Typing speed: how it is measured, what counts as normal and how to raise it

Typing speed in characters and in words per minute

Typing speed is how much text a person enters in one minute, and it comes in two units. Characters per minute is the plain count of letters, spaces and punctuation marks. Words per minute needs a convention, because words differ in length. Wikipedia’s article on words per minute gives the usual one: in English, a word is standardised as five characters or keystrokes, spaces and punctuation included.

The units convert by simple arithmetic: 40 words per minute is 200 characters, and 300 characters is 60 words. The large study described below used the same rule, timing each sentence from the first keypress to the last. So two tests can show 250 and 50 for one person and both be right. Before comparing your typing speed with anyone else’s, check the unit.

Gross and net typing speed: what errors do to the score

India’s Central Board of Secondary Education publishes the formula behind its typing tests. Gross words per minute is every word typed, right or wrong, divided by the minutes. Net words per minute counts only the correct words. The board calls the net figure the candidate’s actual speed and gets accuracy by dividing net by gross.

One of its worked examples makes the point. A candidate typed 521 words in ten minutes, 401 of them correct: 52.1 words per minute gross, 40.1 net. Another typed 447 words without an error and finished at 44.7. The second person was slower at the keys and ahead in the result. Haste that breeds errors does not raise net speed; it lowers it.

On a computer an error costs twice: once when made and again when found and fixed. The CHI 2018 paper by Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta measured both. Its volunteers left an average uncorrected error rate of about 1.17% and pressed Backspace or Delete about 2.29 times per sentence. Tests treat errors differently, so the method belongs next to the result.

Average typing speed in a study of 136 million keystrokes

That paper comes from Aalto University in Finland and the University of Cambridge. It covers 168,960 volunteers from 218 countries and 136,857,600 keystrokes. Each person read, memorised and then typed 15 English sentences drawn at random from a set of 1,525, as quickly and accurately as possible. Random sentences meant that nobody could rehearse the text.

The average was 51.56 words per minute, and the fastest volunteers reached 120 or more. The authors called the top tenth fast typists, above roughly 78 words per minute, and the bottom tenth slow, below roughly 26. Aalto University’s news release sums it up: most computer users type around 30 to 60 words per minute. In characters that is about 150 to 300, with the average close to 260.

These figures describe a particular crowd, and the paper says so. The volunteers came through a typing-test website, 68% were from the United States, most were young and 72% had taken a typing course. They typed English, and 98.1% used a QWERTY layout. A result in another language or layout compares with them only roughly, through characters per minute. Treat the average as a landmark, not a pass mark.

What typing speed official job standards ask for

One of the clearest official requirements is American. The Office of Personnel Management, which sets qualification standards for the federal civil service, asks 40 words per minute of a Clerk-Typist at grades GS-2 to GS-4, of Office Automation Clerks and Assistants and of positions marked Typing. A footnote gives the method: a five-minute sample with three or fewer errors. A Data Transcriber can qualify with 20 or 25 words per minute, depending on grade.

Applicants can prove the skill with a performance test, a certificate from an authorised school or self-certification, which agencies may check; results stay valid for three years. Forty words per minute is about 200 characters, held for five minutes almost without mistakes. A typing speed in a job advert means little without its method, so ask how long the test lasts and how errors count. OPM can change these rules; read its current text before relying on them.

How to test typing speed so results can be compared

The first condition is fresh text. Aalto’s release reports a warning from Antti Oulasvirta, one of the authors: many informal tests let people practise the same sentences, which produces unrealistically high results. Wikipedia’s article notes a related effect, with two-finger typists commonly reaching about 37 words per minute on memorised text but 27 when copying. A sentence typed ten times measures memory as much as hands.

The second condition is length. Short bursts flatter, and the same article mentions speeds above 300 words per minute on 15-second tests with simple English words. The federal standard uses five minutes for a reason. For tracking your own typing speed one minute is enough, provided it is always one minute, on the same keyboard, layout and language. Warm up for a couple of minutes first.

The third condition is the device. A later Aalto study of 37,370 volunteers on mobile devices found an average of 36.2 words per minute with 2.3% uncorrected errors. People typed about 70% as fast on phones as on full desktop keyboards. A phone result and a keyboard result are different measurements, so compare each only with itself.

Why accuracy comes before typing speed in practice

The study of 136 million keystrokes confirmed an earlier finding with numbers: faster typists make fewer mistakes. The fast tenth left 0.71% of errors uncorrected and corrected 3.4% of their keystrokes, while the slow tenth left 1.78% and corrected 9.05%. From about 30 words per minute upward, faster typists needed fewer keystrokes per character. The authors conclude that cutting errors by a small margin can bring a large gain in speed.

Anna Feit, one of the authors, says in Aalto’s release that “correct motor execution is the key to fast typing.” Her advice follows: pay attention to errors, which are costly to correct, and slow down to avoid them, since that makes you faster in the long run. Slower typists, she adds, take a long time finding and fixing their errors. Keep accuracy in the same note as speed, and treat a fast but careless week as a step back.

How to raise typing speed week by week

The study points to habits that separate fast typists from slow ones. Fast typists reported using more fingers, 8.4 on average against 5.3, and relied less on looking at the keys. They also pressed the next key before releasing the previous one, a habit called rollover, for 40 to 70% of keystrokes, and it proved a strong predictor of speed. Feit advises typing without looking at the fingers and using different fingers for successive letters.

Touch typing, where each finger owns its keys and the eyes stay on the screen, is a ready-made system for those habits. The research is frank about limits. Trained typists in the study were only about 5 words per minute faster than untrained ones, and Feit says switching to touch typing is not required to type faster. In an earlier motion-capture study cited in the paper, speed went with consistent finger use and little hand movement.

Comfort decides how long practice can last. The OSHA computer workstations eTool describes a neutral position: hands, wrists and forearms straight and roughly parallel to the floor, elbows close to the body and bent between 90 and 120 degrees, feet supported by the floor or a footrest. It also warns that even a good posture held too long is unhealthy and suggests stretching and short walks. A practice week then looks simple: a short daily session, one test at the end, one change at a time.

Practising typing speed alone or with the VITON13 SCHOOL trainer

Much can be done alone this week. Take a one-minute test on unfamiliar text and note characters per minute, words per minute, accuracy and the keyboard used. Practise fifteen to twenty minutes a day, as the school’s trainer advises, and keep your eyes on the screen even when that slows you down. At the end of the week repeat the test under the same conditions. If accuracy held and typing speed rose, the plan works; if accuracy fell, slow down.

A structured trainer adds order and an honest scoreboard. The free typing trainer of VITON13 SCHOOL has eight short lessons: home keys, the centre of the home row, the whole home row, the centre of the top row, the whole top row, the bottom row, words and sentences. It refuses a wrong letter, so you find the right key and go on, and a lesson is passed only at 94% accuracy or more. A Fingers hint colours the keyboard by finger.

The speed test runs for 30, 60 or 120 seconds and reports characters and words per minute, accuracy and errors. It covers Russian ЙЦУКЕН, English and Spanish QWERTY and French AZERTY. The trainer is free, needs no registration and keeps results and passed lessons in your browser; it advises ten-finger practice on a physical keyboard, while a phone is fine for the test. The guide on returning to practice helps keep the habit, and the free programming course puts faster hands to use.