key combinations that allow quick access to certain functionality, often used for power users or command line interfaces.
24
votes
6answers
981 views
What is the best way to get users to discover and learn keyboard shortcuts
In a mouse driven desktop application, with a ribbon style interface and which has no menubar, what is the best way for users to learn about the shortcuts and accelerators which can help a user work ...
19
votes
6answers
487 views
Why doesn't pasting (Ctrl-V or Command-V) default to unformatted text?
Like most people, I use copy and paste a lot in my day to day life, but I can't think of a single time that I have wanted to copy the formatting over with the content. Instead, I always seem to have ...
16
votes
4answers
734 views
Are there any recent studies of the “Keyboard vs Mouse”-issue?
Back in the late 80's, Apple Human Interface concluded that the mouse is faster than the keyboard, objectively. But also that every test person subjectively thought that the keyboard was faster.
...
14
votes
6answers
361 views
Will a Paste button increase usability?
There comes cases where it's quite obvious that users are most likely to copy and paste a value into a given text-box. One of those cases is a URL fields.
This made me thinking of adding a paste ...
14
votes
4answers
813 views
Can you see a good reason to remove the plus sign in Google Chrome's create tab button?
I am talking about this button:
The plus sign that used to be on that button has been removed in recent versions.
I am very intrigued as to why they might have found it convenient.
I'm a ...
13
votes
3answers
414 views
Web app keyboard shorcuts
Is it a good practice to give keyboard shortcuts to web apps that allows a user to do tasks that are repeated often. In my personal experience, I've rarely used keyboard shortcuts offered by GMail to ...
12
votes
1answer
145 views
How should keyboard mnemonics be localized?
Is there a standard approach to localizing (internationalize) keyboard mnemonics?
For example, in Windows Notepad in English, if the user types Alt+E then P, the Edit menu opens and then the Paste ...
9
votes
1answer
373 views
Most intuitive keyboard shortcut for search & replace dialog
Extending the question on askubuntu what would be the most intuitive solution for the Search & Replace and maybe Find dialog?
Ctrl H -- Gnome, Windows
Ctrl R -- KDE
Ctrl F -- Mac OS
Which ...
8
votes
5answers
199 views
Add new field to the form as user focuses on the field
I'd like to hear opinions and pros/cons for the following approach to handling HTML forms http://jsfiddle.net/FsY7y/6/ (this is a simple demo). As user focuses on a field, a new field is added in case ...
8
votes
3answers
786 views
Patterns for keyboard accessible drop down lists
Are there any standard keyboard shortcuts for making drop down lists appear? (in any kind of software, not just web based.)
I'm going to write some JavaScript to make the drop down lists (select and ...
6
votes
4answers
370 views
Unintuitive order of vi directional keys
Currently unix text editor vi has the following keys for navigation.
h move left
j move down
k move up
l move right
On keyboard they aligned: Left, Down, Up, Right
But while ...
6
votes
4answers
321 views
Why most websites don't use keyboard shortcuts?
I was wondering that why websites don't use keyboard shortcuts as often as desktop software tends to.
I really like keyboard shortcuts in software, they makes me work more efficiently. But why don't ...
6
votes
3answers
100 views
Industry standard for button captions that use a Function Key as the keyboard shortcut
If I have a button that has the caption _Save then when it shows up on the screen it will show the S as underlined.
This tells the user that Alt+S will make that button "press".
But what is the ...
6
votes
2answers
243 views
Keyboard shortcuts on non-QWERTY keyboard layouts
I've been using the Dvorak keyboard layout for a few years, and something that's always bothered me is keyboard shortcuts. On a QWERTY keyboard copy and paste are conveniently positioned as Ctrl+C and ...
6
votes
2answers
126 views
Is there any research into the cost of switching between using a keyboard and a mouse?
My intuition and own experience tells me keyboard shortcut keys can be faster than using the mouse. However, some tasks like browsing the internet or a folder hierarchy truly benefit from using a ...
5
votes
5answers
287 views
What's a good shortcut key for a global shortcut
I'm writing an app that allows the user to open up a window when they put in a shortcut key.
I have this feature working but I would like to know what shortcut key combination would be best. I ...
5
votes
4answers
1k views
Why doesn't Mac OSX have a Cut option?
I observed that MacOSX finder does not have a Cut option (or shortcut Command+X) to move the contents. Is there a reason for removing this option? Does it improve usability in any way?
5
votes
1answer
66 views
Best Practices in keyboard navigation of JavaScript Controls?
Apparently "best practice" when creating DHTML widgets, such as menus etc., is to allow users to navigate to the widget using the tab key, and navigate within the widget using arrow keys. This follows ...
4
votes
4answers
364 views
Alt key shortcuts anymore?
Do standard users use Alt key shortcuts for controls such as buttons anymore?
eg. an OK button could have a shortcut of Alt-K which would be the same as pressing it.
Any control on a form or window ...
4
votes
5answers
1k views
Shortcut for “Mute”
Is there some sort of accepted keyboard shortcut to mute the sound of a piece of software? I'm mostly interested in Windows, but an answer for Mac would also be appreciated.
I was thinking maybe Ctrl ...
4
votes
3answers
125 views
Should shortcut keys be prefaced by shift/alt/ctrl?
In a non-word processing context, is it okay to have key presses do actions without having the user preface them with ctrl, alt, shift or command? If I do have them just be single key presses, do they ...
