When I see somebody use the mouse to move between boxes or even to move around in code, I feel like either cutting the mouse cord or unplugging it in the case of a cordless mouse, it is frustrating seeing people cling to the mouse, “haven’t you learned anything from me and my outbursts on the subject of mouse addicted people?”, lol
One thing that anoys me is the computers in the lab where consoles are blocked and where you are stuck with a dumb mouse and some stupid so-called user friendly apps that are without shortcuts, but then I either hack them until I have a console or reboot with some linux distro.
When typing in usernames and passwords I am a big fan of typing the first letter of my username getting the auto complete option, arrowing down to the correct username if there is more then one and then hitting tab to go to the password field. This is why I hate sites that do not have JavaScript events to handle this and when I hit tab only the first letter stays in the username field.
the saddest part of this is - we, as programmers, are still coding login forms. You would think this would be the easiest thing to componentize and standardize – like 15 years ago.
Not only have we not done this, but we still can’t even get it right! I bet in another 15 years Jeff will put up the same post… Our software industry is so unindustrialized.
I got side tracked with an older browser where #9496; did not submit the form. So now, I tab until the submit button is highlighted and press space. It’s still a keypress, and always works.
I also hate when there are no password rules upfront, and you have to drudge through several submits because all errors with your password weren’t displayed to you at the same time.
I grew up with a Mac LC II, and with keyboard shortcuts. When I encounter a new program, and the standard shortcuts don’t work, I use the mouse to find out the shortcut, and then cancel and return to the keyboard to perform the desired function. (Not using the mouse since I was right there already)
I also hate it when the tab index is messed up on some sites. You have to tab twice between fields (to skip the novice-user help links). My bank had this, and it drove me nuts. Now they’ve implimented a 4 tier system for logging on. First page is the username, which they dub “UserKey”, and then the second page shows a (previously setup) unique image, and (previously setup) user pass phrase, plus your password.
This behavior isn’t unique to login forms. I watch in agony as my parents fill out forms with 10 fields by typing in each field and then clicking on the next. Any developer worth his salt should be designing forms with a tab order.
You would be terrified by how many HTML forms have the tab order completely borked. I regularly get the “hit tab, get scrolled completely away from where I was” which is a free bonus problem right there. Some forms are so byzantine that it’s impossible to key navigate them - usually they use JavaScript to rewrite the form while you’re typing so you can’t even shift-tab to go back a field. For a real laugh pretend you live outside the US and play with the “country” or “state” dropdowns (and lets ignore the ones where you have to enter your CC details before they say “we can’t ship outside the US”).
Furthermore: Enter should submit a login form, unless the username and password are both REQUIRED, and they have not yet both been entered. In that case, the Enter key should not submit the form. It should move focus to the missing field (and maybe display a little visual reminder that the field is required).
More people that you would think don’t understand the capabilities of the standard text box and keyboard interaction.
Most people I’ve witnessed:
Aren’t aware that the Delete key removes the character to the right
Generally aren’t aware that the arrow keys affect the caret (not the cursor! )
Are unaware that performing an action with the keyboard can have the same effect as using the mouse.
And, given the above, have no chance of being aware of the “special” actions of the Tab and Enter keys. (Thoughts are likely that the Tab key will put some space in the box, and that enter will try to add another line)
It’s as if they don’t understand that 1 key can have multiple effects. I’m not certain that we should decry this fact, however. I have no intentions of teaching my grandmother the myriad ways to navigate around a webpage or other type of form (which is really the only place that this comes up). Most people already feel that they’re on the wrong end of some serious voodoo, and if they have a comfortable understanding of how to accoplish something they should probably be left to it.
Unless you’re hiring. Then they better damn well know how this fairly basic stuff works.
@Steve
However, I do notice that with IE, when I have 1 textbox and 1 button, filling in the textbox and pressing Enter does not trigger the button’s eventhandler. Don’t know why.
This is a bug (or a feature depending on whom you ask) in IE. When the form only has one textbox, the button itself is not included in the postback data so the event handling mechanism doesn’t know you pressed it (I’m assuming you’re using ASP.NET or similar). An easy workaround is to add an hidden textbox to your form, something like this:
input type=“text” style=“visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;” /
I haven’t tried if IE7 behaves differently, but since MS considers it “by design”, I doubt they’ve changed it.
A cynics view:
Pehaps people know how to do this, but are so bored by whatever activity that they are doing that they deliberately do it the slow way just to make the day a bit shorter…
Haacked: When was the last time you lost your car keys?
Regarding teaching people to use keys to navigate forms: I would like to teach the world to sing, but that isn’t going very well either. And as been pointed out, some forms are so poorly designed, keyboard navigation is not going to work. Navigating forms with a mouse may be painful and slow, but it is at least reliable, and when you are trying to get something done, that is what you want, which is my biggest complaint about Windows and Windows programs in general. Flakey, flakey, flakey. Windows is a lot like a '59 Cadillac, big and flashy, but unreliable, which is why Honda, the boringest car in the world became such a big seller.
I have been programming for years, and make fair use of keyboard shortcuts, handy time-saving apps, etc. I consider it part of the trade that those who spend so much time working on a computer will naturally choose to do things in the fastest way possible, especially mind-numbing repetitive drone work.
That being said, I am in CONSTANT amazement at the lack of computer skills that I see with fellow devlopers, some of whom have been developers for upwards of 20 years. These are people that can produce good code, and understand heavy OOP design patters. But I watch them stare at their keyboard, hunting and pecking the keys…opening Query Analyzer and manually typing table names that exceed 25 characters… manually minimizing all of their open programs until their desktop is visible, then opening “My Computer”, then navigating through 8 mouse clicks to the directory they want. (For the love of God, have you heard of Windows Key + E!!!@! It’s only been there for over 10 years!!!)
What’s wrong with these people? Where’s their skills?
I just LIKE it that way. Clicking is fun. And you all keyboard Nazis might as well shut up.
Skills? G-a-a-h… The only people who care about such skills are micromanagers. Or Nazis. Or blatant idiots.
“It looks like you’re trying to log in to this site, but you’re using the mouse to move around. Did you know you can use the tab key to… oh, you want to turn me off, do you? That was the old Clippy. I’m the new Clippy, sent by MCP to clean things up around here. So, look, just use the Tab key.” (does silly animation, GPF’s)
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