Completely keyboard driven UI

Question

After reading the inspiring article We are typists first by Jeff, I decided to use the keyboard and stay away from the pointer as much as possible.

But I observed that for many applications especially on the WEB it is not easy.

I also tried to incorporate this feature in my own pet projects and realize that there is huge UI design effort required upfront.

I have previously worked with a completely keyboard driven 'windows' application and hell it was easy to work with once you got the hang of it. The customers especially the data entry operators just loved it...

I wonder if this is feasible with complex UI apps especially on the web? Would the effort be justified?

Answer 1

Try it yourself. Use conkeror plugin for web, emacs for everything text related, some of the Linux window managers like Awesome, ratpoison, xmonad and stumpwm.

Answer 2

I think it really depends on the type of application. If you are writing something that requires a lot of typing anyway (e.g. data entry system, text editor, software development app, etc.) then it is absolutely crucial to have everything available from the keyboard, because it will make the work much faster.

On the other hand if you have some app that people will mainly read/watch like youtube or information portals, especially with lots of funky dynamic flash/ajax stuff, then I don't really see much benefit. The user is just going to keep his mouse in his hand all the time anyway.

Answer 3

It's something we should all certainly strive for, absolutely -- although with Web-based UIs, you're right that it can be particularly difficult. It's all about focus management and keyboard-event handling, both of which require additional time and effort on the part of the developer -- but there are plenty of folks out there (and not merely the disabled) who'll thank you for the care you put into making sure your Web projects are at least somewhat navigable and usable without the need of a mouse.

Rather than expound on the topic myself, though, I'd encourage you to spend a bit of time cruising through the W3C's Web Accessibility site. It's packed with useful information and perspective on this relatively large and important topic.

Making a Web site accessible can be simple or complex, depending on many factors such as the type of content, the size and complexity of the site, and the development tools and environment.

Many accessibility features are easily implemented if they are planned from the beginning of Web site development or redesign. Fixing inaccessible Web sites can require significant effort, especially sites that were not originally "coded" properly with standard XHTML markup, and sites with certain types of content such as multimedia.

(By the way, that bit about fixing inaccessible sites requiring significant effort? I can vouch for it firsthand: a relatively mature project I'm working on now is being extended to support full keyboard navigation, and I can tell you that I'd much rather this requirement were articulated at the beginning of the project, rather than now. Grafting on accessibility once a project's well underway can be a major pain -- it's much wiser to consider its importance and plan appropriately early on.)

Lastly, one thing worth mentioning, beyond just that "accessibility is good," is that supporting keyboard-based navigation doesn't just mean supporting the keyboard -- it also, by extension, means supporting standard remote controls, whose navigation and selection commands are often indistinguishable from the commands issued by keyboards. So if you think your project may be displayed in someone's living room someday, viewed from a couch and browsed by remote, then the time you put into keyboard support will be even better spent.

Answer 4

The answer depends on both the complexity of your application and - to a larger extent - on your target audience. We develop a quite complex web application, and got lots of requests for "keyboard only handling" from user groups that were administrators & power users, engineers or people whose pay partly depends on how many [whatever they do] per hour they can do (think call center agents where it matters a lot how many callers they can serve).

In order to be able to serve these users better, we went to a lot of effort to enable keyboard navigation for most areas of our web app (and plans are to make it all usable by keyboard), and I believe it was worth it.

Thus, if you're dealing with an audience of the groups I've mentioned, the effort will most likely be justified.

Answer 5

I'm having difficulty mentally identiying a use case where mouse navigation is preferable for regular users of almost any application. (Spreadsheets are the one exception that comes to mind.) Especially if designers were to actually assemble the content and UI based on efficient interpretations of User Stories. I have yet to run into a user who said "And then I need to scroll of the screen and over to the right ..." where the problem couldn't have been remedied by more intelligent design.

I think it's simply an issue most of us are tone-deaf about. I know I don't give it a lot of thought (unless it's an app I'm going to use - which is an indictment itself.)

I can think of at least a couple high-efficiency (call-center-type) apps that are still being sold with the old FoxPro non-windows UI. And we've all watched clerks struggle with newly-installed Windows-based POS equipment.

When we end up with mouse controls on Mobile devices (or plastic pens) then maybe we should back up and examine our paradigms a bit.

Answer 6

Mouseless inteface can be very practical:

• first, there is quite a few users who are used to working completely without mouse (a little less common in newer generations, but when I started mouse wasn't a standard part of the equipment)
• second, laptop users while working "in transit" usually preffer just keyboard interface, since you have to have a place to put the mouse to move it (and let's face it, little point in the middle of the keyboard just isn't IT. Touchpads are a little better, but just a little).

Google/vim inherited to a point - shortcuts seems to have caught quite a number of sympathies, so why not use them. Everyone has those on their keyboards. Try avoiding shortcuts which are not standard on most language keyboard settings.

Answer 7

One cool site which really promotes a keyboard only interface is keyboardr the UI makes doing a broad search using the the keyboard very easy.