We think that it is…on a standard keyboard.

Touch-keyboarding (or touch-typing as the skill used to be known) was reasonably difficult to learn at the time of the manual typewriter. People learned touch-typing because typing constituted a core competence required in their occupation. They were for instance, secretaries or writers. The great majority of typists, when the typewriter was first introduced, used their typing skills to transfer onto paper the words of others, as secretaries and copyists do. Typewriters were also used by writers: it is reported that Mark Twain wrote Tom Sawyer on the just invented Remington typewriter.

The advent of the electric typewriter did not change things much. Typing remained, in the main, a skill of secretaries and writers. Therefore, from its commercialisation in the late 1880s until the advent of the personal computer, typing was a core competence of people whose working time was mostly spent typing.

Things changed substantially with the advent of the personal computer, in the mid-1980s. Suddenly, not only did the keyboard have twice as many keys as the old typewriter, but also the people who were using it were not trained typists.

Today's Touch-typists Did Not Learn the Skill on the Computer
Our research shows that most post-1980 computer users, who can touch-keyboard, learned the skill on a typewriter. We have found very few users who have become accomplished touch-typists using a computer.

The motivation to learn to touch-keyboard exists. People are aware of not using the keyboard properly and try to learn. The number of touch-typing programs available on the market is sufficient testimony.

Educators are aware of the importance of touch-keyboarding and touch-keyboarding has been taught in schools from the day the computers entered the classroom.

In spite of this, most computer users are not touch-keyboarders. Why is this? We believe that the reasons are the following.

Why People Find it so Difficult to Touch-Keyboard?

1. Modern computer application programs require the right hand to move away from the keyboard very frequently (to operate the mouse, for instance or the directional arrow keys or other function keys). This means that the hand has to be repositioned on the HOME keys many times during a session and this task is not easy given the subtlety of the markers on the reference keys F and J. (More about why "form" should follow "function").
   
2. The QWERTY layout makes it difficult to memorise the location of the keys on the keyboard.
3. The keyboard has twice as many keys as the electric typewriter and is difficult to use.
4. Many computer users today use the computer in the mode of a "writer". That is, they compose the material that they encode as for instance in the case of a person writing and sending an e-mail message. This mode allows the user the option of either looking at the keyboard (hunt and peck typing) or looking at the screen (touch-typing). Interestingly, the hunt and peck option is not available to visually impaired users who must be able to touch-type or cannot type at all.
5. The majority of users use the computer to transfer information from an outside source (e.g. paper, telephone) to the computer. This is the case, for instance, of order entry operators. Most of these users cannot touch-type and the impact on productivity of this is enormous. However, because employers are generally not aware of the issue, there is no pressure on staff to learn to use the keyboard properly and thus more efficiently. (Employers are starting to realise the potential productivity gains that could be achieved if computer users could keyboard properly and tests to verify typing speed and accuracy of job applicants are slowly being introduced. Australia, for instance, has introduced a keyboarding standard in 2001).
6. Rapid keying is a complex psychomotor process and mastering it requires practice. Most computer users however, do not spend enough time typing to practice and build the skill. Whereas before, secretaries, who were generally excellent touch-typists, spent most of their working day typing, today, typing represents a small proportion of the computer user's time. This does not allow the skill to build and consolidate with practice.
7. Curricula of elementary schools have not yet caught up with the fact that learning to touch-type requires frequent practice just as learning to play a musical instrument. Thus, most schools dedicate one hour per week to computer classes and, of this time, a good part is spent in activities other than keyboarding. Moreover, IT teachers rarely can touch-type themselves and so are not aware of the difficulty to become one. As a result, most children leave school knowing "how to" touch-type but without "being able" to touch-type.

Touch-keyboarding is Easy on a TACTUS Keyboard
The TACTUS Keyboard has been designed with touch-keyboarding in mind. The ridges on the TACTUS keyboard form two boxes within which the fingers are obliged to move. Each box is four keys wide, in order to accommodate the four fingers which are used to tap the keys. Each box has three rows so that each finger always moves one row up and one row down from its position on the home key. The picture below illustrates this point.




The ridges have two main functions:

• They allow the hand to be re-positioned on the keyboard very quickly after operating the mouse or the directional keys.
  
  
• They greatly facilitate touch-keyboarding due to the feedback they provide. Instead of the just having the two markers on the keys F and J, the fingers operate within a clearly defined geometric frame which is easy to feel, understand and remember.