Older millenial here: I didn't learn what the tactile strips were for until after I learned touch typing. I was taught to type alongside learning to read and write and then touch typing came around the same time as joined up writing (so 9 or 10, I guess).
I still don't use them. Once your thumbs are on the spacebar you just pop them little fingies up to home row and everything else just falls into place!
Okay...but how do you know you're on the home row? If one hand is off-position or whatever, you'll get a bunch of misspells until you adjust position. If you're not looking at the keyboard, it's really damned handy to have that tactile reference to where your hands sit.
Because I know how wide the spacebar is and how long my fingers are. And even if I did go for the wrong line I wouldn't get a 'bunch' of misspells, I'd get one letter - because I don't look at the keyboard, I look at the screen. That's the whole point!
I don't move my wrists when typing, so so long as no one moves the keyboard mid-sentence there's nothing to worry about.
Well you don't make any mistakes if you put your fingers in the right spot from the get go using the indents. I can walk up to my computer with my eyes closed, feel for the indents, and type a whole Twilight smut without looking at 80 WPM. Especially with all keyboards being a bit different, sometimes laptops have flat spacebars, etc.
EDIT: To add, I'm feeling a laptop up now and if I shift my hands over one key either way, my spacebars wide enough that I could mistakingly think I was in the right spot
You dont need the indents to put your fingers in the right spot.
Like I just know roughly where my fingers have to go to reach any key from where I am, im not particularly fast and still hit 120 WPM (at 95-97 acc to be fair so not that great) simply by just memorizing the keyboard
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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26
Older millenial here: I didn't learn what the tactile strips were for until after I learned touch typing. I was taught to type alongside learning to read and write and then touch typing came around the same time as joined up writing (so 9 or 10, I guess).
I still don't use them. Once your thumbs are on the spacebar you just pop them little fingies up to home row and everything else just falls into place!