So I am a programmer, and I like playing typing speed games. My typing speed is, for common English words, 85 to 90 wpm, max 95.
I type on various devices, my laptop, desktop, office pc.... they all have slightly different keyboards.
Being a curious programmer, I wonder what types of keyboard is used for the highest possible typing speed. Or let me phrase it in another way, what is the type of keyboards that people use in typing speed contest?
Here is something I know that I feel like I can share:
- It must be a wired keyboard, I can feel the lag as I am typing this on my wireless keyboard, even if it is a slightly more expensive model which claims to have zero lag.
- I know people prefer a mechanical keyboard, for the hepatic feedback, however I have not tried one. It lasts longer and is noisy, it also does not have the problem of normal keyboards where you press many keys at a time the signals will get all jammed and the computer will only receive one or two keys.
- I personally prefer those "thin profile" keyboards.
I type a lot, and 95 wpm put me in the top 5%, this is of course just on a gaming site. However when I type on the fat keyboards, my fingers have to travel a much longer distance before the keys actually click. This is where I find myself typing much faster with those thin profile keyboards found on my laptop. Because my fingers only hover on the keys and I only need to press a short distance, each stroke takes less force and light rapid strokes is what makes me type fast. When I type on a fat keyboard, I was forced to use heavy strokes, and this slows me down.
There must be some people out there who are keyboard scientists, who actually do experiments and user tests with different setups. It would be interesting to understand more about the things we use everyday for not just work but a majority of our communications.
P.S. this is about hardware and not about switching keyboard layouts to dvorak
