116
votes
Accepted
Is capturing known keyboard shortcuts such as F5 a bad UX?
Repurposing familiar controls to do other things is generally a bad idea as it simply means that they don't behave as the user expects them to.
If you are augmenting a control set then it's best to ...
- 14.2k
86
votes
Accepted
Are there any guidelines concerning the use of Alt, Ctrl and Shift keys?
The Microsoft's Guidelines for Keyboard User Interface Design says:
Use the following guidelines for designing shortcut keys:
Assign simple and consistent key combinations.
Make ...
- 16.2k
57
votes
Is capturing known keyboard shortcuts such as F5 a bad UX?
Taking over existing keyboard shortcuts (in the scope of the application the user is working in) is a horrible idea.
You don't explicitly state it, but I think your application is browser based. ...
- 1,479
36
votes
Accepted
Is it acceptable to allow users to navigate through web fields using arrow keys?
Technically this would fall under "unexpected behaviour" for new users or people using a screen reader (where your controls may impact their usage when in "forms mode" as arrow ...
- 2,608
31
votes
Can it be acceptable to take over CTRL + F shortcut in web app?
I would always tell people in my team (and remind myself) to be very very careful overriding any default browser behavior and only go for it if you are certain its an improvement. Through testing and ...
- 4,043
30
votes
Are there any guidelines concerning the use of Alt, Ctrl and Shift keys?
The UI guidelines are a great start - but are also just that - guidelines. You need to do your research as well.
Standards: Research what are accepted standards. e.g. Ctrl+S for Save.
Familiarity: ...
- 71.2k
22
votes
Is capturing known keyboard shortcuts such as F5 a bad UX?
Always follow the principle of least astonishment. The use of F5 in this situation would be considered astonishing.
There are cases when keys should be overridden in order to provide the least ...
- 771
20
votes
Accepted
Can it be acceptable to take over CTRL + F shortcut in web app?
CTRL+F has an important feature by default in that it does not change page content: No elements of the page appear, disappear, or change content when typing and submitting find queries.
Focusing a ...
- 346
12
votes
Is capturing known keyboard shortcuts such as F5 a bad UX?
The only time I have ever done this, was with an internal systems diagnostic web page that allowed admin users to enter raw a raw SQL query to run against a database.
The users were accustomed to ...
- 221
8
votes
Accepted
Why are the j and k keys associated with forward/back, respectively and why not vice versa?
The choice of j and k is indeed inherited from the ADM-3A terminal by way of vi (source). vi is a popular enough editor among Google engineers that j, k, and a few other shortcuts inspired from it (...
- 838
6
votes
Accepted
Should Escape immediately close an application?
Conventions are there to make life easier to users. User expectation is both for patterns they expect and patterns they don't expect.
If a rule or convention is skipped there has to be a good reason ...
- 16.9k
6
votes
Accepted
Why were Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y chosen as undo/redo shortcuts?
It is likely based on the key position of other commonly used actions (cut, copy, paste) on the keyboard.
Likely it all boils down to placement on a QWERTY keyboard.
[...]
From there, X ...
- 7,925
6
votes
Accepted
Popups default focus on button - best practice
Short answer: yes. Which element, though depends on the content.
Per w3.org:
If a dialog contains the final step in a process that is not easily
reversible, such as deleting data or completing a ...
- 832
6
votes
Which event type is preferable for keyboard interactions, "key up" or "key down"?
A good rule of thumb is to consider whether the action in question would be desirable to repeat without lifting your finger from the key.
For your examples, if I wanted to see a slide that was much ...
- 106
5
votes
Keyboard shortcut for "Submit form"
I vote for enter key but always let the users know that this is an available option, ie:
5
votes
Can it be acceptable to take over CTRL + F shortcut in web app?
When you use shortcut keys, you need to make sure they don't interfere
with screenreader shortcut combinations.
Also, as it's been pointed out several times already, Ctrl+F is already in use.
But if ...
- 131
4
votes
Should <ctrl>+<shift>+<m> behave the same as <ctrl>+<m> with caps lock on?
Lightroom is an example of a UX where the caps lock changes behavior of keyboard shortcuts. When caps locked, pressing x or p to flag an image will automatically go to the next image. Without caps ...
- 339
4
votes
Is capturing known keyboard shortcuts such as F5 a bad UX?
There are times when it is acceptable to "capture" controls to do common things the browser didn't intend to do. But they are very limited. They should not be a rule of thumb but an exception.
For ...
- 379
4
votes
Can it be acceptable to take over CTRL + F shortcut in web app?
Depends on your definition of "acceptable", but if it means "done by a major web app vendor"; you should note that Google Sheets (Googles web spreadsheet app, which is extremely ...
- 181
3
votes
Is it acceptable for a keyboard shortcut settings system to be limited to English keyboard?
In general, not only is acceptable, but recommendable. Unless your application is going to be used in a country where diacritical and special characters are common, the use of this characters should ...
- 38.2k
3
votes
How to indicate that there are keyboard shortcuts in a highly graphical UI?
Depending on how robust your keyboard shortcut support is, you may consider isolating the experience to a modal. Let's look to Slack as an example:
Note that this modal appears centered within the ...
3
votes
How to indicate that there are keyboard shortcuts in a highly graphical UI?
I would suggest a small control somewhere on the screen that pops up a list of keyboard shortcuts and what they do. You might even engineer it as a menu so that the user can see the keyboard shortcut, ...
- 3,521
3
votes
How should keyboard mnemonics be localized?
I ran into similar problem. I googled a bit to see how Microsoft solved such problem, here are some screenshots of Microsoft Notepad in different Languages.
Russian, mnemonics are translated into ...
- 195
3
votes
Is capturing known keyboard shortcuts such as F5 a bad UX?
The other answers make it clear that breaking expected behaviour is bad UX. I would like to make the additional point that you do not know what the user's keyboard looks like, and what their existing ...
- 181
3
votes
Is capturing known keyboard shortcuts such as F5 a bad UX?
Having established that changing the action of well-established keyboard shortcuts is bad UX, here is a suggestion for better UX:
Detect when the user has pressed F5 or Cmd-R to reload the page, and ...
- 518
3
votes
Is there a universally recognizable, OS agnostic glyph for the Super key?
Common symbols for the super key are OS-specific.
From this answer elsewhere on StackExchange and Wikipedia it doesn't seem like there is an icon other than the Windows and Mac platform specific ...
- 8,878
3
votes
Accepted
What to focus on after row deletion
Replace the row with 'deleted' and focus it with tabindex="-1" (so you can only focus it programmatically).
Then once focus leaves the row you can make it disappear if you wish (but not necessary as ...
- 2,608
3
votes
In a Desktop application, should the recent file list placed directly in the file menu
From an UX perspective, having the file available with two clicks would be preferable than hiding it in a submenu a click further away.
However, such menu doesn't get filled in a vacuum, and it may ...
- 388
3
votes
Accepted
How to indicate window focus without being too subtle or too heavy handed?
I think the focus in each area is a secondary problem in this application.
In fact, the beginning of the question explains what each area is about when the simple thing would be for it to remain ...
- 19.8k
3
votes
Is there a database or guide for existing keyboard shortcuts or conventions?
The main thing you need to be careful of are the OS shortcuts.
Windows: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/keyboard-shortcuts-in-windows-dcc61a57-8ff0-cffe-9796-cb9706c75eec
MacOS: https://...
- 2,558
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible