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No Look Typing???

hiredgun

hiredgun

Android Expert
First I admit that I am one of those "obsessive" people that like doing anything they do as well as possible! So I have decided that I want to be a very fast typer on my phone when I am texting. So much in fact, that I paid for an app. that is actually a typing "course," for the phone, and one thing they keep stressing over and over again is that in order to type faster you should NOT look at the keyboard as you type, but rather what you are actually typing. What I fail to see is exactly why looking at the keys slows you down, and at this juncture I can type twice as fast looking at the keys than I can by not! So before I started to practice "no look" typing, what I wanted to know is how many of YOU fast typers on the forum actually do type without looking at the keys? I'm really slow typing without looking, and if this step isn't going to be beneficial I'd just as soon skip it and move on with the course!
 
The "look at what you're typing, not at the keys" rule is from typewriters, it's not for hhones.

If you have to keep looking up from the keyboard to the hard copy you're typing from it slows you down. (In typing class [yes, schools used to have classrooms fulled with typewriters, and you had to learn to type even if you were going to be a biologist], there were no markings on the keys - they were all blank. There was a chart on the wall in the front of the class with the keyboard layout and that's what you looked at as you typed what the teacher dictated.)

If you're typing something from your head, there's no reason to not look at the keyboard - if that way results in faster typing for you. For some people, it does slow them down to look at the keyboard while they're typing, even if there's no hard copy.

But typing on a full size, two-hand keyboard from hard copy slows everyone down, so the rule applies there.
 
It's a bit difficult to not look at a keyboard when you can't feel it, i.e. a virtual keyboard on an LCD screen. With conventional mechanical keyboards you can feel the keys of course, plus there's raised pips on the F and J home keys, so you should be able to locate all the keys by touch alone.

I was taught the Pitman method of touch typing on a mechanical typewriter. The main emphasis was not to look at the keys, but to keep your eyes on the paper. I often think of any competent pianist, their eyes are on the music and not looking at the piano keyboard.

On my phone obviously can't do that, so I use the Samsung keyboard, which I find to be very good at word prediction and completion based on what I've entered. I actually typed this post on my phone using the Samsung keyboard, but I'm sure I could have typed it much faster using a physical PC keyboard.
 
mikedt said:
It's a bit difficult to not look at a keyboard when you can't feel it, i.e. a virtual keyboard on an LCD screen. With conventional mechanical keyboards you can feel the keys of course, plus there's raised pips on the F and J home keys, so you should be able to locate all the keys by touch alone.

I was taught the Pitman method of touch typing on a mechanical typewriter. The main emphasis was not to look at the keys, but to keep your eyes on the paper. I often think of any competent pianist, their eyes are on the music and not looking at the piano keyboard.

On my phone obviously can't do that, so I use the Samsung keyboard, which I find to be very good at word prediction and completion based on what I've entered. I actually typed this post on my phone using the Samsung keyboard, but I'm sure I could have typed it much faster using a physical PC keyboard.
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Exactly my point, with the raised pips on the F and J home keys I can actually type with my eyes closed if I wanted to on a physical keyboard I know it so well!! Totally different with a virtual keyboard as you pointed out, as there are not pips to guide me!
 
im terrible at qwerty but on my phone i use an old style alpha-numeric keyboard and i look at what im typing instead of the keys. Obviously i can see my thumbs moving in like the preriferal (cant spell that) vision and im not sure if my brain is actually using that or if its purely muscle memory
 
funkylogik said:
im terrible at qwerty but on my phone i use an old style alpha-numeric keyboard and i look at what im typing instead of the keys. Obviously i can see my thumbs moving in like the preriferal (cant spell that) vision and im not sure if my brain is actually using that or if its purely muscle memory
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Could you tell me which keyboard you are using laddie?
 
chanchan05 said:
I've always swyped faster than typing on a phone.
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Love swyping!

I had the OG Droid, D3 and D4 and could type like a maniac on those keyboards. I really do still miss having a slide-out KB but have gotten pretty proficient with on-screen KB's...as long as I can swype!

I look at the keys to see where my finger is going though. With the slide-outs I hardly ever looked at them, just at what I had/was typing on the screen, like a real typewriter (because it practically was :) )
 
I used to do no look typing. That was when I had a landscape slider keyboard on my phone. I would feel around to ensure my thumbs were at the right spot before pressing down on the key.

Phones now often do not have a physical keyboard. There is no tactile feedback and on top of that, once you touch the screen it will register a key press. I hope that someday someone will make a high end phone with a landscape slider keyboard. Right now, the only phones that have landscape slider keyboard are all pieces of crap.
 
I remember seeing new display tech where a flat LCD panel can "inflate" into a raised keyboard. Theres a cool vid of it on youtube somewhere.
Havent seen it implemented in the real world yet though:(
 
I can "blind" type on a fullsized qwerty keyboard with VERY few, if any, mistakes. I just came into the smartphone world with a 3.8" LG39C and I'm seriously thinking of buying a stylus. The "keys" are simply too small for my rather large fingers. But carrying around a stylus would be a royal pita. Just keep practicing I guess.
 
