From: kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky)
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI (there, I changed the subject ... )
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 21:28:38 GMT

In article <mike_steiner-141092134032@192.35.50.131> mike_steiner@qm.claris.com (Mike Steiner) writes:
>In article <1992Oct13.222051.29320@nwnexus.WA.COM>, kanefsky@halcyon.com
>(Steve Kanefsky) wrote:
>
>> >> Note that anyone can press a key on a keyboard with no practice, but it 
>> >> takes some practice to use a mouse.  
>> >
>> >This completely fallacious. What are you measuring here? You can teach someone
>> >to meaninglessly press a key, versus using a mouse proficiently? 
>> 
>> If I teach someone that "C" stands for copy, then reaching out and
>> pressing C is certainly meaningful.  On the other hand, a menu
>> choice isn't always meaningful.  Sometimes it isn't obvious which
>> menu a command belongs in or what the command should be called.  My
>> point is that a certain number of common commands can be assigned
>> keyboard shortcuts, and those shortcuts can have a meaningful
>> association with the command itself. Pressing a key (or even two) on
>> the keyboard is almost always faster than using a mouse to select a
>> menu item. 
>
>If Copy is always "Copy," and is always in the same position of the Edit
>menu, then it is always more meaningful than remembering "Copy, oh that's
>the 'C' key."  You are saying that a keyboard shortcut to a command can be
>more meaningful than the command itself.  That is patently nonsense. 

Consider what you have to remember to use the copy command in the menu
efficiently.  You have to remember that it's called "copy" (that's
easy), but you also have to know it's in the "edit" menu, what position
it's in within the menu, where the edit menu itself is, etc.  If you had
to go browsing through the menus to find it every time, the interface would 
be impossibly slow.  Of course, in reality, I can remember that 'C' is
for copy and you can remember that copy is near the top of the edit
menu, which is the second menu from the left.

>*Perhaps* Command Q, W, A, S, Z, X, C, and V, keyboard shortcuts are faster
>than using the mouse--but if they are, they are so only because they have
>been standardized for their equivalent menu commands.  However, people had
>to memorize them--after memorizing the functions themselves.  That means
>you have to dereference, mentally, twice to get to the function, instead of
>only once.  Sure, you can get a handle on keyboard shortcuts, but pointing
>with the mouse takes less mental effort.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.  There are some commands where
it's simply easier to remember the mnemonic than all the information
about what menu they are in and where.  In the finder, for example,
command-I is much easier for me to remember than where the get-info
command is.  Some commands just don't pop out at you like cut, copy, and
paste do in the edit menu.

 
>> >> In addition to the extra cognitive effort of manipulating the mouse 
>> >
>> >The cognitive effort is not different than that required to reach out and
>> >grab a coffee cup. You can do this without thinking. It is a low-level 
>> >operation that takes place with little mental effort.
>> >
>> >> you have to remember what menu the command is in 
>> >
>> >No you don't. You don't have to remember at all. All you have to do is
>> >RECOGNISE. Humans are terrible at remembering things. They are excellent at
>> >recognising things. 
>> 
>> OK, so if I give you a page full of phone numbers -- one of which is
>> yours -- you'll be able to recognize it faster than you could
>> remember it? 
>
>That's not the same thing.  The format is different and what you're
>remembering is a different category.  There is a difference between
>remembering a fact and remembering a process.  I can recognize a pattern
>more easily than I can remember how to draw one.

It's a valid question.  The normal finder view requires you to look at
all the icons and recognize the one you want by name.  It may be easier to
remember the name and type it out in some cases rather than scroll
around looking for it.  

How does drawing a pattern fit in?


>
>> >> and you may have to scan all the items in the menu carefully for the 
>> >> command you want 
>> >
>> >This is true only for the first few times you use a new product. We're 
>> >speaking of reasonably proficient users, who are familiar with the product
>> >(or similar products). 
>> >
>> >The beauty of the Macintosh is that you DON'T have to root around to find
>> >the "Copy" menu item, because it is ALWAYS under the Edit menu. And the
>> >Edit menus is ALWAYS in the same place. Consistancy.
>> 
>> But many programs add other commands to the edit menu (though the
>> edit menu is more static than other menus), so the position of the
>> copy command could change because of other menu items being added
>> and deleted dynamically.
>
>Nope.  The added items are at the end of the menu.  Apple's HIG dictates
>(one of the few places where dictation is appropriate) what the first five
>items on the Edit menu should be:  Undo; seperator line; Cut; Copy; Paste.

Boy I'm getting tired of saying that this is just one particular
example.  I'm talking about menus and command in general here.  Take the
file menu for example:  it may or may not have open, save, save as, save
a copy as, place, print, print one, etc. etc.  You can't depend on a 
particular command being in a particular absolute position in the menu.
It's often easier to know that cmd-P will print and cmd-Q will quit
because you don't have to worry about whether the quit command is 1/3
from the top of the screen or all the way at the bottom.  And I won't
even talk about what happens if you have a few hundred fonts and you
know that you want venice.

>> The cut, copy, and paste commands in the edit menu are pretty stable
>> because new commands tend to get added *below* those commands.  But
>> there are plenty of other commands in other menus which appear and
>> disappear, which effectively changes the position of other commands.
>
>I haven't seen any applications written in the past four or five years in
>which menu items are inserted into the menu--a few append items to the end
>of the menu, though.

OK, well lets consider different programs then.  Same menu titles,
vastly different menu structures.

--
Steve Kanefsky