tips for getting good at direct touch typing?

For me, the key is to develop muscle memory and that simply takes practice. If you touch type, you're already familiar with the qwerty keyboard layout, so you know where keys are in relation to other keys. It's just a matter of getting your muscle memory familiarized with the smaller keyboard. Of course, I'm no where near as fast on the touch screen as I am on a regular keyboard, but I often do get within a letter either way of the key I'm seeking, so I'm pretty efficient these days.

I have been using speed dots since I got my first iPhone 10 years ago. If you don’t know what it is, it is a screen protector which has a Braille dot in significant places on the screen. They have a few different versions of the screen protector. Some have dots in the places where your fingers go for Braille screen input. Others have dots where the numbers are on the telephone keypad, for if someone mainly just uses their phone to make calls. But there are 2 versions for the QWERTY keyboard layout, and they are a little different. One of them has a dot where the F and the J are, just for orientation, but the rest of the keys are not marked with a dot. The other one has a dot marking every key, but the F and J are left blank for orientation. All of the speed dots screen protectors have dots marking important places on your screen, such as the send button, the back button, and several other significant places on the screen. They have these for iPhone and iPad, all versions, I believe. They are cheap, only about $10 for the iPhone screen protector and about $20 for the iPad version here in the U.S. I am actually typing this right now using direct touch typing with my speed dots. A lot of other people I tell about these, don’t really like them because your screen is no longer smooth in texture. But for me, it makes my user experience with the iPhone so much better, more efficient, it makes me more confident. I have gone months at a time without them when I have gotten a phone that was too new, and a version of the screen protector hadn’t been made for it yet. I could still use my phone, but I was slower and less efficient, which then led to less confidence. The speed dots help me find my keys quickly when I am typing, yes. But they also help me locate other things on the screen, such as player controls in media apps such as music, Spotify, Overcast, and many others. I highly recommend them. Also I forgot to say earlier, the 5 tabs that are commonly at the bottom of some apps, like the phone app, have dots marking them, as do the dictate button and keyboard switching button for emoji. Their website, SpeedDots.com, gives more and probably better details describing where things are marked aside from just the letters on the keyboard. Without them, I feel like I can pretty confidently say that I wouldn’t be able to use direct touch typing very well, or at all. When I didn’t have access to them, I would switch to Braille screen input almost exclusively. If you check them out, I would be interested to know what you think.

Use standard typingfirst to get used to the layout. Then when you know where all of the letters are, use direct touch typing.