Slashdot Mirror
'I Stopped Using a Computer Mouse For a Week and It Was Amazing' (vice.com)
Slashdot reader dmoberhaus writes via Motherboard: Over the course of the next five days, I relied solely on my keyboard to navigate the web and my local hard drive. It was a limited form of digital detox, a way of trying to understand the way people used computers before the computer mouse became widely adopted for commercial machines in the 1980s. If I had to describe the experience of computing without a mouse in a word, I'd say it was fucking fantastic. It took about a day and a half before I had memorized all the shortcuts that I would be using on a regular basis. All the other important shortcuts I wrote down on a notepad I kept on my desk for reference. I also had to do a little set up for certain applications, such as Gmail, which doesn't have many of its most useful shortcuts turned on by default, such as the ability to select all unread messages or the ability to move between messages with only a single keystroke.
By the end of my week without a mouse, many of the shortcuts were already beginning to feel like second nature. I found that they saved me a ton of time, especially on tedious tasks like deleting emails. Indeed, one shortcut evangelist suggests that switching to keyboard shortcuts in Gmail saved him as much as 60 hours per year. If nothing else, it made the experience of using a laptop way less miserable because I didn't have to touch the touchpad. [...] Admittedly, not everything was rosy without a mouse. I haunt a number of forums and found it a little tedious to have to ctrl+f whatever item I wanted to "click" on. Similarly, doing anything that involved image editing in Photoshop was basically impossible. I don't game on my PC, but from what I hear, this would also be quite difficult without a mouse.
By the end of my week without a mouse, many of the shortcuts were already beginning to feel like second nature. I found that they saved me a ton of time, especially on tedious tasks like deleting emails. Indeed, one shortcut evangelist suggests that switching to keyboard shortcuts in Gmail saved him as much as 60 hours per year. If nothing else, it made the experience of using a laptop way less miserable because I didn't have to touch the touchpad. [...] Admittedly, not everything was rosy without a mouse. I haunt a number of forums and found it a little tedious to have to ctrl+f whatever item I wanted to "click" on. Similarly, doing anything that involved image editing in Photoshop was basically impossible. I don't game on my PC, but from what I hear, this would also be quite difficult without a mouse.
No keyboard next, and hopefully permanently so we don't read about this stupidity. Mouse exists for a reason.
You became a VI user and ditched Emacs?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
The mouse is more intuitive for the person who is unskilled at the software they are using. The keyboard is more efficient for everyone else, sometimes substantially so. It's astonishing how much software intended for repetitive data entry is not designed better around the keyboard.
Why are people so bad at learning to use a product they spend so much money acquiring? Would you buy a car and then signal turns manually because you couldn't be bothered to learn to use the lever that operates the turn signals?
I grew up using computers before they had mouses.
I do think they serve a valuable purpose, chiefly for "random access" style selection and movement, such as in a modelling program, paint program, or other such things where a keyboard isn't the right tool for the job.
However, they are WAY overused by most people. I am always seeing people take actions in a program that are objectively much slower than can be done with a keyboard. Sometimes I feel like they approach 1/10th the speed they could. It's surprising to see this. Use the mouse when the mouse is better, but when it's dramatically slower and requires taking your hands off the keyboard for things that don't require or benefit from that, then don't!
I vividly remember remember buying a Commodore 1351 mouse for my Commodore 64 in the late 1980s for use with GEOS. In high school, having this device that allowed my humble cobbled-together 64 to have a GUI with a mouse was so exciting I slept with the box next to my bed.
Yes I was that pathetic in high school.
(Still am. Pathetic, not in high school)
Mostly random stuff.
>"If I had to describe the experience of computing without a mouse in a word, I'd say it was fucking fantastic."
Well, it is not so fantastic for lots of things. I have used just about every interface- touchscreens, lightpens, digitizer tablets, voice, eye control, alternative keyboards, touchpads, joysticks, trackballs, VR, you name it (and yes, using computers before there were such things a mice). I find a combination of mouse AND keyboard for navigating and control to be the best, over just about any other combination, for the majority of uses. Only one or the only the other, not so much.
