Effects of Amount of Visual Feedback on Typing Performance

Abstract

Current hardware and software make it unnecessary to provide visual feedback for a typist. There are little data regarding whether visual feedback is necessary. Prior studies are unclear on this question. Some researchers (Long, 1976) suggest that visual feedback is an important component of the typing task. In the present study, typists of various skill levels typed text, computer programs, or numeric data under conditions which allowed 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 15, 26, 46, or 79 characters to be seen. Analysis of typing speed, typographical errors, semantic errors, and an analysis of errors with speed as a covariate revealed that amount of feedback did not affect performance. Visual feedback had an effect only on the number of erasures (corrections) made by the typists.