5 ms·
An Expose-style interface with short animation beat all other interfaces (taskbar click (window), dock click (app), winkey+#, alt-tab) in mean task switching ti
by spronkey 10y ago
An Expose-style interface with short animation beat all other interfaces (taskbar click (window), dock click (app), winkey+#, alt-tab) in mean task switching time over a series of controlled scenarios (not the user's normal workflow - just simulated scenarios). Expose style interface was invoked with a side button on the mouse.
From memory, Expose was around ~1.0s, taskbar click around ~1.2s, winkey around 1.5s, with other methods slower.
The physical action of flicking your wrist and clicking is actually surprisingly fast, possibly even faster mechanically than a two-key keyboard shortcut - think how fast twitch gamers are.
Decision time was the main component. Expose's decision time was the lowest mean, and the most stable. Alt-tab had the lowest decision time, but far greater stdev. Yeah this is a controlled test that may not represent a real user's workflow, hence my 'depends'. "Find the window" is actually an interesting one - as long as the interface is reasonably spatially stable, you actually don't need to find it because your spatial memory takes care of that for you.
In my experience, while I might have a few 'primary' windows that suit the ordered taskbar well, I've often got a number of other things that come and go. I'm never going to remember what place they are. So, while winkey+# is fast for a select few windows, it's really slow for others. I don't find it appreciably faster than an Expose interface, and it's easier and faster for me in my workflow to use one main task switching interface.
- Too 10y agoInteresting that decision time is the highest component. When using win+# I've already decided beforehand which window I am going to switch to.
- spronkey 10y agoWhen I say "decision time", I'm really referring to everything between "I need to switch to a window", and "I have just started performing the action needed to switch".