In any case, if you like keyboard use, you should try installing Claws as your Email client- it is extremely keyboard friendly (because it is designed that way) and yet works great with a mouse, too. It is nice that there are programs that let you work they way you want to work. https://www.claws-mail.org/
I stopped using a mouse years ago and it is not yet amazing
Depends on your tasks. If you limit yourself to simple tasks, they can be accomplished simply.
Some tools require pointing devices. This is a hard requirement, not a superficial one. For instance, I do a significant amount of multimedia work. This would be impossible without a pointing device of some kind. Also, dealing with certain types of multi-tasking between multiple virtual environments would become an absolute pain in the ass.
Also, requiring having a cheat sheet on your desk just to list keyboard shortcuts? This goes to show just how insanely unintuitive they are to begin with. Yeah, programs started with keyboards and some shortcuts are actual shortcuts... But to the person that said they saved 60 hours a week in Gmail, I ask them this plain and simple: WHAT THEY FUCK ARE YOU EVEN DOING THAT TAKES 60 HOURS TO BEGIN WITH!?
A hybrid environment is best. I'm not saying keyboard shortcuts are terrible. I'm just saying they're absolutely terrible from a UX perspective, but used properly are good tools for power users, and power users only.
iTunes users; last time I tried installing it, you could not complete setup iTunes for Windows without a mouse to click the 'state' drop down.
I never used a mouse with DOS. Now I will shift + tab to fill in the title of this post.
I started on computers before the mouse and back then the popular word processor was Wordstar and it had it's own set of Ctrl- keys for navigation and many functions. Many of the app's of the day and games copied the Wordstar navigation keys and once you learned them you could move around faster than with a mouse. Even when GUI's started appearing many app's the key to working fast was knowing the keyboard commands, it's a lot faster leaving your hands on the keyboard than always having to grab a mouse especially for menu commands. Now all this touch screen stuff and even more time and moving about than even a mouse. Keeping your hands on the keyboard with app's putting keyboard equivalents of menu commands is fast way to work as far as I'm concerned.
This article really isn't all that interesting. There is really barely anything there. The topic should be "I needed a blog post and had nothing better to write about" It would be interesting to compare different OS's. Does Windows, Mac or Linux work better with a keyboard? Do different web browsers handle shortcuts better? Can I configure a certain OS to handle keyboard shortcuts more productively? It may be interesting to explore the keyboard only topic. Maybe it is easier for some to use only keyboard. It's a great topic but this is just a boring blog post about someone's very limited experiment
Sent from my TARDIS
I think this experiment is pretty silly overall, I mean, we invented the mouse because it makes it easier to use a computer.
However,
I don't game on my PC, but from what I hear, this would also be quite difficult without a mouse.
That depends on the game. Some games are much better with a Xbox controller connected to your PC.
That said, word processing without a mouse is substantially more fluid, when you use an editor you know how to operate. The mouse is disruptive to the workflow of writing anything really, be it text like a post, or longer writing, programming, etc. If there's a lot of keyboarding in the activity, any action that requires using the mouse is disruptive IMHO.
Wow..I find that using keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop works AMAZINGLY well and speeds up my editing.
Used in conjunction with a wacom tablet and pen for actual painting/brush type things.....and keyboard shortcuts allows you to really blow through images doing some nightly complex things.
And if you can set up actions for a lot of common things you do....whew.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Congratulations, you've discovered the very reason that GUIs exist in the first place: not everyone is capable of memorizing all those necessary keyboard shortcuts. Memorizing things is my kryptonite. I struggled in those days, and I still struggle in instances where a UI designer fails at his job. Don't you DARE try to rewind the clock for the rest of us... I will discover your kryptonite and leave it under your pillow!
First off, the mouse (and touchpad) is overused. As you've discovered, you can interact much more efficiently with a keyboard. The worst possible interaction is having to continuously switch back and forth between input methods. There's a reason for that and I'll explain. I've written on this before (and I've never seen much discussion about it), but I'll go ahead and expound on it.
