GUIDE
Typing accuracy
Accuracy is the share of characters you type correctly, and it matters more than raw speed because an error costs a keystroke, the noticing, a backspace, a retype and your rhythm. For most typists below about 70 WPM, removing mistakes raises net speed faster than trying to move faster does.
What an accuracy percentage actually means
Accuracy is counted per character, which makes the numbers sound far better than they feel. 95% accuracy is a figure most people would describe as good; it is also an error every twenty characters, which is roughly once every three or four words, and typing at it is a continuous experience of small interruptions.
The threshold where typing starts to feel smooth is around 98%, and the threshold where you stop noticing errors at all is around 99.5%. Those look like tiny improvements on paper and they are very large improvements in practice, because what changes is the frequency of interruption rather than the percentage.
| Accuracy | One error every | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| 90% | 10 characters | Every other word. Correcting dominates. |
| 95% | 20 characters | Every three or four words. |
| 97% | 33 characters | Once or twice a sentence. |
| 98% | 50 characters | Once a sentence. Typing starts to flow. |
| 99% | 100 characters | Every two or three sentences. The target. |
| 99.5% | 200 characters | Rare enough to stop thinking about. |
Why one error costs more than one keystroke
Count what actually happens. You press the wrong key. Some fraction of a second later you notice, which interrupts whatever you were composing. You press backspace, possibly several times. You retype the character, usually more carefully than you were typing before. Then you rebuild the rhythm you had.
Measured honestly, a single corrected error costs somewhere between five and ten keystrokes' worth of time, and an uncorrected one costs more later. That multiplier is why net speed and accuracy are not two independent things to balance — accuracy is most of net speed.
It is also why the advice to slow down works so reliably and sounds so wrong. Dropping your gross speed by a quarter while cutting your errors by three quarters is a net gain, immediately, on the first session.
How do I actually improve accuracy?
Not by trying harder, which mostly produces tension. The reliable method is to deliberately type below your comfortable speed until errors stop, hold there long enough for it to feel normal, and then let speed return on its own — which it does, faster than people expect.
The second half is diagnostic. Errors are not evenly distributed: almost everyone has a handful of specific keys, transitions or letter pairs that produce most of them, and they are usually not the ones you would guess. A list of the keys you missed most turns "be more accurate" into a list of five things, which is a week of work rather than an open-ended intention.
The third thing is to stop looking at the keyboard, if you still are. Errors caught two words late are errors that needed a longer correction, and eyes on the screen is what catches them at the moment they happen.
- Slow to the point of zero errors
- Usually about 75% of your comfortable speed. Hold it for a week.
- Read the list of missed keys
- Most errors come from a short, specific and surprising list.
- Keep your eyes on the screen
- It is how you catch a mistake on the next character rather than the next line.
- Do not practise tired
- Late-session accuracy is worse, and what you practise is what you learn.
- Warm up
- Two minutes of home row before anything you intend to measure.
Should I correct errors as I go, or carry on?
For practice, correct them. The point of a drill is to produce a clean line, and leaving an error standing means you have practised the error and moved on.
For real work, it depends on what you are doing. When composing — writing a first draft, thinking as you type — many people are better off carrying on and fixing at the end, because stopping to correct interrupts the thought and the thought is the scarce resource. When transcribing or entering data, correct immediately; there is no thought to protect and an uncorrected error propagates.
Typing tests generally let you choose, and the choice changes your score: correcting costs time and raises accuracy, carrying on preserves gross speed and is penalised in net. Neither is cheating, but compare like with like when you compare two results.
Questions
What is a good typing accuracy?
98% or better is where typing starts to feel smooth; 99% and above is where you stop noticing errors. Below about 95% the correcting dominates the session, however fast your gross speed looks.
Is 95% accuracy good?
It is the figure most employers ask for and it is lower than it sounds — an error roughly every three or four words. It is a perfectly respectable place to be and it is the single most improvable thing about most people's typing.
Should I sacrifice speed for accuracy?
Temporarily, yes, and the sacrifice is smaller than it appears because net speed already accounts for errors. Most people find their net speed back at its old level within a fortnight and climbing past it after that.
Why do I make more mistakes when I try to type faster?
Because speed past your current control is exactly what error rate measures. The useful reading is that you have found your ceiling for today — and the way to raise it is to spend time just below it rather than repeatedly above it.
Put it into practice
Reading about typing is the smaller half. The beginner course starts on the home row, the speed test will tell you where you stand, and all of it works in 86 languages without an account.