Interesting, I've come across this article before, but now owing to events in my life my perspective on it is completely different.

Up until 2011 I was basically a upper-middle grade computer user. I owned a Macbook and used the trackpad heavily. The responsive gestures and seamless software experience were wonderful compared to Windows Vista. I knew a few keyboard shortcuts, and I'd jigged up a program so I could move between tabs on Firefox with finger swipes (among a few other gesture tricks) which I thought was very clever, but my computer skills didn't go much further - compared to the average user I was skilled though.

Then I injured my hand, and ever since I haven't been able to use a trackpad without my hand stiffening up and getting sore, which basically killed the entire experience. For a while I struggled along with my phone and iPad, until I wound up with some sort of nerve damage in my thumbs from a combination of rapid tapping on hard glass and haptic buzzing on my phone's softkeys. Nasty. Other ergonomic problems have mixed in with that - it amazes me that I could use desktop computers so effortlessly when I was a kid, now I get a stiff neck and my arms hurt from resting on the desk (working on getting a better desk...)

It's been an interesting experience, if at times extremely frustrating (as my appetite to consume information has only grown all throughout despite my deteriorating ability to use the most common computing forms.) Now I look around me and see what looks like a looming ergonomic disaster. I cringe now when I see people tapping away on hard, flat glass surfaces (not to mention all the hunched backs and pitched necks from laptop use - pretty breathtaking once you start looking for it). I wonder how widespread the ergonomic problems from hard/flat surface interactions are - seems like the kind of thing that could be simmering away behind the scenes (given that the worse you have this sort of problem, the harder it gets to remain socially active online, so it effectively silences you.) It seems like a bit of a perfect storm - there's just such a huge gap between the wider public and the media that serves them on the one hand, and people like HN users who actually know and are passionate about computers and usability on the other.

Me, I've been using Vim extensions and trying to make my laptop more keyboard-centric. Until eye-tracking and neural interfaces become available, the keyboard cannot be beaten for direct brain-to-action speed and control. My dream would be a computer environment that combines the beauty of modern touch and web interfaces with a unified universal modal keyboard control system, which reached into the browser. It would be nice if there was some standardisation of keyboard access for websites as well - Vim extensions are nice but limited, hard to fly with something that can't handle a Youtube video...

Anyway. I like to point out the difference between Apple's Magic Mouse and an ergonomic tool like the Handshoemouse. One looks beautiful but is a piece of shit interaction wise. The other looks bizarre but is actually built for a human hand. Unfortunately we're living in a world where the money is in serving the masses, people who for the most part will never understand how fast and powerful computers could be if they are moulded to suit our bodies, and so who think Apple products are perfect. Hopefully though as more people come up on these mass-market products and develop a taste for computing the demand will start to build for a higher grade of computer tools.