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I suggest going 60% (or larger) for a first custom keyboard. This way the base layout has enough space for most of the common keys, including a number row, that you would find in a conventional keyboard layout. This will be easier to adapt to.

I'd recommend either a 65% or 75% for a beginner.

With a both you'll have dedicated arrow keys and with a 75% you'll have F1-12 keys while you just lose out on the numpad and keys that barely anyone uses.

From there, figure out if you're comfortable going even smaller.

60% is still easy enough to learn, 40% starts to get a bit difficult IMHO

Really? Thank you very much :-)

Okay! Thank you very much :-)

Okay! Thank you very much for answering :-)

I would also lean towards 60% or 65%, as 40% is a bit more ambitious.

well this topic is highly subjective, maybe some people can learn a 40% from scratch in a short time, idk... but I'm 42 and learned typing without watching the keyboard in school at 14, and I type since then with all fingers without watching (my main keyboard for many years was the model M), some time ago I became interested in all these new mechanical keyboards and I've bought a 60% and I found it easy to learn, then I've bought a Sofle V2.1 RGB and I've found a bit difficult to learn the vertically staggered layout, but learned it in a couple of months, then I've built myself a dactyl-manuform and also happily learned it in a few months... then I have this bm43 that I try to use but I can't, I'm not comfortable and not fast, and I don't enjoy it, from time to time I take it out and retry... idk maybe my brain is wired in a way that I can't be proficent on a 40% =_)

65% to keep those sweet arrow keys