Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)

439 points david927 | 2 comments | 29 Jun 25 20:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.41s | source

What are you working on? Any new ideas which you're thinking about?

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absoluteunit1 ◴[30 Jun 25 03:22 UTC] No.44418988[source]▶

Long-term, passion project of mine - I'm hoping to make this the best typing platform. Just launched the MVP last month.

The core idea of the app is focusing on using natural text. I don't think typing random words (like what some other apps do) is the most effective way to improve typing.

We offer many text topics to type (trivia, literature, etc) where you type text snippets. We offer drills (to help you nail down certain key sequences). We also offer:

- Real-time visual hand/keyboard guides (helps you to not look down at keyboard) - Extremely detailed stats on bigrams, trigrams, per-finger performance, etc. - SmartPractice mode using LLMs to create personalized exercises - Topic-based practice (coding, literature, etc.)

I started this out of passion for typing. I went from 40wpm to ~120wpm (wrote about it here if you're interested: https://www.typequicker.com/blog/learn-touch-typing) and it completely changed my perspective and career trajectory. I became a better programmer and writer because I no longer had to think about the keyboard, nor look down at it.

Currently, we're doing a lot of analysis work on character frequencies and using that to constantly improve the SmartPractice feature. Also, exploring various LLM output testing/observability tools to improve the text generation features.

Approaching this project with a freemium model (have paid AI powered features; using AI to generate text that targets user weakpoints) while everything else in the app is completely free. No ads, no trackers, etc. (Hoping to have sufficient paid users so that we can run the site and never have to even think about running ads).

I've received a lot of feedback and am always looking for ways to improve the site.

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1. flysand7 ◴[30 Jun 25 20:45 UTC] No.44427663[source]▶

>>44418988 #

So I've got some things that seem a little bit weird to me:

1. Typing uppercase characters counts as a mistake

I'm not sure how that got to be the case, but somehow typing an uppercase letter instead of the lowercase is a mistake, despite the fact that sentences start with a lowercase letter. This conflicts with my muscle memory of starting sentences with a capital letter.

2. WPM is not a useful metric on its own

WPM can rise and fall depending on the length of the word. The bigger the word the less likely you are to type that word correctly from muscle memory, so the speed drops. The speed also drops due to the word being longer. I believe having both metrics would yield more useful data, such as when do you slow down etc.

Speaking of which, there are some more statistic things that could help, like measuring how fast you are at fixing the mistakes, or measuring three-letter combinations instead of two-letter combinations, because the context of the third letter might help, but you do need more data to gain a statistically significant result. Maybe trying to classify mistakes by the side of keyboard they happen on -- i.e. are they simple typos or a miscoordination of your hands.

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Also, as pointed out by another commenter, hands also threw me off. I've been observing them and it's interesting that I don't use my little finger for the left row -- it's used in case I need to press shift.

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2. absoluteunit1 ◴[30 Jun 25 23:30 UTC] No.44429028[source]▶

>>44427663 (TP) #

Hi, thanks for checking out the app and for the feedback!

> 1. Typing uppercase characters counts as a mistake. I'm not sure how that got to be the case, but somehow typing an uppercase letter instead of the lowercase is a mistake, despite the fact that sentences start with a lowercase letter. This conflicts with my muscle memory of starting sentences with a capital letter.

So if you click on the topics (or whatever mode you're on), you will see the Options menu on the side. Capitalization is off by default but you can flip that back if you prefer capitalization. I've had folks request that capitalization be off by default hence the current state but I might change the default settings.

> 2. WPM is not a useful metric on its own

All typing sites generally use the same formula to calculate WPM - the length of the word doesn't matter. Most (pretty much all sites I've tried) sites use this formula: https://www.speedtypingonline.com/typing-equations. By all typed entries it's characters in this case. So it always assumes a length of 5 (avg. word length) and that's how it's calculated acorss all typing sites.

We have VERY detailed metrics. I may add a CPM toggle (toggle between both) but it seems most people prefer WPM as that's what they're used to on other sites.

> measuring three-letter combinations instead of two-letter combinations,

We measure both - see trigrams tab in the stats section.

> Also, as pointed out by another commenter, hands also threw me off. I've been observing them and it's interesting that I don't use my little finger for the left row -- it's used in case I need to press shift.

The hands are mostly there for folks learning correct touch typing practice - it's based on the most recommended general guidance for touch typing. It can be toggled off with the hand-icon button :)

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