Asynchronous Activity: Find out

Directions: Look for recent studies/thesis/research that is related to your strand and pick one.
Take note that you need to attach your chosen study/thesis/research. Answer the
following guide questions.

• What is the title of the study/thesis/research?

• What is the purpose of the study/thesis/research?

• What is the statistical test used in the study/thesis/research?

• Why do you think the researcher used that particular statistical test?

Does keyboard affect typing speed of an individual?

CONTENTS
-Purpose of the research
-Purpose of keyboards
-Different types of keyboards
-Disadvantages and advantages of the two types of keyboards
-The effects of a certain type of keyboard to a user
-Statistics about the information
-Conclusion

I. Introduction

As an engineering student taking the course of STEM, it piques my interest about this
certain topic because of how keyboards are usually used and that is to input data into a
device, the innovation behind keyboards should improve the quality of it, may that be typing
speed, design or input lag, keyboards today come in different types, and those different types
have a certain purpose on how the user would use it. Keyboards are basically essential to a
computer, without it the computer will not have any way of gathering data from the user to
be delivered to the processing unit. The science behind it will prove how effective keyboards
are and how does it affect its purpose to an individual.

The main purpose of keyboards is to input data into a computer so that the computer
would receive the data that the user had inputted and function according to the data it has
received, the most common use of it is to type letters, instead of writing it, a common
example is this research, a document type which the contents of it had been inputted in a
word file to ease the user of sharing data and information.

II. Objectives

- To identify if the type of keyboards affects typing speed of an individual.

- To identify the difference of membrane and mechanical keyboard.
-To identify the advantages and disadvantages of the type of keyboard.

III. Data and content

To answer the first objects, we must consider how we measure typing speed and how
suited one keyboard is to an individual, the unit of measurement of typing speed is
WPM(words per minute) that will indicate how fast an individual types words and how
much the keyboard had inputted to the computer, the variable about this certain type of data
gathering mostly relies on the user, of how good and fast the user process its brain to type
keys, memorizing the position of each and every letter of the keyboard will increase the
typing speed of an individual, so instead of focusing on those certain factors, we will get the
average typing speed of an individual, and that is 38-40 words per minute.

There are certain factors that affects the quality of the keyboard and how it affects the
typing speed of an individual, given earlier that on how skilled the user types words and
basing on the average wpm, the keyboards role is to input letters to a computer, such that a
keyboard should be comfortable to use, a good design on the button, input travel on how
hard to press, and the size of the keys of the keyboard itself. A good keyboard should have
working keys and should not have any input delay, another thing to note is that a good
keyboard for an individual might be a bad keyboard to others, considering hand size,
disabilities and etc..

There are actual multiple techniques which makes you type faster, if your left hand
should only type letters that are on the left side of the keyboard, using only few fingers to
touch certain keys while the other hand does the same, based on the given data I have
gathered an average typing user is expected to type 80+ wpm, while a decent one is expected
to type 110-120+ wpm, given that the user is comfortable enough to type and all those
factors are inline with the users capabilities, so to compare that we should focus on the type
of keyboard, and there are mainly two types I know of, the mechanical and the membrane
keyboard.

The membrane keyboards

 The membrane keyboard is a standard computer keyboard that is commonly used for
generic typing, examples of it is office keyboards, built-in laptop keyboards and other
keyboards that are default to the computer itself without any customization, the membrane
keyboards is composed of three layers, the first layer is consist of the key cap itself, where
the letter is imprinted in the key, once pressed the input will transfer to the second layer, the
role of the second layer is to detect the pressure from the first layer, and the third one is
called the bottom membrane layer, this is where the keys are registered to read the input
from the second layer.

Advantages and disadvantages of membrane keyboards

The advantages of membrane keyboards include is size, they are slimmer and more
compact, and it is quiet, but on the other hand they lack feedback input which gives latency
to the finger before pressing the keys again.

The mechanical keyboards

The mechanical keyboards are more complex than the membrane keyboards, it has
individual switches at the keys that they can be fully customized to an individual’s personal
preference, they give of more benefits that the membrane keyboards, with low input latency,
fast feedback and they are most used in gaming wherein each second counts, that is also why
mechanical keyboards gives you a typing advantage, not because of the colored LED lights,
but because of how responsive it is and how it is design in a way that the keys are best suited
for the user itself.

Advantages and disadvantages of mechanical keyboards

The advantage of mechanical keyboards it that mechanical keyboards have an edge in

quality over the generic membrane keyboards, be that it is better at feedback latency, travel
distance of keys, button pressure sensitivity and key scan speed, the one disadvantage that
mechanical keyboard has is the noise it produces, well it is noisy and completely unusable
when someone is asleep, it could also be satisfying to hear the sound of the keyboard itself,
but it is more pricey than the membrane keyboard.

IV. Statistics

Test used: T-test, one-tailed test

T-test is used for comparing which one is greater than or less than one sample.

The main use of t-test is to compare two subjects with match pairs, being the
pairs are membrane and mechanical keyboard, conducting a one-tailed test
because we have to find out which one is much faster than the others, to compute
that we have to find out the average wpm of each keyboard and compare them
using greater than or less than or equal to the first sample.
 This table below indicates the difference of membrane and mechanical
keyboards percentages about the wpm, error, and accuracy of the words, and both
left and right-handed accuracy of using the keyboard.

Figure 1: Table data of the t-test

Figure 1. the table above is from Nicholas Kelling.

Pham, Tri & Kelling, Nicholas. (2015). Mechanical and Membrane Keyboard
Typing Assessment Using Surface Electromyography (sEMG). Proceedings of the
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. 59. 912-915.
10.1177/1541931215591268.
Disclaimer:
All the data above the table is the property of Nicholas Kelling; Such that I do not
own any of the data that is presented above, all credit is due to him.

V. Report and Conclusion

With the given data above, even with the mechanical keyboard having more features
and gives of an advantage over typing speed because of its fast-input latency which
allows the keys to bounce back quickly to your fingers, and the input lag with the
mechanical keyboard having one individual switches for the keys to be more responsive,
the membrane keyboard have more wpm, given that the membrane keyboard is made for
typing, not only that, the membrane keyboards shows more consistency, having more
 accurate words typed and less margin or error. The left and right side usually does not
matter because the difference of the two is that the left side of the keyboard has more
letters than the right, the right side is mainly composed of punctuation marks and
symbols, that is why it is pressed less than the left side, thus making the left hand having
more sEMG Or surface electromyography which means the recording of electoral
activity of muscle and tissue from the hand.

To conclude this research, the membrane is much suited for typing, having the data
above proves advantageous over the mechanical keyboard, even though the mechanical
keyboard has more advantage in features and in comfortability, the results of membrane
keyboard is more consistent than the mechanical, this proves that comfortability is not a
factor in typing speed, neither does the small input latency and feedback input, but on the
designated use of the keyboard itself, that membrane is a more generic type of keyboard that
its purpose is to type, while on the mechanical is much used for a variety of technical utility
like gaming, that membrane keyboard proves to increase typing speed over the mechanical
keyboard.

Transforming ourselves, Transforming our world.

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References and Sources of data.
: https://www.quora.com/Do-keyboards-affect-typing-speed-and-accuracy
https://www.minitool.com/lib/membrane-keyboard.html
https://switchandclick.com/how-to-type-faster/
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Paired-T-Tests-WPM-Error-sEMG-Left-and-Right-
Arms-of-Max-SUS_tbl1_283538787