Summary

Keyboard Tsar is a typing tutor program developed under a University of Leeds Teaching Fellowship project led by Dr Sarah Hudspith, now available as freeware to the public. It teaches touch typing both in English and in Cyrillic. The program consists in a series of exercises that gradually build up familiarity and proficiency in touch typing, in groups of letters according to the keyboard layout. Users are given feedback on speed, accuracy and most common errors at the end of each exercise, and are encouraged to reach a certain level of accuracy before proceeding to the next exercise. Keyboard Tsar has a bright, modern interface which can highlight the required key and the necessary finger to use. Colours, font styles and sizes can be adapted to the user's preferences. The Cyrillic component is specially for non-native speakers of Russian. It includes a glossary of translations for the test words, a review of the Russian alphabet with sound, and it can toggle between English and Cyrillic keyboard layouts in its on-screen display.