Imagine trying to use a CAD program, or even browse a web-forum without a mouse. The mouse still wins in some applications.
For the CAD program, I totally agree. Some kind
of analog input device makes the most sense.
But for
browsing the web, the keyboard is much more viable.
If you use Firefox's interactive search feature
(where merely typing text will scroll you to
where that text first appears -- you may have
to turn on "Begin Finding When You Begin Typing"
in the preferences), you can navigate
to most links (not all links, but most) really,
really quickly. Yes, you have to do a bit
of thinking about what to type in order to
hone in on what you're looking for, but often
that's trivial.
For example, let's say I want to go to
google then from there go to the "Froogle"
link and do a Froogle search. Let's
say I want to do it right here in this web
browser window where I am typing this message.
I hit Command-T (I'm using a Mac; substitute
the appropriate modifier (control, alt, whatever)
on your own platform) to open a tab.
This puts the focus on the location bar,
so I type "google.com" and hit Enter, which
brings up http://google.com/ . Next, because
Firefox isn't as keyboard oriented as it
could be, the easiest way to take focus
off the search field and allow interactive
search is to hit Command-F (find) and then
Escape (which cancels find and puts focus
back on the text -- not the field) of the
web page. Then I type "froo" (actually
just "fr" is enough) and hit Enter again,
and I am on the Froogle section of Google.
Then I type "tennis shoe" (or whatever I'm
searching for) and hit Enter again, and
I've done a Froogle search.
Let's say
I like the "Adidas Barricade II" shoe
(I don't, but I can't control that all
tennis shoes these days look like plastic
bananas with bad paint jobs). If I
want to see the "Adidas Barricade II",
I just type "bar" and hit Enter.
Now let's say I want to buy one of these
ghastly things. I'm stuck at this point
because the Firefox people didn't put in
any keyboard-based way to select graphical
buttons -- it's only possible to hone in on
text-based links at present. So I can't
click on "Add to Shopping Cart". But this
doesn't mean the keyboard wouldn't be a
reasonable tool for the job. It's just
that the Firefox people were focused on
making the mouse work for everything, so
they didn't make a provision for this.
In fact, that serves to illustrate a
point: lots of this keyboard navigation
could be easier if the
Firefox authors (and authors of lots of
other software) didn't appear to think
that mouse is the only real priority.
I'm not saying that the mouse is bad,
but I do think we suffer from a little
bit of groupthink such that we design
user interfaces to be solely mouse-based
when the keyboard would be equally good
or better at certain tasks. (I will not
deny, though, that there is an advantage
to visual controls, which is that you
know that they're there; with the
keyboard, you have to know that keystrokes
exist, because it isn't like there is a
keyboard that lights up all the keys that
do useful things based on the context,
although if there were, it might be a
cool gadget to have!)
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For the CAD program, I totally agree. Some kind of analog input device makes the most sense.
But for browsing the web, the keyboard is much more viable. If you use Firefox's interactive search feature (where merely typing text will scroll you to where that text first appears -- you may have to turn on "Begin Finding When You Begin Typing" in the preferences), you can navigate to most links (not all links, but most) really, really quickly. Yes, you have to do a bit of thinking about what to type in order to hone in on what you're looking for, but often that's trivial.
For example, let's say I want to go to google then from there go to the "Froogle" link and do a Froogle search. Let's say I want to do it right here in this web browser window where I am typing this message. I hit Command-T (I'm using a Mac; substitute the appropriate modifier (control, alt, whatever) on your own platform) to open a tab. This puts the focus on the location bar, so I type "google.com" and hit Enter, which brings up http://google.com/ . Next, because Firefox isn't as keyboard oriented as it could be, the easiest way to take focus off the search field and allow interactive search is to hit Command-F (find) and then Escape (which cancels find and puts focus back on the text -- not the field) of the web page. Then I type "froo" (actually just "fr" is enough) and hit Enter again, and I am on the Froogle section of Google. Then I type "tennis shoe" (or whatever I'm searching for) and hit Enter again, and I've done a Froogle search.
Let's say I like the "Adidas Barricade II" shoe (I don't, but I can't control that all tennis shoes these days look like plastic bananas with bad paint jobs). If I want to see the "Adidas Barricade II", I just type "bar" and hit Enter. Now let's say I want to buy one of these ghastly things. I'm stuck at this point because the Firefox people didn't put in any keyboard-based way to select graphical buttons -- it's only possible to hone in on text-based links at present. So I can't click on "Add to Shopping Cart". But this doesn't mean the keyboard wouldn't be a reasonable tool for the job. It's just that the Firefox people were focused on making the mouse work for everything, so they didn't make a provision for this.
In fact, that serves to illustrate a point: lots of this keyboard navigation could be easier if the Firefox authors (and authors of lots of other software) didn't appear to think that mouse is the only real priority. I'm not saying that the mouse is bad, but I do think we suffer from a little bit of groupthink such that we design user interfaces to be solely mouse-based when the keyboard would be equally good or better at certain tasks. (I will not deny, though, that there is an advantage to visual controls, which is that you know that they're there; with the keyboard, you have to know that keystrokes exist, because it isn't like there is a keyboard that lights up all the keys that do useful things based on the context, although if there were, it might be a cool gadget to have!)