4 ms·

> usually because they don’t realize how much more productive keyboard navigation is than reaching for the mouse a lot of the time. In a large number of cases

by bluGill 4mo ago

> usually because they don’t realize how much more productive keyboard navigation is than reaching for the mouse a lot of the time. In a large number of cases people who say they are more productive have never measured it. They have no idea if it is true. There are been many competitions between keyboard and mouse navigation over the years. Depending on the details of how the test is written one will win or the other, often by a significant amount, in many cases the loser is the one that user said was more productive before seeing the real results.

hrombach 4mo ago
I think if you need to measure this kind of thing, you're missing the point in the first place. I don't want to be chasing some absolute productivity metric, I want a setup that doesn't break my flow. For many people, reaching for the mouse breaks their flow and feels wrong, which is oftentimes worse than being a second slower, because it takes you out of the mental frame you were in. For me, using my mouse while I'm working feels natural, so trying to change my workflow to learn how to navigate everything by keyboard would be a huge amount of extra effort just to maybe possibly save a little bit of time in some situations.
- miyoji 4mo ago
  I think this is unhealthy self-handicapping. Your "flow" is just habits, things you've taught yourself to do. You weren't born with the ability to use either a keyboard or a mouse, there is no "natural" or "intuitive" way to operate a computer. It's all 100% learned behaviors that can be altered.
  - qsera 4mo ago
    >Your "flow" is just habits, things you've taught yourself to do By this logic a person who were comfortable with mouse should never grow to like VIM. > there is no "natural" or "intuitive" way to operate a computer. Fundamentally a computer is something that execute instructions. It is pretty poor interface to pick instructions from 100 options using a mouse as opposed to type it using a keyboard. A mouse hides the power of the computer behind a set of fixed clickable options. That is a pretty poor interface.
    - miyoji 4mo ago
      > By this logic a person who were comfortable with mouse should never grow to like VIM. Quite the opposite, my argument is that habits are changeable. > Fundamentally a computer is something that execute instructions. It is pretty poor interface to pick instructions from 100 options using a mouse as opposed to type it using a keyboard. A mouse hides the power of the computer behind a set of fixed clickable options. That is a pretty poor interface. You continue to argue for my point. OP was claiming that measured efficiency does not matter because it's about "flow". I argue that one can teach oneself to flow differently, the commands can be learned.
      - bluGill 4mo ago
        Picking from 100 options is what the mouse is best for. Keyboards require learning so they are best for the options you do often enough to learn. I know about 10 different vi commands of the hundreds. There is more than selecting options. Selecting text is normally better with a mouse.
        qsera 4mo ago
        >Keyboards require learning We are not talking about keyboard shortcuts (key combinations that you press to do something) by the way, and about the actual typing of commands in the terminal/shell/repl what ever...
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - paytonjjones 4mo ago
    > there is "natural" or "intuitive" Your argument is sound but this overstates your case a bit. There's a reason we don't type with our toes.
- ablob 4mo ago
  Most knowledge about human computer interfaces was obtained through metrics. Groupings, menu bars, corner buttons, context menu orderings, and other things didn't just spawn into existence. There was a time where human pattern recognition and physiology was an active consideration for user interfaces. One of the reasons mouse input became popular is precisely because interfaces were created to be easy to use with it. All of this brings me to my questions: Why do you reject measuring how good an interface is? Or given your dismay over keyboard based workflows, why do you think they would win most of the time? I'd wager that if actually tested, in only a few scenarios the keyboard would win, while hybrids (with both mouse and keyboard input) perform best for most people.
  - jodrellblank 4mo ago
    > "I'd wager that if actually tested," https://danluu.com/keyboard-v-mouse/ https://danluu.com/keyboard-v-mouse/ - """The widely cited studies on mouse vs. keyboard efficiency are completely bogus ... <testing, reading, etc.> When I look at various tasks myself, the results are mixed, and they’re mixed in the way that most programmers I polled predicted. This result is so boring that it would barely be worth mentioning if not for the large groups of people who believe that either the keyboard is always faster than the mouse or vice versa."""
    - ablob 4mo ago
