Ionrock Dot Org

One thing I have observed by using the mouse is the fact that it takes so much more precision. When I use the keyboard, I may mistype things but I always know about my error immediately. The mouse on the other hand, manages to hide as much as possible from me regarding errors. A good example is firefox. I try to click the back button and get the history menu in the back button. It seems that the area meant for clicking back is wildly smaller than I thought or there are bugs. I would file bug reports if there was any ounce of consistency, but alas, it is a mystery when it happens. There are even times where I click directly on the back arrow icon and I still get the stupid menu! I don't think this is all the fault of firefox of course. Some of the time I know I just miss the button and catch the menu button instead.

In addition to accuracy and precision, using the mouse requires more thought. This is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it can be helpful because I have to be sure I am on the right icon or menu item. This usually leads to less mistakes, which is a good thing. On the flip side, often times I find I have to think about trivial tasks such as focusing a window or changing workspaces. In fact, it is these tasks that are often the most frustrating because instead of seamlessly going from task to task, the jump from one application to another becomes more painful. So painful in fact, that I do think it potentially hurts productivity. I feel I rarely get in a flow. That said, I am pretty happy using the keyboard, so my feelings are really just frustrations. There is no reason someone cannot get used to the workflow, in which case doing work that requires thought really shouldn't be hampered.

One specific aspect I am noticing is the nature of work dictates the vast majority of my issues. For example, browsing the web in addition to writing code. Normally I am visiting documentation sites so I will position my browser and editor on the screen to help compare examples to my own code. The essence of this involves many changes from my editor to the browser and back again. Constantly having to change from the mouse to the keyboard is very disrupting in this case. I can imagine someone using the GIMP while browsing the web could have an easier time simply because the GIMP requires a user to use the mouse primarily. I am sure this has been tested a great deal in some way or fashion. It does make me realize the benefits of an IDE for programming outside of an editor like vi or Emacs simply because it requires fewer changes to other applications. Of course, there are Emacs users who would dispute this thought process, but being a person who uses many different programming languages, I have yet to use Emacs beyond a few primary functions.

I will probably continue this for a few more days. I am concerned that I am losing time simply because this has interrupted my work flow. My thoughts so far can be summed up with the following:

The most important aspect of productivity with regard to HCI is allowing a means of developing a work flow that is scalable and emphasizes accuracy.

We'll see how that pans out overall, but I think it is something to look at in more formal testing. I know we are looking into this in some fashion for BetterDesktop.org, so we'll see if my experience can help to come up with better ideas of how to test this sort of thing.