Speedup

Speedup is a metric that quantifies the typing efficiency gains achieved by magic keys in a keyboard layout. It measures the percentage reduction in total keystrokes when magic key optimizations are applied compared to typing normally without magic.

Note

Speedup is only calculated on layouts where a magic key may produce multiple keystrokes when pressed. Traditional layouts without magic functionality will not have a speedup value.

Speedup is calculated by comparing the source corpus’s unigram count against the resolved physical event count after magic-key optimization. Presses, hold acquisitions, and hold releases each count as one resolved event:

$\text{Speedup}\% = \max\left(0, 1 - \frac{\text{Resolved Events}}{\text{Original Unigrams}}\right)$

Where:

• Original Unigrams: Total character count in the text corpus without any magic optimizations
• Resolved Events: Total physical press, hold-acquisition, and hold-release events in the optimized keymaxx output

Caution

The current statistic is an unsigned savings value. If a resolved event stream is longer than the original corpus, Layouts Wiki reports 0% rather than a negative speedup. A signed slowdown representation is deferred until this contract is revised together with rational expectation-over-optima event counts.