingers, used consistently. Participants reported using 6.95 fingers on average, and 47.6% said they used nine or ten. Reported finger count was positively correlated with speed (r = 0.38). Fast typists reported about 8.4 fingers against 5.3 for slow typists.
• Fewer errors. Faster typists generally made fewer errors. Slow typists left more errors uncorrected, which the authors suggest may mean they are less able to notice their mistakes. Slow typists also made more substitution errors, which the authors suggest may come from being less consistent and having a poorer mental map of finger positions.
• Overlapping keystrokes ("rollover"). The next key is pressed before the previous one is released. Slow typists used almost none. Most fast typists used it for 40 to 70% of their keystrokes, and the rollover ratio correlated strongly with speed (r = 0.73).
• Holding keys down was a small part of the gap. The average key press lasted about 116 ms, and fast and slow typists differed by only about 20 ms, against a difference of several hundred milliseconds in the time between keystrokes. The authors conclude that most speed gains are achieved elsewhere, which fits the picture above of steady rhythm and well-prepared movements.

Two cautions. These are correlations: fast typists do these things, but the study cannot say that doing them makes you fast. And rollover in particular is something fast typists appear to develop, not something the study shows you can learn by deliberately overlapping keys, so we do not recommend forcing it.

Six habits the evidence supports

1. Keep your eyes on the text, not the keyboard. In the University of Cambridge's write-up of the study, the researchers advise learning to type without looking at your fingers, because your motor system then picks up fast sequences for common letter combinations on its own. The keyboard guide and the live keyboard in the lessons are there so you do not need to look down.
2. Protect accuracy. Fast typists make fewer errors, and the researchers note that errors are costly to correct. If you are below about 95% accuracy, slow down until your runs are clean. Our guide to improving typing accuracy goes into this.
3. Use your fingers consistently. The finger-count result is a correlation, and the same write-up points out that some self-taught typists who use fewer than ten fingers are as fast as touch typists. So the point is consistency, not a rule. A fixed finger for each key is the simplest way to be consistent when you are starting out. See the full finger map.
4. Practice deliberately, and keep it up. The researchers advise setting time aside to practice on purpose, because people can slip back into less efficient habits. Our suggestion, not a tested rule: short sessions of about 10 to 20 minutes on most days, stopping when accuracy starts to slip.
5. Vary your text and watch awkward letter pairs. The study found that letter pairs typed by different hands or fingers predict speed better than repeated letters, and that slow typists struggle to press distant letter pairs consistently. FreeTyper's weak-key drill targets individual letters, not pairs, so mix quotes, news-style text and code as well, and use the drill as one tool among several.
6. Measure properly. One run is noisy. Take three runs of the same length and text type and use the middle one, as explained in our typing speed test guide. For what scores mean, see what is a good typing speed.

What to treat with caution

• Promises of a fixed gain in a fixed time. We found no reliable data that tells you how many WPM you will gain in 30 days. People differ widely, so we do not make that promise.
• Chasing WPM at the cost of accuracy. Speed bought with errors is slower once you fix them, and the data shows fast typists are the more accurate ones.
• Forcing rollover or other tricks. The study describes them as features of fast typists. It does not show they can be trained directly.
• Buying your way faster. Keyboard claims are rarely backed by evidence. Our post on mechanical versus membrane keyboards looks at what is and is not known.
• Practising when tired or in pain. This is common sense rather than a study result. Stop, and see our posture and wrist pain guide if you have symptoms.

A four-week plan you can try

This plan is our own suggestion, not a tested training program. It uses the free tools on this site and makes no promise about how much faster you will get. Treat the weekly targets as a pace to aim for: go slower if you need to, since the lessons ask for 95% accuracy before you move on.

1. Week 1: set your foundation. In the typing lessons, work through the home row and top row stages (lessons 1 to 10), passing each at 95% accuracy with your eyes on the text. Take one baseline speed test at the end of the week, as the middle of three runs.
2. Week 2: the rest of the keyboard. Continue with the bottom row and the Shift and punctuation stages (lessons 11 to 22). Lessons you miss restart with new text, so some will take several tries.
3. Week 3: numbers, then volume. Finish the numbers and symbols and speed stages (lessons 23 to 34) as far as you comfortably can, and start typing practice on most days. Rotate between quotes, news and code, and add the weak-key drill once you have a few clean runs.
4. Week 4: check and adjust. Take three speed tests of the same length, compare the middle result with your baseline, and look at your progress page for the keys that are still red.

Then keep going with the same loop: practice, check, adjust. The progress page shows your own trend, which is the only reliable answer to how fast you are improving.

Sources

• Dhakal V, Feit AM, Kristensson PO, Oulasvirta A. Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes. CHI 2018. Typing-interval, finger-count, error and rollover figures are taken from the paper's results.
• University of Cambridge, What makes a faster typist? The researchers' advice on looking away from the keys, deliberate practice, errors and finger use.
• The four-week plan, the 10 to 20 minute sessions and the 95% accuracy bar are FreeTyper's own suggestions.

Written by Ashiqur Rahman. Figures attributed to a source were checked against that source. If you spot something wrong, tell me and I will correct it.