      Sigh, I don't know why a blog-post against micro benchmarks should alter my opinion on this topic. There are more metrics than just "speed" regarding an interface. You also want it to be discoverable and visually distinct. How someone interacts with your software is absolutely measurable and the results will vary by how a user is likely to use it in frequency and variety of function. Someone that needs to do something specific with your software every day will interact with it quite differently than someone that just hops onto it every now and then to do a different task each time. All of this requires actual studies and observation of users over time. Micro benchmarks have no space there. Testing how fast a find and replace is is meaningless. In case of software for writing text you'd test a user actually writing prose, changing font sizes, title colors, and maybe replace a word over the file too. You would have commonly used functions mixed in with less commonly used functions over how the software is used under a specific use case. (For example, writing text, revising text, and polishing a graph representation are different use cases) This is not easy, which probably why it's not done all too often, but it is also most definitely unlike a micro benchmark (which your link argues against). All that being said, I don't know of any person strictly pitting mouse against keyboard when testing UI for possible improvements.
- bluGill 4mo ago
  Reaching for the mouse doesn't break my flow. It makes the thing I was doing invisible in the flow. Keyboard shortcuts require me to think, which makes it FEEL like I'm doing something, and that something is in the flow so it feels like I'm productive. However the mouse doesn't even enter into the flow at all, I just do the thing and get on with the real work without breaking flow. Again, there is no universal correct answer. Sometimes the keyboard really is better. However sometimes the mouse really is better and because I'm proficient in it I don't break my flow to use it.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - jay_kyburz 4mo ago
    I have an anecdote to contribute. I been doing a lot of Bender. Keyboard on left hand and Mouse on right. The keyboard shortcuts in Blender are excellent, but there are _many_. I know this sounds silly, but what really breaks my flow is moving my mouse from the middle of the screen where my model is, to the top of the screen where the menus is. I bought a Stream Deck which is a programmable keyboard with 32 buttons and a screen behind them. I've programmed my most common commands there, so I can just reach across with a finger and smash a button rather than move the mouse away from the center of the screen. It saves about 1 second, but really makes a huge difference.
    - slopinthebag 4mo ago
      I use blender a lot too. I bind space to search and then use that instead of shortcuts for pretty much everything that isn't the few shortcuts I've memorised (and g/s/r xyz etc)
skilning 4mo ago
I think that's a pretty reductive stance to take. Keyboard nagivation is more productive _if_ the primary use of the tool is text-based. In a word processor, an IDE, a file manager, or anything else where the primary mode of interaction is reading, typing, and processing the things you've read and typed, keyboard navigation can be demonstrated to be faster and more natural _only if_ the user has taken the time to learn the shortcuts. For tools that are mainly for non-text visual information, then the keyboard versus mouse debate is much more heavily weighted in favor of the mouse. Even then, there are times when effective keyboard shortcuts are far more useful than menus and icons. Take any CAD or 3d modeling software as an example. 90% of what a user does will be interacting with visually-presented spatial data, but even then knowing the shortcuts for changing tools or modifying a tool's settings will make you much faster and remove the need to constantly navigate nested menus of options.
- skydhash 4mo ago
  Drawing/Painting and Cad modeling is very much like games. One hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse. This mixture can be also done well in other programs. I only bother learning shortcuts for daily tools, not something I use every blue moon. What I take issue is with tools that make them hard to use with low contrast between widgets or shortcuts that does not work if a text input is focused. Also tools that forget they have a primary usage and wants me to know everything at once (notifications, big action buttons, guided tours and what not).
solatic 4mo ago
> have never measured it That's because it's practically impossible to collect objective data here, i.e. without confounding factors. A product where the user spends 99+% of their time reading/consuming is almost certainly easier to use with a GUI. The market settled on thumb-flicking for doom scrolling instead of a button or scroll wheel interface, for a reason. A product where the user spends 99+% of their time writing is almost certainly easier to use with a keyboard. Most sane people do not write essays on their phones with two thumbs; a keyboard and a proper word processor are preferred. Most products fall somewhere in the middle. Most products have multiple interfaces, some primarily for consuming information and some primarily for producing it, and thus would find different inputs more productive in different modes. When people claim that they find one input type is more productive than the other, most likely is that their particular use-patterns fall more in-line with the one most aligned with their use-patterns.
iLemming 4mo ago
[flagged]

