Keyboard Poster for the Office: Which Finger Types What?

A keyboard poster on the wall reminds the whole team every day which finger types which key, without anyone hunting for a sheet on their desk. This poster shows the QWERTY keyboard large in landscape, one color per finger, home row marked, and a single line of text. For the wall behind the monitors, the training room or the kitchen where people argue about shortcuts.

What is on the poster

• The QWERTY keyboard at full width, every key in the color of its finger
• Home position A S D F and J K L ; marked, bumps on F and J
• The legend with all eight fingers and the thumbs
• One line: home position, thumbs on the space bar, eyes forward

No explanation, no rules. A poster is read from two meters away, in two seconds.

Why a poster works in an office

Most office workers type with four to six fingers and know it could be better. They just don't talk about it. A poster takes the topic out of the embarrassment corner and makes it something everyone sees and is allowed to discuss. The second effect is repetition: whoever walks past the color assignment daily has it in their head after two weeks without ever practicing. The practice itself then takes less time.

At two hours of typing a day per person, every improvement adds up: going from 30 to 50 WPM saves more than a third of the typing time for the same amount of text. The math is on the page for companies.

How to use it

1. Print in color on A4 landscape, better A3 if the printer can. The layout scales without losing quality.
2. Hang it at eye level next to the monitors, not behind people's backs.
3. Anyone who wants the details gets the finger keyboard map with hands and rules for their own desk.
4. As the start of a team training: everyone takes the typing speed test once, the result goes on a note next to the poster. Four weeks later, again.

Pro tip

Don't hang the poster without a reason. Combine it with a number: the team average from the first test. A visible number that can improve turns decoration into a goal.

Next step

For teams there is the training with before-and-after measurement and a certificate per participant, details on the page for companies. For the individual, the guide to learning touch typing is the start.

Sources

• Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes - Aalto University and University of Cambridge, CHI 2018: 168,000 participants, average 51.6 WPM, fast typists use 8.4 fingers on average, slow ones 5.3.
• Words per minute (Wikipedia) - two-finger typists at about 27 WPM when copying, professionals 43 to 80 WPM.