Best keyboards for learning to touch type

What matters for learning

• A standard staggered layout. Every keydrills lesson, and every other typing course, assumes the rows are offset the way they have been since typewriters. Ortholinear and columnar boards are fine later, but the maker of one such board estimates about three months to get back to 75% of your old speed after switching, and suggests learning to touch type on a staggered board first.
• Bumps on F and J. The small ridges on the index-finger home keys are how you find the home row without looking. Almost every mainstream board has them; check before buying anything unusual.
• Key travel you can feel. Research comparing 0.5 to 2 mm of travel found only small differences in speed (under 5 WPM), but people consistently preferred conventional travel and liked the shallowest keys least. For a beginner, a key that clearly bottoms out or bumps is a key you know you pressed.
• Spacing and wrist position. OSHA's workstation guidance puts key spacing at 18 to 19 mm and wants wrists straight and level with the forearms; it also recommends a full-size external keyboard for anyone doing intensive keyboard work on a laptop. Most of the picks below exist to satisfy those two lines.
• Tactile or linear is preference. Tactile switches (a bump at actuation, roughly 55 g) give more feedback; linears (about 45 g, smooth) are quieter and faster for some people. There is no study showing one teaches faster. Skip clicky switches in any shared space.

The picks

Prices are US street prices as of September 2026 and move around; treat them as ballpark and check the current price on the product page.

What to avoid while learning

• 60% and smaller boards that move punctuation, brackets or the arrow keys onto layers. The symbols chapter of the course expects them where a full board puts them.
• Columnar or ortholinear layouts until you already touch type. They are excellent for ergonomics later and a second learning curve now.
• A laptop keyboard as your only practice board if you can avoid it. Cramped, shallow, and it fixes your posture to the screen position.
• Keyboards without home-row bumps, including some flat and decorative designs. Feel for the ridges on F and J.

Then practise on it

A new keyboard makes the first lesson feel different for about a day; after that the method is the same. Start at finger placement if you still look at the keys, or run a one-minute test before and after the switch to see what the board changed.

Sources

1. OSHA Computer Workstations eTool: Keyboards (key spacing, neutral wrist position, split keyboards). osha.gov ↗
2. OSHA Computer Workstations eTool: Additional information (auxiliary keyboards for laptop users). osha.gov ↗
3. Kia et al. Effects of key travel on typing performance, muscle activity and preference. Applied Ergonomics, 2018. doi.org ↗
4. Dygma. Transitioning to an ortholinear keyboard (expected relearning time). dygma.com ↗
5. PCWorld. Why the F and J keys on keyboards are usually raised. 2024. pcworld.com ↗
6. Keychron switch specifications (tactile 55 g, linear 45 g, travel). keychron.com ↗

Keep reading

• How to learn touch typing — Home row, fingering, accuracy-first practice, and a two-to-four-week schedule.
• How to type faster — Raise WPM by cleaning accuracy, rhythm, and weak keys — not by trying harder.
• What is a good typing speed — WPM explained, how keydrills scores a test, and realistic speed benchmarks.
• Home row and finger placement — Which finger owns which key, the F and J bumps, and the opposite-hand Shift rule.
• Typing.com and keybr alternatives — An honest comparison of keydrills, Typing.com, keybr, and Monkeytype.
• Typing speed statistics — Averages, percentiles, error rates and records from published research, every figure cited.