The mouse is a virtual representation INSIDE the computing environment. You control a virtual construct (the pointer) on the display using a device in our world. Because the representation is virtual, you have to synchronize your brain with the pointer every time you begin using it. That includes when you switch from the keyboard to the mouse. That's because it is a visual representation - you must see the pointer and watch it to control it. This is something subconscious, but each person has developed a "synchronization" pattern or habit for mouse use. It's a natural thing that has to occur to try and improve the inherit inefficiency. Most people will move the mouse pointer in some way to try to locate it visually - spotting a moving object is much more efficient than a static object (plus many programs hide mouse pointer when the user starts typing, and only show it again when it is moved). This synchronization has to happen before you can position the mouse on the widget you want to interact with. I suppose some people use other techniques, like parking the mouse somewhere relative to where they last used it. I notice that I do tend to park the mouse off of the thing I'm typing in automatically. However you will find you move the mouse in some typical way to locate it visually and connect with it.
Because visual processing is one of the most expensive senses that our brain deals with, having to constantly synchronize visually with a mouse pointer is a relatively "expensive" process in terms of the neurons firing to make use of it.
So now the keyboard... the computer keyboard is the exact opposite. It is a physical construct that represents the computer environment in the real world. There is a key labeled "A" that when pressed triggers the letter "A" in the computer environment. Because the keyboard exists in our physical world it is much more natural for us to interact with it - it is "real". We also do a subconscious synchronization every time we go to use the keyboard, however since it is a physical object, we use the sense of touch (and often vision, but peripherally). The great thing is this can occur without having to stare intently at the keyboard. So, if you pay close attention, you will find you do some synchronization pattern every time you go to type. Try it sometime. Take your hands off the keyboard, close your eyes, and go to type something. For me, I feel for the edge of my laptop with the outside edges of my palms (the little finger sides). I also notice I feel for the left side of the spacebar with my left thumb and the left edge of the keyboard with my left little finger. This all happens quickly and without thinking - we just know how our keyboards feel. That is because our brains are wired to interact with spatial objects, and the keyboard is exactly that.
So to sum it up - the mouse is a representation inside the virtual environment of the computer, the keyboard is a physical representation in the real world. We're better interacting with real things because we can apply more of our senses to it and it's something we do naturally.
Better known as 318230.
Next on youtube!
Same here. I do pretty much everything with keyboard shortcuts, never have to take my hands off the keyboard. This isn't some magic thing, it's just a standard way to use a computer for some.
I don't use a MOUSE I use a POINTING DEVICE.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I get the best tradeoff with Thinkpad-style keyboards (minus the horrible Tx40 series!). You get the mouse nub right there at your fingertips, so you barely have to move your hands to use the mouse. You can get an affordable plastic one for around $70, which is ok. But the real nice ones are the Tex Yoda or the Tex Kodachi. The Yoda II and the Kodachi have fully programmable keys, solid aluminum base, and if you buy the kit, you can choose your own mechanical keyswitches. I've got enough extra keys on my Kodachi that I've programmed a number of common tasks as macros and it's made a huge improvement in my productivity.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
I roll with one of these three or so combos depending on the need: framebuffer-console + zsh + color prompt + DOS ANSI Codepage font. Rock BBSes via ssh and telnet and use elinks & mc & irssi like a boss flipping through 7-8 virtual consoles playin fbcon games when bored: no mouse other than 'gpm'. Next up we have: Fluxbox + X using my own custom themes & keyfile & menu i've developed over about 18 years via my CVS homedir usually on a BSD or another (doing that now, in fact). Last would be the ones I use only a couple of times a week: my maxed out Tezro running IRIX 6.5.30 with Indigo Magic User GUI (IRIX Interactive Desktop) with virtual desktops and occasionally an old MacOS 8.1 68k Quadra 700 or a souped up Amiga 3000 on OS 3.9. Not trashing your style, but those are the GUIs (and more primitive console environments) that I've found most useful. They almost all can easily be keyboard driven and I favor that style, but I ain't gonna use Photoshop in IRIX or MacOS without the mouse. Right tool for the job. Usually for my jobs that the keyboard and close to the metal as possible.
a way of trying to understand the way people used computers before the computer mouse became widely adopted for commercial machines in the 1980s.
