Google's services favor mouse usage over keyboard usage

glennmagusharvey

I was just now using Google Scholar's "Cite" feature to bring up auto-formatted citations.  It greys out much of the display area and "pops up" (within the same browser window) a box with three common citation formats.  So how do you leave this?  Well, you can click outside of the box, or you can press Esc...wait, no, you can't.  You have to go to your mouse/trackball/touchpad and click outside the box (or click the x in the box).

Similarly, a redesign of GMail's interface a year or so ago has made it more difficult to navigate the mailbox window with keyboard alone.  I used to be able to tab-cycle through most of the clickable objects, including both links to open messages and any open chat boxes, if I recall correctly.

I don't like the trend of this, because on par it's faster to do stuff by keyboard rather than by mouse, touchpad, trackball, or other pointing device.  Especially if I'm already using keyboard, which I am because I'm working on a research paper.  Admittedly this doesn't really apply to the second example I gave (which has its own problems but that's another story), but it definitely does to the first.

For those who don't get what I mean, let me explain what I'm doing.

Let's say I have the following windows open: Microsoft Word (where I'm writing my paper) and Firefox (with one tab).  Word is currently active, and I'm typing.  I need to insert a citation.

1. I navigate to my references section.  Since I'm in the middle of typing the text, this means hitting PgDn several times (skip-screen navigation), Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down a few times (skip-paragraph navigation), and Up/Down a few times (line-by-line navigation) to get to the place where I need to enter my citation.  I hit enter and leave a space for it.

2. I hit Alt+Tab to go to Firefox.  Then I hit Alt+D to go to the address bar, and then Tab to go to the search bar.  If I don't already have Google Scholar search engine active, I hit Ctrl+Up or Ctrl+Down enough times to change it to Google Scholar.  Then I start typing, say, "sarty abbott lester 2006 habitat complexity".  I press enter.

3. A Google Scholar search page comes up.  Given the specificity of my search it's almost certainly the first (maybe the second) search result.  Now, I go move my right hand to my mouse, shake it to find my cursor (if necessary), and reposition the cursor to the appropriate search result's "Cite" link, and click.  (If I needed to scroll, I would just do that with PgUp/PgDn before moving my hand to my mouse.)

4. The citation box pops up.  I use my mouse, click-dragging, to highlight the format I want.  My left hand then hits Ctrl+C, which copies the text.  My left hand then hits Alt+Tab to go back to Word, and then hits Ctrl+V to paste it in my references section.

5. Now I usually want to double-check to make sure that my citation actually contains the information I say it does.  This means Alt+Tab back to Firefox, and going to the search result for the journal article in question, in order to modify the URL to make use of my school's library's journal subscriptions.  (Or, if I'm lucky, navigating to the free text link on the right side of the Google Scholar search results.)

In order to use Google Scholar to do this last step, I need to clear out that pop-up box.  Ideally, I could do it just by hitting Esc.  And then my browsing cursor (not mouse cursor) would already be over the "Cite" link, and I'd just have to Shift+Tab like six or seven times to get back to the appropriate link, and then hit Enter to go to it.  And then Alt+Tab and Home/Ctrl+left/Ctrl+right/End and typing to edit the URL if necessary.

But no, that doesn't work.  Instead, I have go get the mouse, find the cursor (if necessary), and position it to somewhere in the big grey area (which is admittedly pretty quick).  At which point I might as well use the mouse to again move the cursor to the article link, and again move the mouse to the address bar, click once, wait a beat, click again to put the typing cursor to where I want it to go, and proceed on my way to editing the URL.

Each time I have to use the mouse, my hand has to move substantially and that takes a moment.  If anything, a touchpad is arguably slightly better regarding hand repositioning because it's much closer to the keyboard than a mouse.  However, a touchpad also offers slightly less accurate control unless you're really speedy and skilled with it.

Saturn

Huh. I've never actually thought about using the keyboard for Gmail. Guess I don't need to.

glennmagusharvey

I have no idea how to use keyboard for GMail, but it would be nice if I could.  Just imagine, Ctrl+Shift+C (or some other command) to start composing a new message, and I can start typing immediately.

Super Lazuli

This is because we live in an age where roughly 99% of all computers have a mouse, or at least the capability to have a mouse. 

Plus, computer mice are inherently less hand-biased than keyboard commands.