My typing speed has been historically poor. Naturally, I decided to track my performance on a spreadsheet. After three months of recording my results from completing typing tests (amounting to over 9 hours of literally typing), here is some commentary on my process:

Methodology

I started with Typing Academy to practice typing, but I also later moved on to other websites, namely Monkeytype and TypeRacer. Typing Academy tests using a random string of the most common words in the English language, and it was the only website I used that doesn’t allow typos to be deleted. While this meant I could kind of inflate my words-per-minute (i.e. WPM) metric, losing concern for using the backspace key, this also made the tests less “realistic.” Monketype also uses a series of random common words, but has a much more pleasing user interface (in my opinion). It tracks more metrics for each test, and incorporates the usage of the backspace into the test. TypeRacer, in contrast, grabs from a database of user-submitted excerpts from various texts on the internet. With sources ranging from Bruno Mars to J. R. R. Tolkien, these texts also required capitalization and punctuation, thereby giving a more “real-world” guage of my WPM. While Monkeytype was the most “fun” to use, I’d say TypeRacer improved my typing the most.

To document my results, I used Google Sheets. I wasn’t really sure at first what insights I wanted to get from my tests, so I mostly recorded for variables I thought could be helpful. For each 60-second typing test I completed on whichever platform, I logged the WPM, the error rate, the date, which keyboard I was using (my laptop’s or an external membrane keyboard), and which site I took the test on.

Visualization

I also used Google Sheets to create the graphs. The main one I look at plots the daily average WPM for each website over the day:

This graph automatically updates as I enter in more data points.

Analysis

Most notable is the consistent upward trend in the first couple months of each website. While I’d like to attribute this to my dedication in improving my typing skills, I also acknowledge the confounding variable of having seen the same words before. By the same token, the hiatus during spring break and afterwards resulted in noticeable plateaus to my WPM, an effect of being “rusty.”

Conclusions

The following are some takeaways I’ve gathered from this ongoing activity, some of which seem to fit into broader ideas:

I found that the laptop keyboard is more error-prone than a membrane keyboard (since there’s less travel distance), but this also means that laptops can be faster and less fatiguing.

Errors and speeding were more costly to WPM than a more conservative pace. It’s worth noting however, that spell check can batch-correct errors. For practical situations, you are probably better off blitzing and spell-correcting. Playing to maximize the metric of WPM would defeat its purpose.

Making progress visible gamifies the process of improvement, making the overall process of practice typing more enjoyable.