Only user interfaces in those days were designed for keyboard based operation, trying to use only a keyboard today will be a significantly worse experience than it was because most modern applications assume the use of a mouse or touchscreen.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The most efficient interfaces I've ever made were character-based UI's that didn't depend on a mouse. Users grew really productive as I used their feedback to tune it and give them short-cuts for common needs.
However, it did take longer to learn on average than typical GUIs. Keyboard-centric interfaces (KCI) have more potential efficiency, but GUI's are just more intuitive and quicker to learn on average. GUI's trade away max long-term efficiency for a shorter learning curve.
Maybe if the industry settled on KCI standards, then one learns the convention set once and is ready to go for new applications that stick with the KCI convention. But the industry couldn't even stick with GUI standards, bastardizing the menus (M$ cough) and now mixing finger-centric (mobile) UI elements with classic GUI elements to make for a confusing mush.
The industry sure spends a lot of time re-inventing, de-inventing, and mis-inventing UI's to keep up with the UI Joneses, or Kardashians, giving us Kardashian "quality" as a result.
It may be possible to make a GUI that's both mouse-friendly and keyboard-friendly at the same time, but I'm skeptical both can be optimized. The way one goes about designing each to maximize screen real-estate and group items is generally different such that there's not a one-to-one correspondence. If you force a one-to-correspondence, you have to de-optimize at least one side.
Table-ized A.I.
Finding out how people used a computer in the past? Leave out the mouse and work in a terminal. Be it DOS or bash or whatever.
Yes, the mouse is overused often there are interfaces where it is absolutely faster to use a keyboard. Often menu's rell you what to use, vut where we used one program we use now many more.
The worst offender I see people doing is use the mouse to go to an entry field, enter what is needed and use the mouse to klick ok.
So as always, uae the right tool. Not everything is a nail.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"Some people are just bent on making more work for themselves."
Somebody got a keyboard-shortcuts poster for their birthday.
If you're writing a book, and are mostly typing into a word processor, switching between typing and mousing to select text and change formatting is what slows you down.
If you're writing a book, you're doing *a lot* of writing, with that much experience you're probably used to not let the keyboard go and use [SHIFT] + maybe [CTRL] + [arrow keys] for selection (maybe word selection), and the various [CTRL] + [B, I, U, etc.]
If you're a professional writer (e.g.: not merely a book but multiple books), you've probably even completely ditched Microsoft's piece of crap, and are using some professional software that dissociate content writing and typesetting and don't even care about formatting anymore, you're just signaling which parts are what (title, chapter, etc .) and letting the typesetting system do everything else for you.
(e.g.: If you happen to be a scientific writer, those tools are probably some derivative of LaTeX. Though some students are having fun using markdown instead).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
so exciting I slept with the box next to my bed.
Yes I was that pathetic in high school.
On the other hand, these sessions of "cobbling-together" computers have probably given you some problem solving and computing skills enabling you to have access to interesting hi-paying jobs, and the corresponding hi income is enabling you to have a much less pathetic life *NOW* than any of the guys you considered less pathetic back then.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
That's your problem right there. Touchpads are fucking evil and cause more problems than they have ever solved. I will never understand why people love them so much and why so many companies insist on offering them as the only option for moving the cursor on a laptop. Trackpoints are vastly superior options that move only when you want them to and require far less movement to cross the screen (among other benefits).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
As a longtime Unix/Linux user and MS Dos for PCs before that. I do like the ability to just be keyboard only. Heck I like the idea of all the functions being done with mostly the Alpha Numeric keys without the need for specialized system keys such as Control, Alt, Windows, and Menu keys.
VI actually did a good job of a robust set of options via normal keyboard controls, with the only exception would be the escape key.
I don't think the issue is that the developers have gotten excessively lazy, but most people are too hooked on the pointing interface, that coding hotkeys for all options just isn't worth it.
The other issue is most development languages for GUI's don't give nice consistent options for hotkeys. Meaning coding in hot keys is more then just a quick setting, but having to write a good set of additional code, especially if it is outside a context menu option.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.