AcademyHow to Type Faster on a Phone: What Works

To type faster on a phone, type with both thumbs, let autocorrect fix small slips instead of stopping to pick suggested words, and check each word as you finish it rather than watching every key. In a study of 37,370 volunteers, two-thumb typists averaged 38 WPM against about 29 for people who typed with one finger, and those who used autocorrect were the fastest group, at 43 WPM.^{Source 1} Beyond that, phone typing is a motor skill most people learn on their own, so the rest of the plan is practice, measured honestly.

Key takeaways

• Two thumbs beat one finger by about 9 WPM on average. The study’s announcement called finger use the best predictor of performance.
• Autocorrect users were fastest, and people who leaned on word suggestions were slower. Both are correlations, not proof.
• Swiping is not clearly faster. The evidence is mixed, so test it on yourself.
• Errors cost more on a phone: phone volunteers left twice the share of errors uncorrected that keyboard volunteers did. Check each word as you finish it.
• Measure key by key. On TYPETRANCE, suggested, autocorrected, swiped or dictated text is assisted input and never sets a best.

How fast people type on phones

One of the largest studies of phone typing, with a public dataset, asked volunteers to copy 15 English sentences in a web test on their own phones.^{Source 1}

• Average: 36.17 WPM, and three in four volunteers typed below 43.98 WPM.
• The fastest reached over 80 WPM. The university’s announcement put the top speed at 85 WPM.^{Source 2}
• About 15 WPM slower than keyboards. The same research group, with the same method, had measured 51.56 WPM on computers, mostly on laptop and desktop keyboards.^{Source 3}

The volunteers chose to take a typing test, and many were young women from the U.S., so the authors caution that the results might not fit every group.^{Source 1} For figures on the general population, see average typing speed.

Use both thumbs

The university’s announcement of the study put it simply: “The best predictor of performance is whether you use one finger or two thumbs to type.”^{Source 2} Average speeds by typing posture:

Posture	Average speed
Both thumbs	38.0 WPM
Both index fingers	32.6 WPM
Left thumb only	30.8 WPM
Right thumb only	30.2 WPM
Right index finger only	26.7 WPM
Left index finger only	25.0 WPM

Two-thumb typing was the fastest posture, ahead of every other group, and typists who used two fingers of any kind averaged 37.7 WPM against 29.2 for one finger.^{Source 1} Earlier research attributes the advantage to switching often between the two sides of the screen, which lets one thumb get ready for its next key while the other types.^{Source 1}

If you type with one finger or one thumb, switching to two thumbs is the change the data supports most clearly.

Let autocorrect work, and pick suggestions sparingly

Phone keyboards can help in three ways: autocorrect, which fixes a word after you finish it; word prediction, which lets you tap a suggested word; and gesture typing, where you swipe through the letters. Only about 14% of the volunteers used none of them.^{Source 2} Average speeds by the help they used:

• Autocorrect only: 43.4 WPM, the fastest group.
• No help at all: 34.8 WPM.
• Word prediction only: 32.8 WPM.^{Source 1}

The more words a typist autocorrected, the faster they tended to be (r = 0.237); the more words they picked from the prediction bar, the slower (r = −0.183).^{Source 1} One of the researchers explained the prediction result:

What we found out is that the time spent thinking about the word suggestions often outweighs the time it would take you to type the letters, making you slower overall.

These are correlations: faster typists may simply be the ones who trust autocorrect. Still, the practical reading is reasonable. Keep autocorrect on for everyday typing, keep typing through short words, and tap a suggestion only when it saves you a long word.

Is swiping faster?

Not clearly. The study’s authors cite an earlier field study in which people typed almost 10 WPM faster with a gesture keyboard, after practice, than by tapping. In their own data, though, the volunteers whose only help was gesture typing averaged 32.2 WPM, below the 34.8 of those who used no help, and the authors suspect their sample under-represents gesture typists.^{Source 1} If you are curious, give swiping a fair trial of a week or two and compare your measured speed, not how it feels.

Catch errors at the end of each word

Phone typing is more error-prone than typing on keys. The volunteers left 2.34% of their text wrong, twice the 1.17% of the keyboard study, and pressed Backspace less often, 1.89 times per sentence against 2.29.^{Source 1} The authors point to the cost of fixing mistakes on a phone: a flat screen gives no feel of a missed key, so you have to look away from the keyboard to the text to notice an error.

The errors left in the text were mostly wrong letters (55.6%) and missing letters (33.3%), with fewer extra letters (11.1%).^{Source 1} Two habits help:

• Check each word as you finish it, before the space. A slip fixed inside the word takes a Backspace or two; one found a sentence later takes far longer.
• Ease off when slips pile up. Slightly slower and clean usually beats fast and fixing; how to improve typing accuracy explains why.

Practice: your keyboard skills won’t transfer

Volunteers who had taken a touch-typing course for computer keyboards were slightly slower on their phones (35.7 WPM) than those who hadn’t (36.4 WPM), a difference the authors call small; a course on physical keyboards showed no recognizable link with phone speed.^{Source 1} Phone typing is its own skill:

The researchers describe phone typing as “a type of motor skill that people learn on their own with no formal training”.^{Source 2} So practice it like one: short, regular sessions at a pace a little above your comfortable one, and a weekly check that the number is moving.

Measure your phone speed honestly

On TYPETRANCE, phones type key by key. Text your keyboard inserts for you, such as a tapped suggestion, an autocorrected word, a swiped word or dictation, counts as assisted input: the run stays in your history but never sets a personal best, and ranked runs refuse it. Touch screens also keep their own personal bests, separate from hardware keyboards.

1. Turn off word suggestions and autocorrect in your keyboard settings before a counted run.
2. Take the 15-second test three times and keep the middle result.
3. Re-test each week on the same phone, holding it the same way.

That number measures your thumbs, not your keyboard’s guesses. Your everyday speed with autocorrect on may well be higher, and that’s fine: it is a different measurement.

Race it now

15secondsFormats15-second typing test

Measure your thumbs: three 15-second tests with word suggestions off.

• 15-second test
• 200 common words

Start the 15-second typing test