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> People get used to something and that's all they want. It's more than "getting used to." Learning to type (or to edit text fast using a mouse) is a non-trivi

> People get used to something and that's all they want. It's more than "getting used to." Learning to type (or to edit text fast using a mouse) is a non-trivial investment of time and energy. I don't think wanting to leverage hard-earned skills is bigotry, seems more like pragmatism to me. Unless the "new way" has obvious advantages (and is not handicapped by suboptimal implementation) the switching cost will seem too high.

dxdm 2y ago
It's not just that people don't want to waste an investment into learning something; that investment can actually enable you way more than a more easily accessible interaction method, and you stick to it because it's _better_. Once you've learned to use the keyboard property, it's simply faster for many applications. Having buttons at your fingertips beats pointing a cursor and clicking at a succession of targets. For example, I can jump through contexts in a tyling window manager and manipulate windows and their contents much faster with a keyboard, than wading through a stack of windows and clicking things with a mouse. It all depends on what you're interacting with, and how often. I mostly have to deal with text, and do not need to manipulate arbitrary 2d or 3d image data. But suggesting that I am simply too set in my ways to ditch the keyboard in favor of poking things with a pointy thing or talking into a box is just too reductive.
- pmontra 2y ago
  I add to your point and to parent's one. I do use touchscreens when I've got one on a laptop or on a tablet with keyboard and desktop apps. The reason is precisely what you wrote: pushing buttons in front of us at close reach is faster than reaching for a mouse, aiming and clicking. When the screen is at 50 cm or less from our belly it's not hard to raise a hand and use it. That also builds on a lifelong investment on pushing buttons, physical and on screen with mice. Using the Tab key to navigate a UI, or shortcuts or hjkl is something that only a few people (comparatively) did so it's can not become mainstream. The last time I truly learned something new was swyping on my phone keyboard, some 15 years ago. It's extremely niche. I'm the only person doing it among everybody I know. I invested some time but the reward is great, especially when holding the phone with one hand or when there are many vibrations and the screen moves a little. A swiping finger never loses contact. And it's faster for me than two fingers tapping. On the other side, that's another way to cement the qwerty layout because I swype on it and I would have to adjust to a different layout, so why bother? Finally, voice. I realized that I used to dictate text to my keyboard on the early 10s, then I stopped. It worked well even back then without all the new technology. I don't remember why I stopped but if I did it means that I didn't lose anything. I wouldn't start again now because I think that there are very few keyboards with only local speech to text.
wagglecontrol 2y ago
> Unless the "new way" has obvious advantages I agree with this. The cases are rare. Still there are cases like the current sad state of motion control in video game consoles, where I have to agree to the opposite. Pretty much everyone who's put the time to play with motion controls outperforms those who don't and can play to satisfaction even without aim assist (which is relentlessly ubiquitous, for those unaware). But the tech started out kinda ass, and the Xbox still don't have a built in gyroscope, so the adoption is artificially stunted. The result? The masses still call it "waggle" with disdain.

dxdm 2y ago

It's not just that people don't want to waste an investment into learning something; that investment can actually enable you way more than a more easily accessible interaction method, and you stick to it because it's _better_. Once you've learned to use the keyboard property, it's simply faster for many applications. Having buttons at your fingertips beats pointing a cursor and clicking at a succession of targets. For example, I can jump through contexts in a tyling window manager and manipulate windows and their contents much faster with a keyboard, than wading through a stack of windows and clicking things with a mouse. It all depends on what you're interacting with, and how often. I mostly have to deal with text, and do not need to manipulate arbitrary 2d or 3d image data. But suggesting that I am simply too set in my ways to ditch the keyboard in favor of poking things with a pointy thing or talking into a box is just too reductive.

pmontra 2y ago
I add to your point and to parent's one. I do use touchscreens when I've got one on a laptop or on a tablet with keyboard and desktop apps. The reason is precisely what you wrote: pushing buttons in front of us at close reach is faster than reaching for a mouse, aiming and clicking. When the screen is at 50 cm or less from our belly it's not hard to raise a hand and use it. That also builds on a lifelong investment on pushing buttons, physical and on screen with mice. Using the Tab key to navigate a UI, or shortcuts or hjkl is something that only a few people (comparatively) did so it's can not become mainstream. The last time I truly learned something new was swyping on my phone keyboard, some 15 years ago. It's extremely niche. I'm the only person doing it among everybody I know. I invested some time but the reward is great, especially when holding the phone with one hand or when there are many vibrations and the screen moves a little. A swiping finger never loses contact. And it's faster for me than two fingers tapping. On the other side, that's another way to cement the qwerty layout because I swype on it and I would have to adjust to a different layout, so why bother? Finally, voice. I realized that I used to dictate text to my keyboard on the early 10s, then I stopped. It worked well even back then without all the new technology. I don't remember why I stopped but if I did it means that I didn't lose anything. I wouldn't start again now because I think that there are very few keyboards with only local speech to text.

wagglecontrol 2y ago

> Unless the "new way" has obvious advantages I agree with this. The cases are rare. Still there are cases like the current sad state of motion control in video game consoles, where I have to agree to the opposite. Pretty much everyone who's put the time to play with motion controls outperforms those who don't and can play to satisfaction even without aim assist (which is relentlessly ubiquitous, for those unaware). But the tech started out kinda ass, and the Xbox still don't have a built in gyroscope, so the adoption is artificially stunted. The result? The masses still call it "waggle" with disdain.