All of the evidence I have seen suggests that touchtyping is worth learning.
do I spend most of that typing? I do not.
To what extent is that because you’re a slow typist? (Do you know your wpm?)
So very citation needed on this one.
Dvorak, Colemak, or the superior QGMLWY generally will not increase typing speed for touchtypers, as typing speed for most applications is limited by thinking speed. They will increase efficiency, and one can estimate the reduced effort for any particular corpus with an effort model like carpalx’s, and so alternate layouts are primarily useful for people who want to prevent or manage repetitive stress injuries.
All of the evidence I have seen suggests that touchtyping is worth learning.
Links? :)
(Or, if this evidence is anecdotal or otherwise not easily linkable — please do elaborate!)
do I spend most of that typing? I do not.
To what extent is that because you’re a slow typist? (Do you know your wpm?)
I don’t know my wpm, but your question baffles me. How would my typing speed affect the fact that at some given moment I need to read several pages of documentation, sketch out a UI layout, look through code, think, etc.?
Your yourself say in your very next paragraph that “typing speed for most applications is limited by thinking speed” (and I think that’s only an upper bound on the practical limitation).
I don’t know what an “effort model” is, but I take from your comment that if I am not concerned about RSIs, Dvorak etc. should not interest me. Confirm/deny? Also, even assuming I am concerned about RSIs, do I understand correctly that the RSI prevention/management advantages of the alternate layouts you mention are for touch typists specifically, not just anyone typing in any way?
(Or, if this evidence is anecdotal or otherwise not easily linkable — please do elaborate!)
Most of it is anecdotal. The way I learned to touchtype was participating in chatrooms when I was younger; if you took too long to write sentences, the conversation would pass you by. So I quickly learned to type more quickly than I could talk. A more efficient way to learn is a blank keyboard. Here is an expensive one, or you can buy stickers for your current keyboard for $2 on Amazon, which also lets you learn letters one by one.
How would my typing speed affect the fact that at some given moment I need to read several pages of documentation, sketch out a UI layout, look through code, think, etc.?
The sort of activities you engage in will depend to some degree on the costs of those activities. If you can’t type quickly, you’re unlikely to participate in chatrooms or irc channels. The amount of journaling I do, say, might depend on whether I write my journal with a pen or with a keyboard, because it takes me far less time to press a key than to form a letter. If it takes fifteen minutes to jot down my record of the day rather than an hour, that might be enough to move the habit from not worthwhile to worthwhile.
I don’t know what an “effort model” is, but I take from your comment that if I am not concerned about RSIs, Dvorak etc. should not interest me. Confirm/deny?
Confirm. For me personally, it wasn’t worth the investment to switch from QWERTY to QGMLWY because transferring capped my typing speed at 7 wpm at a week, and the adaptation period typically runs ~2 months, suggesting I would be mostly out of commission for much longer than I thought was reasonable.
An effort model is an estimate of how much energy it takes / strain it puts on your fingers to press the key. Some fingers are stronger than others, and “home row” keys are easier to press than keys that require movement. (I move my hands around the keyboard, and so my “home row” is actually on several keyboard rows simultaneously, and moves based on what sentence I’m about to write, so the actual effort model for me is much more complicated than something like carpalx’s.)
All of the evidence I have seen suggests that touchtyping is worth learning.
To what extent is that because you’re a slow typist? (Do you know your wpm?)
Dvorak, Colemak, or the superior QGMLWY generally will not increase typing speed for touchtypers, as typing speed for most applications is limited by thinking speed. They will increase efficiency, and one can estimate the reduced effort for any particular corpus with an effort model like carpalx’s, and so alternate layouts are primarily useful for people who want to prevent or manage repetitive stress injuries.
Links? :)
(Or, if this evidence is anecdotal or otherwise not easily linkable — please do elaborate!)
I don’t know my wpm, but your question baffles me. How would my typing speed affect the fact that at some given moment I need to read several pages of documentation, sketch out a UI layout, look through code, think, etc.?
Your yourself say in your very next paragraph that “typing speed for most applications is limited by thinking speed” (and I think that’s only an upper bound on the practical limitation).
I don’t know what an “effort model” is, but I take from your comment that if I am not concerned about RSIs, Dvorak etc. should not interest me. Confirm/deny? Also, even assuming I am concerned about RSIs, do I understand correctly that the RSI prevention/management advantages of the alternate layouts you mention are for touch typists specifically, not just anyone typing in any way?
Most of it is anecdotal. The way I learned to touchtype was participating in chatrooms when I was younger; if you took too long to write sentences, the conversation would pass you by. So I quickly learned to type more quickly than I could talk. A more efficient way to learn is a blank keyboard. Here is an expensive one, or you can buy stickers for your current keyboard for $2 on Amazon, which also lets you learn letters one by one.
The sort of activities you engage in will depend to some degree on the costs of those activities. If you can’t type quickly, you’re unlikely to participate in chatrooms or irc channels. The amount of journaling I do, say, might depend on whether I write my journal with a pen or with a keyboard, because it takes me far less time to press a key than to form a letter. If it takes fifteen minutes to jot down my record of the day rather than an hour, that might be enough to move the habit from not worthwhile to worthwhile.
Confirm. For me personally, it wasn’t worth the investment to switch from QWERTY to QGMLWY because transferring capped my typing speed at 7 wpm at a week, and the adaptation period typically runs ~2 months, suggesting I would be mostly out of commission for much longer than I thought was reasonable.
An effort model is an estimate of how much energy it takes / strain it puts on your fingers to press the key. Some fingers are stronger than others, and “home row” keys are easier to press than keys that require movement. (I move my hands around the keyboard, and so my “home row” is actually on several keyboard rows simultaneously, and moves based on what sentence I’m about to write, so the actual effort model for me is much more complicated than something like carpalx’s.)