The first commercial typewriter was invented in 1866 by an American named Christopher Sholes. This manual typewriter used mechanical arms that printed one letter at a time onto a piece of rolled paper. The Type-bar system used in the Sholes Typewriter started to encounter problems as the keys would jam easily. This caused the invention of the “QWERTY” keyboard by one of Sholes associates, James Densmore. The “QWERTY” keyboard even after all these years is still the standard used around the world for typing.
In 1902 the Blickensderfer Manufacturing Company produced the first electric typewriter but it wasn’t until the dominance of personal computers that typewriters started to die out. In the late 1970’s companies such as Apple and IBM noticed the need for computer keyboards and started to produce the first personal computer keyboards. The commercial success of computers opened up computer typing to the world and allowed organisations to automate a range of work based processes. Now day’s organisations wouldn’t survive without computers and it would be hard to find a job that didn’t entail the use of Typing.
Words per minute is the common measure of typing speed. Words are standardized to 5 keystrokes and measured on the amount processed in one minute. The average rate worldwide for typing is around 30 words per minute with a professional typist usually in speeds of 50-80 WPM. There is much debate around the fastest typist in the world but the fastest verified typing speed in history appears to have been achieved in 1946 by Stella Pajunas-Garnandat at 216 words per minute.
A fast typing speed is seen as a prerequisite for many roles, especially in office administration. PeoplogicaSkills offers a full range of typing questions including, general, alphanumeric, data entry and audio. Clients can create custom typing tests to fit the specific typing requirements of a role.
Please try our free typing test to measure your own speed. Results will be emailed through to you. If you need any further information on typing metrics please click here.
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Written by Mark Purbrick
The faster you can type, the faster you can complete all of these tasks—and the more productive you can be. Typing remains a fundamental skill, and it is still one of the most important computer skills you can learn. Learning to type fast and accurately will help you in many ways in life, and it should be considered an essential skill for anyone who sees themselves working with a computer in some capacity.