Stuntman said:
I used to do no look typing. That was when I had a landscape slider keyboard on my phone. I would feel around to ensure my thumbs were at the right spot before pressing down on the key.

Phones now often do not have a physical keyboard. There is no tactile feedback and on top of that, once you touch the screen it will register a key press. I hope that someday someone will make a high end phone with a landscape slider keyboard. Right now, the only phones that have landscape slider keyboard are all pieces of crap.
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That is what is killing me on these touch screens when I DON'T look, I can't "feel" home row without looking down at the screen. Maybe with lots and lots of practice I won't need to "feel" home row, but for right now I am incredibly slow if I don't look at the keyboard as I type!
 
funkylogik said:
I remember seeing new display tech where a flat LCD panel can "inflate" into a raised keyboard. Theres a cool vid of it on youtube somewhere.
Havent seen it implemented in the real world yet though:(
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The company is called Tactus. I read an article on them about a year or two ago. I have heard anything from them since.

hiredgun said:
That is what is killing me on these touch screens when I DON'T look, I can't "feel" home row without looking down at the screen. Maybe with lots and lots of practice I won't need to "feel" home row, but for right now I am incredibly slow if I don't look at the keyboard as I type!
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I can't even type properly while looking at the keys. That's the problem with touch screens. You hover your thumb over the key and it obscures it. You could end up typing the wrong key.

When I was using the HTC Desire Z or Nokia N97, I never had to use auto-correct. The physical keyboard enables me to type with very few keying errors. In fact, auto-correct causes me to make more errors whenever I type something that isn't in the dictionary. I turned it off because auto-correct was just too annoying.

When I type on my Galaxy S3, I tried to type without auto-correct. I tried many types of keyboards. I eventually gave up after 6 months and started using auto-correct. There is something inherently wrong with touch screen keyboards if I cannot type with any reasonable degree of accuracy after 6 months of practice.

Auto-correct is a necessary evil, but it doesn't solve the problem. The problem is I am making keying errors at an unreasonable rate. Auto-correct can fix some of the problems. However, auto-correct is an incomplete solution to keying errors because no auto-correct can fix the error where you press the space bar when you want to type a letter key. Every single keyboard I have tried cannot properly correct this type of keying error.

Right now, touch screen keyboard are flexible and cool. The novelty has worn off on me very quickly when I found I could not type with any reasonable degree of accuracy like I did with physical, landscape slider keyboards. The other problem is that phone manufacturers don't want to make phones with physical keyboards. What I find totally insulting is that phone manufacturers would make a keyboard phone that is no where near close to how good their flagship model is and then claim that keyboard phones don't sell. It's not that keyboard phones don't sell. It's that the piece of crap that is attached to the keyboard doesn't sell because it is a piece of crap.
 
Stuntman said:
Auto-correct is a necessary evil, but it doesn't solve the problem. The problem is I am making keying errors at an unreasonable rate. Auto-correct can fix some of the problems. However, auto-correct is an incomplete solution to keying errors because no auto-correct can fix the error where you press the space bar when you want to type a letter key. Every single keyboard I have tried cannot properly correct this type of keying error.

Right now, touch screen keyboard are flexible and cool. The novelty has worn off on me very quickly when I found I could not type with any reasonable degree of accuracy like I did with physical, landscape slider keyboards. The other problem is that phone manufacturers don't want to make phones with physical keyboards. What I find totally insulting is that phone manufacturers would make a keyboard phone that is no where near close to how good their flagship model is and then claim that keyboard phones don't sell. It's not that keyboard phones don't sell. It's that the piece of crap that is attached to the keyboard doesn't sell because it is a piece of crap.
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Funkylogik talked me into getting the Smart Keyboard Pro, lol, and if I am not mistaken one of the features is that you can resize the space bar to "super size" it. This could help you out with that, as I also tend to hit the stupid "C" or "B" keys when trying to space more times than I would like. Other than that I guess we just have to practice, practice, practice!!
 
I touch type (what we call no-look typing this side of the pond) on regular keyboards but there's no way I could do it on a phone - for a start, to touch type you need both hands on the keyboard :D

Touch typing is not just for typewriters: it's way faster (if not so accurate, in my case at least ;)) than peek-and-push typing. Also, when people switch around the keys (a popular office prank, years ago), you don't even realise :D

Having said that, it may make typing on a phone slower as, while my fingers know where the letters are on a QWERTY keyboard, I have to think about it :eek:
 
It would seem that most of us in this thread, swapped keys aside, lol, are decent typist on a physical keyboard. Since the keyboards are basically laid out the same way, there MUST be a way to set up on "home row" for the touch screens right?????
 
Lol i think im the only dude here who is much much faster on this uploadfromtaptalk1393512948110.jpg
Than on a physical keyboard :D
 
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