What makes fast typists fast? Lessons from 136 million keystrokes

6 minute read

Why can some people type 90 words per minute while others struggle to reach 40? A 2018 study of 168,960 typists by Aalto University and the University of Cambridge looked at every keypress to find out. Some of the answers are surprising.

1. They press the next key before releasing the last one

The biggest difference the researchers found is called rollover: pressing the next key while the previous one is still held down. Instead of finishing one keystroke before starting the next, fast typists overlap them.

The Cambridge summary describes this as something that had not been observed in a typing study before. Rollover is a sign of planning: the typist already knows the next key and moves towards it while still finishing the current one.

2. They make fewer mistakes

It is tempting to think speed comes from rushing. The data says the opposite: faster typists generally make fewer errors. The researchers contrast careless typists, who move quickly but then spend time correcting, with attentive typists, who gain speed by moving their hands and fingers in parallel.

Slow typists made more errors, and most of them were substitutions: one letter typed in place of another. Each of those mistakes costs a deletion and a retype.

3. They tend to use more fingers, but not always ten

Participants were asked how many fingers they use. The average answer was 6.95, and 47.6% said nine or ten.

• Fast typists reported 8.4 fingers on average.
• Slow typists reported 5.3 fingers on average.

More fingers is clearly linked with more speed, with a correlation of 0.38. But the Cambridge summary also notes that self-taught typists using fewer than ten fingers can be as fast as touch typists. Using more fingers helps because it spreads the work out, not because ten is a magic number. Our touch typing guide covers standard finger placement if you want to learn it.

4. They alternate hands and fingers

The researchers found that letter pairs typed with different hands or different fingers predicted speed better than pairs typed by the same finger. When the two letters are on different fingers, the second finger can already be moving while the first is still pressing, which is exactly the overlap that rollover needs.

5. A typing course is not the main factor

72% of participants had taken a typing course. Trained typists were a little faster (54.35 against 49.00 WPM on average) and made slightly fewer errors, but the authors describe the two groups as having very similar typing behaviour. What you do with your practice seems to matter more than whether you once took a class.

The eight kinds of typist

Grouping people by how they type, the researchers found eight clusters. Here they are in order of speed:

The fastest group is defined by rollover, and the two fast groups use it far more than everyone else.

How to use this in your own practice

The study describes what fast typists do. It does not test training methods, so treat the following as practical suggestions based on those findings:

• Work on accuracy before speed. Fast typists make fewer errors, and every error costs time.
• Find your slow letter pairs. After a test on Keystride, the Rhythm tab lists your slowest pairs. Those are where overlap is breaking down.
• Check your finger balance. The Fingers tab shows how much work each finger does. If one finger carries a lot of keys, that is a likely bottleneck.
• Aim for an even rhythm. A narrow spread of times between keys usually means you are planning ahead rather than hunting for keys.

To see where you stand against the study's averages, read what is the average typing speed.