4
votes
4answers
581 views
Keyboard shortcut to sort columns in a table?
Clicking on column headers in a table to set the sort order (or toggle ascending/descending if already sorting by this column) is a standard UI technique.
However, it is mouse-only. Is there a ...
4
votes
2answers
106 views
Keyboard shortcuts for blog navigation
Actually this is inspired by 9gag.com's browsing style and as well as some Google sites (like Gmail and Reader.) These sites use keys like J and K keys as a way to browse through posts -- probably ...
4
votes
6answers
448 views
Good example of a Keyboard Shortcut Manager implementation [closed]
I am implementing a keyboard shortcut manager in which the user can assign shortcut keys to global (or contextual) commands in a Windows desktop application. Note that the application has load of ...
4
votes
1answer
303 views
Emerging conventions for keyboard shortcuts within web applications
Scott Hanselman recently wrote an article titled "The Web is the new Terminal: Are you using the Web's Keyboard Shortcuts and Hotkeys" in which he notes emerging conventions on major sites (Gmail, ...
3
votes
2answers
102 views
What is the best way to disclose hotkeys to my users?
I am developing an intranet web application and have added in a couple of hotkeys such as "expand all". I have made sure to not use any of the same hotkeys as the browsers are already using. I found ...
3
votes
4answers
377 views
Keyboard shortcut design methodology (for keyboard and touch screen)
What sort of methodologies should I employ to choose which letters and shifting keys to assign to different functions?
Is underlining the accelerator letter the best practice, or should I spell out ...
3
votes
2answers
109 views
Best Practices for Hotkeys / Accelerators
In one of our web products we have ‘hot keys’ to allow a customer service rep to maneuver quickly to a specific function without using the mouse. We have a series of tabs in the customer screen which ...
2
votes
3answers
179 views
Starting Instant Search as you type
This is something I've implemented in a Game Library application, the ability to type a letter or a number and have the search box go instantly into focus and search through your library as you type. ...
2
votes
2answers
104 views
For programmers, what's the most intuitive keyboard shortcut for switching between programming logic and unit tests?
I'm developing a browser-based application for programming and unit-testing. What's the best keyboard shortcut to switch between the programming pane and the unit-testing pane?
Ctrl+T would seem good ...
2
votes
2answers
178 views
Dialogue Box supposed to be closed by default with the [ESC] key?
I started working for a software company, and while using the software we produce, I noticed that the dialogue boxes that we pop-up aren't closed with the [ESC] button.
I'm assuming this would be the ...
2
votes
2answers
382 views
What function keys can be safely used for a web app?
I'm creating a small web app and I want to be able to toggle it on and off via a keyboard shortcut.
I would like to use one of the function keys (F1–F12). I'm planning on overriding F4, F8 or ...
2
votes
1answer
65 views
Should Desktop UI Patterns include Keyboard Shortcuts?
Not much to describe here. But I think that it'd be a good idea to have UI-Pattern documents to suggest relevant keyboard shortcuts. However, I haven't seen it anywhere and I'm wondering whether this ...
2
votes
1answer
70 views
Submitting form to new window
On websites, links can be opened in new windows/tabs using the middle-click button, CTRL+left click or Context Menu->'Open in new tab' option. However, this behaviour seems to be not implemented for ...
2
votes
1answer
69 views
Accesskeys for enterprise web apps / SaaS - worth it?
(Not sure what accesskeys are? Here is an ALA post about them)
If you've ever implemented accesskeys on a web app, do you know if they got used (outside of accessibility concerns)? There seem to be ...
1
vote
3answers
101 views
Keyboard shortcut for validating a field
I'm designing a web application where the user have to go through a lots of already fillec text fields (~50 a page, could be lots of pages) and must correct some of them and mark the other as "OK".
...
1
vote
2answers
91 views
Changing keyboard shortcuts that has been introduced quite a while?
Let's say I have developed a publicly available application which has a keyboard shortcut available. However, after a while of further development, I've decided that the current keyboard shortcut is ...
1
vote
3answers
200 views
Conventional keyboard modifier for expanding/collapsing hierarchical tree view
I have a large tree view where users will often want to fully expand or collapse a particular tree. I'm providing a context menu with both of these choices, but I'd also like to allow the user to hold ...
1
vote
3answers
899 views
Keyboard shortcut for “Submit form”
I use a form maybe 100 times a day. I can tab between the fields with no problem but most of the time I don't have to fill out the entire form and would like to submit it without having to touch the ...
1
vote
3answers
212 views
How to provide keyboard navigation in editable table that includes drop downs?
I'm designing a business application.
When the user enters the main data entity in the application part of the form is tabular. Since some of the users will have an intensive usage of this ...
0
votes
2answers
42 views
How should hotkeys be handled in the translation of a program? [duplicate]
I have been helping to translate MarkdownPad into German and have come across a problem that has always made me wonder.
How do you handle translation in regards to hotkeys? The problem being, the ...
0
votes
1answer
114 views
What is the usage rate for users navigating form input fields via the 'tab' key vs. mouse clicks?
On my current project, we are debating the usage of replacing input fields (checkboxes, radio buttons, and select dropdowns) with styled choices via javascript. However, it breaks the support of ...
0
votes
1answer
109 views
Customizable Menu Shortcuts [closed]
I need to write a UI so users can edit the default menu shortcuts. All the UIs I know that do this are terrible. Is there an example of an elegant solution for this?
I don't want my users to have to ...
