Let’s Practice Touch Typing (in a smart way)

TL;DR: brief introduction to KeyBr.com - a well-famed typing practice website. Written by MapleCCC.

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Background and Terminologies

What is touch typing?

Touch typing, as described in Wikipedia, refers to “a style of typing without looking”. Touch typist usually types accurately relying on muscle memory which doesn’t involve looking at keyboard layout. It’s commonly believed that touch typing entails dramatically higher accuracy and typing speed. Therefore it’s deemed a well-worth skill to practice on.

Typing practice websites

There are already plenty of websites out there providing user with detailed and well-crafted lessons to practice typing, hoping to help them gain higher speed and accuracy in the end. Some of the websites even make money from VIP supply of advanced practice curricula. Though, many of these practice websites share some common patterns or defects:

• Practice is modularized into lessons. Users are able to proceed step by step. This “divide and conquer” strategy helps to reduce boredom and reserve passion.
• Text for practice is usually fixed. It’s not uncommon to find the first practice lesson of some websites involving repeatedly typing sequence of letters j and k. Not only does such practice manner yields boredom and potential finger tiresome, but also lacks motive for personalized practice tailor-made for individual user.
• Dominated by QWERTY layout.
• Usually focus on English language corpus.

Terminologies

• WPM. Word-per-minute. A ubiquitous measure unit of typing speed.
• CPM. Character-per-minute. Another less popular measure unit.
• QWERTY. It refers to the ubiquitous keyboard layout world-widely used nowadays. Specified by the six letters on the top right of the keyboard layout.
• Dvorak. The allegedly second most popular English keyboard layout.
• Colemak. The allegedly third most popular English keyboard layout. It’s variant Colemak Mod DH enjoys popularity.
• Touch typing. Typing without looking at the keyboard.
• Touch typist. People who touch type.
• Stenography. A style of typing that hit multiple keys with more than one fingers simultaneously. It’s much difficult to learn than touch typing but can achieve significantly higher typing speed that outclasses normal one-key-per-time typing.

Here Comes the Savior - KeyBr.com

KeyBr.com 的出现打破了上述的种种困局，他出现在市场上的一霎那，万人空巷。新颖的算法设置和独特的极简风格UI设计，无不让人心里为之陶醉。

Features

Minimalistic UI. Elegant and high-class.

用户技能栈 bar。显示为绿色的是用户已经点亮的技能点。

随着技能点的提升，绿色的程度也会不一样，逐渐从浅绿加深到深绿色。随着用户练习进程慢慢前进，26个英文字母都会被点亮为绿色，让人欣喜。

text board。含有当前关卡的需要练习的文本。由成熟新颖的算法自动生成。

text board 的内容不是无意义的 gibberish，而是在日常英语文本中频繁出现的单词组合，练习它们让用户在日常击键中提速效果更加明显。text board 上面的 text 采用等宽字体 (Ubuntu Mono) 显示，更加方便扫阅。

虚拟屏幕键盘。让用户尽量不要看自己手上的键盘。

随着用户技能度的提高，算法也随之创建出匹配用户能力的关卡，以获得最佳的练习体验。

智能算法，根据每一轮的每个字母的输入情况，分析构建出独一无二的下一个全新关卡。没有让人垂头丧气的重复练习，每一次都是全新的冒险。仿佛近年兴起的 Roguelike 类型游戏，让人连连上瘾，不忍释手；创新地把游戏关卡上瘾机制引入打字练习，打破旧日市场的单调局面。

更加丰富的设置选项。符合多样化人群的需求。

不喜欢低效別手的 QWERTY 布局？没有关系，Dvorak，Colemak，Workman，应有尽有，满足小众打字爱好者饕餮胃口！

除了英语，还有德意法西葡俄等等语言，本地化也做得很好。不过都是基于拉丁字母的输入方案，汉语输入就暂时未有概入。

还可以设置随着击键发出机械键盘声音，让用户击键听音，好不爽快，越打越开心。

现代键盘上除了 26 个字母的键之外还有标点符号和数字键，KeyBr.com 网站也贴心的提供了练习盲打标点符号键和数字键的进阶选项。

详尽的个人数据图表展示。色彩丰富，形象直观。展示出用户在过去一段时间以来的各方面的成长情况。全面细致，让你全方位地了解自己的进步情况。个性化十足，贴心服务。

26 个字母的进步情况的概览。

打字速度的增长速率。

各个字母的熟练程度增长趋势。

击键速率分布和频率分布。

键位热点分布图。

还有跟 GitHub 绿点图很像的“蓝点图”，来记录你往日「划粥割齑」的感人经历。甚至还能自动生成分享链接，让你可以把进步实况分享到社交平台，让好友们为你打气鼓励，更加有动力再接再厉！

一个人埋头练习久了感到无聊？还有趣味性十足的联网在线多人打字比赛可以快捷参加，看看谁能笑到最后！

结语

看到这里你还不心动吗，心动不如行动，快快来加入我们的盲打练习大潮流吧！

No more bullshit, let’s practice touch typing!

—— MapleCCC