Slashdot Mirror
On the Widespread Misuse of the Mouse
An anonymous reader writes "Recently launched blog "The New Interface Advocate," has an entry about how mice are being applied to situations they are intrinsically poorly suited for. It also has an interesting proposal for how to keep most of the current paradigm of GUIs and still take advantage of the other control devices, such as the keyboard."
Well, this is a really interesting article that, I must admit, I'm guilty of just following the crowd in this respect of allowing--no, relying on the mouse to do everything. It's very interesting and refreshing to read about someone suggesting something new and intuitive about user input to a computing device.
... and I think he mentions the issues that would be associated with subselections. I tried to imagine the GIMP using this in my mind but the submenus would get out of hand. For example, you would like to use script-fu? Well, there's two submenus under that of a dynamic allotment of add ons that I can structure in directories however I want. Tough to deal with stuff like that.
However, I found his premise inaccessible and, after reading the first part of this two part idea, I couldn't come up with a concrete advantage for using his method. At first, it seems like this is an argument for speed though I doubt rendering all those options in an overlay to display to the user would be much more efficient than a mouse click on a menu bar. The real estate gain is the obvious definitive advantage his system would have over everything I've used. However, the user must first know how to bring up the options overlay
I guess what I would have preferred in a blog like this is a more comprehensive analysis of trade offs when going against the grain in UI input methods. For example, using method A provides you with the benefits of speed & real estate saving but may be inaccessible for some users who are very used to the point and click paradigm and find new learning curves challenging or scary (there are people like that out there). In my opinion, keeping it as simple as possible and knowing your audience are the two biggest things to remember when designing a UI and I think this blog raises an excellent point that we shouldn't be afraid with re-examining the window system in operating systems but I don't think this is applicable in all situations.
Anyone out there (Edward Tufte students, psychologists, etc.) ever do a trade study on these features for their applications? Being a "form" ignorant engineer something like that would be most valuable to me.
My work here is dung.
Just two words to save the mouse: Mouse Gestures. The author tells us how limited mouse is in terms "muscle memory", yet he doesn't know that mouse isn't only for clicking. Mouse gestures can, and are performed automatically from muscle memory. I've learned a copule for Opera, and then I had to LEARN to NOT APPLY mouse gesture (down-right) to close Explorer windows.
Best sentence in the whole article: (Note: Click on Images for a full-size view.)
Monstar L
Idea 1: Hide the non-essential icons/user interface tools behind a control key
That idea is brilliant in my opinion. Take the Internet Browser. When reading the pages on the internet you do NOT need the three or four or more menu bars. When you add in the file set, my links, the back etc., the address bar, and any google/yahoo/ etc. menu bar, that can add up to quite a lot of space not always neccessary. I have two hands, I see no reason why we can not implement his concept of HIDING that all away until you press the Control key.
Idea 2: Making all those controls key controlled. Now, I am in favor of more/better key commands. But honestly, I see no reason not to also button up those same commands. If we write "Alt-S: Save document" then why not draw a line around it and allow a mouse click as an alternate way to save the document.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com