Time Intervals between Keystrokes, Records, and Fields in Data Entry with Skilled Operators

Abstract

Designers of systems which provide for data entry from a keyboard are usually concerned about the rate and manner that keyed data will enter the system. This article provides generalized keying rate information in terms of the time between keystrokes, the time between records and fields, and the burst rates for multiple keystrokes. The time interval data is presented in the form of cumulative relative frequency distribution curves. The analyses are based on more than one million keystrokes of data that were collected with fifteen keypunch operators on an IBM 3741 data entry system in a typical data entry application.