💡Suggestion: Help Beginners Nail the Home Row (Before G & H Confuse Them)🚨

[ajetz]

I sent this as an email some time ago. Didn't get any reply, so forgive me if I'm being impatient by sending here again...😅

Hi Keybr Team,

First off, thank you for building such an awesome tool — I use it often and recommend it to others learning touch typing.
I wanted to share a small suggestion about the QWERTY layout lessons. Currently, the first few keys taught are A, D, G, H, L, S. I’ve noticed that this sometimes confuses beginners, especially when it comes to finger placement. Since G and H are taught early, many newbies mistakenly assume those are the default index finger positions — even though the actual home row positions are F and J, which have tactile bumps for a reason.
I teach typing for free at my school and created a gamified leaderboard to encourage students: rebrand.ly/touchtype325. We track each student’s stats per session, so I get a good sense of how they’re progressing. One student, Chima5000, has spent hours practising on Keybr but wasn’t making much progress beyond the home row. When I watched him type, I was surprised to see his index fingers naturally rested on G and H, with his other fingers on A–S–D and ;–L–K respectively.
This led to inconsistent rhythm and slowed his overall progress — because his muscle memory was building around the wrong anchor points. The tactile bumps on F and J exist precisely to guide finger positioning, and it seems counterproductive to delay introducing those keys.
From a learning design perspective, it would really help to start with A–S–D–F–J–K–L — the full home row — just like traditional touch-typing tools such as TypingClub and Ratatype do. I get that your algorithm is based on frequency and finger load, but a small tweak at the beginning could prevent early bad habits and set learners up for smoother long-term progress.
Thanks for reading, and keep up the great work!
Warm regards,
J2

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TL;DR: Teaching G and H before F and J can confuse beginners into placing their index fingers on the wrong keys. I saw this firsthand with a student who plateaued after hours of practice. Starting with A–S–D–F–J–K–L (the full home row) would reinforce proper finger placement early on and help avoid muscle memory mishaps.

Warm regards,
J2