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I would never have predicted this:
We've done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts:Tog is the man, and they did an incredible amount of user testing (as opposed to just thinking about it,) so I'm sure this is right. On the other hand, I know I'm faster with keyboard shortcuts than the mouse, and I don't think it's amnesia. (via daring fireball)
- Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.
- The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding.
This contradiction between user-experience and reality apparently forms the basis for many user/developers' belief that the keyboard is faster.
People new to the mouse find the process of acquiring it every time they want to do anything other than type to be incredibly time-wasting. And therein lies the very advantage of the mouse: it is boring to find it because the two-second search does not require high-level cognitive engagement.
It takes two seconds to decide upon which special-function key to press. Deciding among abstract symbols is a high-level cognitive function. Not only is this decision not boring, the user actually experiences amnesia! Real amnesia! The time-slice spent making the decision simply ceases to exist.