by bluGill 4mo ago

hrombach 4mo ago

I think if you need to measure this kind of thing, you're missing the point in the first place. I don't want to be chasing some absolute productivity metric, I want a setup that doesn't break my flow. For many people, reaching for the mouse breaks their flow and feels wrong, which is oftentimes worse than being a second slower, because it takes you out of the mental frame you were in. For me, using my mouse while I'm working feels natural, so trying to change my workflow to learn how to navigate everything by keyboard would be a huge amount of extra effort just to maybe possibly save a little bit of time in some situations.

miyoji 4mo ago
I think this is unhealthy self-handicapping. Your "flow" is just habits, things you've taught yourself to do. You weren't born with the ability to use either a keyboard or a mouse, there is no "natural" or "intuitive" way to operate a computer. It's all 100% learned behaviors that can be altered.
- qsera 4mo ago
  >Your "flow" is just habits, things you've taught yourself to do By this logic a person who were comfortable with mouse should never grow to like VIM. > there is no "natural" or "intuitive" way to operate a computer. Fundamentally a computer is something that execute instructions. It is pretty poor interface to pick instructions from 100 options using a mouse as opposed to type it using a keyboard. A mouse hides the power of the computer behind a set of fixed clickable options. That is a pretty poor interface.
  - miyoji 4mo ago
    > By this logic a person who were comfortable with mouse should never grow to like VIM. Quite the opposite, my argument is that habits are changeable. > Fundamentally a computer is something that execute instructions. It is pretty poor interface to pick instructions from 100 options using a mouse as opposed to type it using a keyboard. A mouse hides the power of the computer behind a set of fixed clickable options. That is a pretty poor interface. You continue to argue for my point. OP was claiming that measured efficiency does not matter because it's about "flow". I argue that one can teach oneself to flow differently, the commands can be learned.
    - bluGill 4mo ago
      Picking from 100 options is what the mouse is best for. Keyboards require learning so they are best for the options you do often enough to learn. I know about 10 different vi commands of the hundreds. There is more than selecting options. Selecting text is normally better with a mouse.
      - qsera 4mo ago
        >Keyboards require learning We are not talking about keyboard shortcuts (key combinations that you press to do something) by the way, and about the actual typing of commands in the terminal/shell/repl what ever...
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- paytonjjones 4mo ago
  > there is "natural" or "intuitive" Your argument is sound but this overstates your case a bit. There's a reason we don't type with our toes.
ablob 4mo ago
Most knowledge about human computer interfaces was obtained through metrics. Groupings, menu bars, corner buttons, context menu orderings, and other things didn't just spawn into existence. There was a time where human pattern recognition and physiology was an active consideration for user interfaces. One of the reasons mouse input became popular is precisely because interfaces were created to be easy to use with it. All of this brings me to my questions: Why do you reject measuring how good an interface is? Or given your dismay over keyboard based workflows, why do you think they would win most of the time? I'd wager that if actually tested, in only a few scenarios the keyboard would win, while hybrids (with both mouse and keyboard input) perform best for most people.
- jodrellblank 4mo ago
  > "I'd wager that if actually tested," https://danluu.com/keyboard-v-mouse/ https://danluu.com/keyboard-v-mouse/ - """The widely cited studies on mouse vs. keyboard efficiency are completely bogus ... <testing, reading, etc.> When I look at various tasks myself, the results are mixed, and they’re mixed in the way that most programmers I polled predicted. This result is so boring that it would barely be worth mentioning if not for the large groups of people who believe that either the keyboard is always faster than the mouse or vice versa."""
  - ablob 4mo ago
    Sigh, I don't know why a blog-post against micro benchmarks should alter my opinion on this topic. There are more metrics than just "speed" regarding an interface. You also want it to be discoverable and visually distinct. How someone interacts with your software is absolutely measurable and the results will vary by how a user is likely to use it in frequency and variety of function. Someone that needs to do something specific with your software every day will interact with it quite differently than someone that just hops onto it every now and then to do a different task each time. All of this requires actual studies and observation of users over time. Micro benchmarks have no space there. Testing how fast a find and replace is is meaningless. In case of software for writing text you'd test a user actually writing prose, changing font sizes, title colors, and maybe replace a word over the file too. You would have commonly used functions mixed in with less commonly used functions over how the software is used under a specific use case. (For example, writing text, revising text, and polishing a graph representation are different use cases) This is not easy, which probably why it's not done all too often, but it is also most definitely unlike a micro benchmark (which your link argues against). All that being said, I don't know of any person strictly pitting mouse against keyboard when testing UI for possible improvements.
bluGill 4mo ago
Reaching for the mouse doesn't break my flow. It makes the thing I was doing invisible in the flow. Keyboard shortcuts require me to think, which makes it FEEL like I'm doing something, and that something is in the flow so it feels like I'm productive. However the mouse doesn't even enter into the flow at all, I just do the thing and get on with the real work without breaking flow. Again, there is no universal correct answer. Sometimes the keyboard really is better. However sometimes the mouse really is better and because I'm proficient in it I don't break my flow to use it.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- jay_kyburz 4mo ago
  I have an anecdote to contribute. I been doing a lot of Bender. Keyboard on left hand and Mouse on right. The keyboard shortcuts in Blender are excellent, but there are _many_. I know this sounds silly, but what really breaks my flow is moving my mouse from the middle of the screen where my model is, to the top of the screen where the menus is. I bought a Stream Deck which is a programmable keyboard with 32 buttons and a screen behind them. I've programmed my most common commands there, so I can just reach across with a finger and smash a button rather than move the mouse away from the center of the screen. It saves about 1 second, but really makes a huge difference.
  - slopinthebag 4mo ago
    I use blender a lot too. I bind space to search and then use that instead of shortcuts for pretty much everything that isn't the few shortcuts I've memorised (and g/s/r xyz etc)

