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Subject:Re: Mouse vs keyboard (was Re: Windows '95) From:nicholls -at- FNALV1 -dot- FNAL -dot- GOV Date:Mon, 3 Oct 1994 17:27:56 GMT
Since I'm an excellent typist, I'm surprised that I now use the mouse even
when shortcut keys are available. Why? Because I use so many different
products that I can't remember the shortcut keys! And as a documenter,
I've learned that it is difficult to give the user anything sensible to use
describing shortcut keys unless the shortcuts are the function keys or the
keypad keys. Usually they are control-this or control-shift-that and I've
found most manuals don't document them in one place at all, leaving you to
discover them one by one and remember or forget them by yourself.
I do have the feeling we waste a lot of time mousing around. Especially
when a product wants to (re?)prompt and (re?)prompt causing me to wait
around and answer the prompts rather than going on to something else,
either on the computer or not. In a mainframe-type environment you send a
print command and it goes. On my Mac or PC, I get one or even more screens
that I have to wait around for and press ENTER or mouse around. People
feel very busy mousing, but are they actually. I don't believe I've ever
seen the equivalent of "print it like I always do and please don't ask me
over and over and over if I want to do it differently."
Judy Nicholls nicholls -at- fnal -dot- gov
In article <199409300446 -dot- VAA03704 -at- infinity -dot- c2 -dot- org>, Richard Mateosian
<srm -at- c2 -dot- org> writes:
>>As a touch typist, I hate having to grab a mouse and slide it all over my
>>already crowded desk. Keyboard shortcuts allow me to keep up a faster pace.
>Bruce Tognazzini in _TOG on Interface_ makes the case about as well as
>possible (note I didn't say he convinced me) that the greater speed of
>keyboard shortcuts is an illusion. ...RM
>Richard Mateosian Technical Writer in Berkeley CA srm -at- c2 -dot- org
