HR Strange But True!
September 02, 2010
Do your production workers “hunt and peck” to make entries into computers? Do they take 5 minutes to enter one word while they look for the letters? It’s those nasty old “QWERTY” keyboards. But they soon could be typing with fast fingers says the inventor of a new innovation.

Faith Quintavell was waiting in line at a car repair shop with other customers while the mechanics slowly keyed info into the shop computer when she had an inspiration. Why are workers, such as skilled mechanics, who successfully use other complicated tools struggle to type? It’s because the placement of the letters on the keyboard are arbitrary!

Wouldn’t it be faster if the letters went in the same order as the alphabet? Then the workers would know where to look for the letters, she thought. So she decided to create a keyboard that was more user-friendly for untrained typists.

Quintavell recruited a nontyping 5-year old to try her new keyboard, and he was typing in minutes because he knew where the letters should be. This would help people like the auto mechanics increase their keying speed, she thought, so she called her new keyboard “fast fingers.”

Hearing of the idea, her friend, an avid instant messenger, suggested that Quintavell add function keys useful for social networking, such as “www,” “lol,” etc. To see what the new keyboard looks like, go to the Fast Finger Keyboards website.

While office workers used to the QWERTY arrangement may balk, the keyboards have proven most successful with those employees who only type small amounts of info a few times a day. The keyboard does switch back and forth from the two configurations to accommodate different users.


Hartford Business
Fast Finger Keyboards

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