skilning 4mo ago

I think that's a pretty reductive stance to take. Keyboard nagivation is more productive _if_ the primary use of the tool is text-based. In a word processor, an IDE, a file manager, or anything else where the primary mode of interaction is reading, typing, and processing the things you've read and typed, keyboard navigation can be demonstrated to be faster and more natural _only if_ the user has taken the time to learn the shortcuts. For tools that are mainly for non-text visual information, then the keyboard versus mouse debate is much more heavily weighted in favor of the mouse. Even then, there are times when effective keyboard shortcuts are far more useful than menus and icons. Take any CAD or 3d modeling software as an example. 90% of what a user does will be interacting with visually-presented spatial data, but even then knowing the shortcuts for changing tools or modifying a tool's settings will make you much faster and remove the need to constantly navigate nested menus of options.

skydhash 4mo ago
Drawing/Painting and Cad modeling is very much like games. One hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse. This mixture can be also done well in other programs. I only bother learning shortcuts for daily tools, not something I use every blue moon. What I take issue is with tools that make them hard to use with low contrast between widgets or shortcuts that does not work if a text input is focused. Also tools that forget they have a primary usage and wants me to know everything at once (notifications, big action buttons, guided tours and what not).

solatic 4mo ago

> have never measured it That's because it's practically impossible to collect objective data here, i.e. without confounding factors. A product where the user spends 99+% of their time reading/consuming is almost certainly easier to use with a GUI. The market settled on thumb-flicking for doom scrolling instead of a button or scroll wheel interface, for a reason. A product where the user spends 99+% of their time writing is almost certainly easier to use with a keyboard. Most sane people do not write essays on their phones with two thumbs; a keyboard and a proper word processor are preferred. Most products fall somewhere in the middle. Most products have multiple interfaces, some primarily for consuming information and some primarily for producing it, and thus would find different inputs more productive in different modes. When people claim that they find one input type is more productive than the other, most likely is that their particular use-patterns fall more in-line with the one most aligned with their use-patterns.

iLemming 4mo ago

[flagged]