I’ve updated one of the oldest apps on this site: Pat or JK’s Typing Speed Test
Believe it or not, the old version was from 2008. At that time there weren’t any good free online typing tests. It’s biggest claim to fame was being mentioned in passing in a VSauce video, which was really cool. Over the years way better typing tests have been created, and I’ve debated retiring the app, but I felt with some adjustments it could be worth saving.
The new version does away with the draconian strictness of the old test, where you had to correctly type a word before moving on. There are also a number of UX improvements, including splitting the configuration between the opening title card and the results screen. Previously all of the configuration was on an easy-to-miss tab.
All of the end stats are the same, though now you get a “ranking”. This can be 1 of 16 different (mildly) humorous titles. They’re a handful of 80’s references and other silly things. I also updated the heat-map. I was originally going to use the famous heatmap.js library, but that hasn’t been updated in over 10 years. I wound up turning to Claude, which created me a modern version of the library.
It worked like a charm, though it makes me wonder if there will even be coding libraries in the future. This time last year I made a video poking fun at how AI couldn’t understand ASCII art, but today it can easily parse and understand text art. Some of my coworkers are convinced us software devs are “cooked”, but I think the job is just going to change.
Anyway, I’m getting way off track. I just wanted to make a post saying I’d made an update.
I really miss the old one and used to use it at least once every few months for pretty close to 15 years continuously.
Whoa, I had no idea, very cool that you used it for so long!
I typically don’t take old apps down, I just change the URL. If you ever want to go back to the previous version you can check it out here:
https://patorjk.com/typing-speed-test-v2/
Excellent!!!!!
I can’t even remember how I first stumbled upon it, but it’s been a mainstay of my Internet boredom here and there for yes… quite some time!
Cheers.
* With the above said – the UIX improvement alone is pretty great. And I’m happy you kept the Moby Dick text.
The change from requiring each word to be typed correctly before advancing to allowing errors through seems like a real shift in what the test measures. Does the net WPM calculation still subtract errors the same way, or did the scoring change alongside the interaction model? Also curious whether the ranking titles are tied to raw WPM or to accuracy-adjusted results.
Old way was to scale completed words to a minute. It used cpm/5 to account for a word (it assumed the average word is 5 characters long), but only counted correct words and wouldn’t let you pass until you typed the word correctly (once correct it counted). New way is the same except its only factoring in correct characters. Ranking titles are tied only to wpm.