How hard do you press on your keyboard keys when you type?

Im really OCD when it comes to laptop keyboards so I type like a girl and put every ounce of effort to type as light as possible. I know some people who pound on their keys like if its a deskop keyboard. To me thats too hard.

From what a tech told me, you should never type on a laptop keyboard like you do with a desktop one. Because over time the excess force you put on the keyboard and framing underneath will weaken the entire laptop chasis.

 

Typing is just something I do from habit, although I seem to type lighter on a laptop than my desktop keyboard. I would find it hard to believe that the stress of typing would cause frame troubles, unless your Big foot or Godzilla, since the natural flex of the keyboard would absorb most of the pressure.

 

When you press down on a key, there's a time when the key stops resisting and goes straight down to the bottom. I press just hard enough for that to happen. I think that makes for more efficient typing as well.

 

Exactly.

Also I'm not sure why you have to press hard with a desktop keyboard?

Anyway, I don't pay attention to how hard I press the keys, but I've never broken any of my keyboards or notebooks by typing.

 

Yea... I just kinda type and don't pay any attention. Just a nice solid press so I know the keystroke will be registered.

 

Here is a new keyboard out from razer. It is a mechanical keyboard, with every key having a key switch instead of a membrane underneath your common keyboard. So when you press on it, it only takes half the pressure of a normal keyboard and has more of a push back so you dont have to type on it as hard aparently.

 

I press normally...I suppose...I'm just wondering where the "I don't really pay attention to it, I just type normally" option is?...

My stepdad is pretty heavy on his though. The "Q" key and surrounding region seem to have permanent flex now.

 

I jst type the same way i do on all keyboards, unless im ticked off and then i start pounding it

 

I pound on them pretty hard and I'm also one of those one-fingered typists.

 

I type light either way. It's remarkable to me that you can sit in a lecture hall and hear so many keyboards getting smashed on a daily basis. It's like the keypress won't be acknowledged unless the keyboard KNOWS it's been hit. You only need to go far enough to activate the switch. The distance varies by keyboard, but ultimately hitting keys harder just leads to slower typing and more damage (How the heck do girls score nail marks into the plastics of keyboards... Jeebus...)

 

Because of the tactile sensation. It's just an innate characteristic of humans: The harder the surface, the harder you tend to press. In additions there's also a greater amount of resistance on the typical desktop keyboard as compared to the laptop--which, I'm afraid, are very, fragile.

On a related note, men also tend to press a lot harder than women. But that varies according to your experience with touch typing. And, of course, the size of your mitts.

 

i ususally press as hard a desktop keyboard but my keyboard's quite good so no flex.. i don't type light exactly but not heavy.. sort of mid range.

 

My typing teacher said you're suppose to "stroke" the keys!

 

I voted for option one, since I use quite a bit of force when typing on my desktop keyboard. I use much less force on my Thinkpad's keyboard (although it may still seem like I press with a lot of force, since my T500's NMB keyboard is quite clicky compared to most laptops).

 

Hello, Before i too use to get very worried about what would happen if my keyboard keys break or stopped working if i press them to hard.

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Yes, I assume it's general. In French " I type" is translated as " Je tape", literally: I beat. So, what you'd say in French actually means " I beat on my keyboard", " she beat my letter", etc. IOW, in French-speaking countries, we are beating our keyboards all the day.

I assume this is a necessity, and not only because of the former mechanical keyboards: on the human side, to type fast you need to make quite clear for each key, i.e. a dozen times a second, if that key has been typed or not, and it's clearer and faster if it gets " tapée" (beaten), no matter how electrical and soft the keys have become.

Versailles, Wed 01 Sep 2010 12:43:25 +0200

 

The force of the keystrike has nothing to do with whether the key switch activates. The force has to do with overcoming the resistance of the spring underlying the key. It's an important distinction when you have mechanical keyboard that require little to no force to activate, less than the weight of your fingers resting on the keys. Most people have to use force to type not because that's their typing style, but because the mass-produced keyboards we use on a daily basis use have tough rubber dome-based magnetic switches that require substantially greater force to type on than the former spring-based mechanical keyboards.

 

woofer00, to my human side secondary, tentative (and partial) explanation, you speak of key switch, resistance of the spring, weight of (user's) fingers, rubber dome-based magnetic switches, spring-based mechanical keyboards. Both count, but they are, to some extent, independent. I insist on the main point: not all (right or wrong) reasons to strike (or not) the keyboard with some force have been exposed.

Versailles, Wed 01 Sep 2010 19:21:10 +0200

 

Having a bit of trouble with your translation, but I think I get the general gist:

It depends on the user as much as the keyboard. You can transplant an otherwise fast typer onto a mechanical keyboard and they'll just hammer away just like they did on any other keyboard, at the same speed, because they're use to typing at a particular force. I don't need to confirm that a key is pressed so long as I know I've pressed it down far enough. Confirmation doesn't necessarily require feeling the key hit the bottom of its stack.

Once you've been typing on a particular keyboard for a few weeks, it's pretty easy to find the equilibrium point where you've activated the switch without fully depressing the keys. The fastest typers I know have grown accustomed to and swear by their mechanical (i.e. sprung) keyboards for a very simple reason - it takes less force and therefore less time to activate a particular key because they activate higher and with less resistance.

In case there's some confusion about what I mean when I refer to a mechanical keyboard, read here:
Mechanical Keyboard Guide - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net