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Spatial Keyboard Navigation

danilowoz.com

1–10 of 23 posts

Re: Spatial Keyboard Navigation

#3

Looks great. I wish I could use keyboard navigation more because my wrist hurts from mouse, and mouse pointer is kinda hard to target. Is it possible to implement this thing as browser extension?

I use Vimium's hint navigation. Works great for most sites.

Re: Spatial Keyboard Navigation

#4

Looks great. I wish I could use keyboard navigation more because my wrist hurts from mouse, and mouse pointer is kinda hard to target. Is it possible to implement this thing as browser extension?

Why not wish for eye tracking so we could simply look at something? Then a subtle Soli gesture to select.

https://atap.google.com/soli/

I always think of this blog where the person had to use their nose because their hands were in pain.

http://www.looknohands.me/

Discussion from 7 years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8805053

Re: Spatial Keyboard Navigation

#5
post #4

Looks great. I wish I could use keyboard navigation more because my wrist hurts from mouse, and mouse pointer is kinda hard to target. Is it possible to implement this thing as browser extension?

Why not wish for eye tracking so we could simply look at something? Then a subtle Soli gesture to select. https://atap.google.com/soli/ I always think of this blog where the person had to use their nose because their hands were in pain. http://www.looknohands.me/ Discussion from 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8805053

Haha, eye only interface would be great. But why do I need Soli for it, wouldn’t webcam-based eye-tracking with one-eye blink for a click be enough?

Re: Spatial Keyboard Navigation

#6

Looks great. I wish I could use keyboard navigation more because my wrist hurts from mouse, and mouse pointer is kinda hard to target. Is it possible to implement this thing as browser extension?

Try vimium, which is probably fast (although I usually still prefer the touchpad). This is what it looks like: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/2781117/28320939-f...

It's one keypress to get the hints, then usually two to select the element, whereas tab-navigation is 1/4 the number of elements on the page (if you do shift+tab whenever it's shorter) and this Manhattan-style keyboard navigation is 2 x sqrt(# elements), if I'm not mistaken.

Here's what I thought just reading the title: press a key, and the elements are spacially mapped onto all keyboard keys (except ESC). Then, hit the key in the general vicinity. If there's too much and you are likely to miss, zoom into the specific area and repeat.

That's really equivalent to the vimium method, but a bit more visually intuitive.

Re: Spatial Keyboard Navigation

#7
Super cool. As a note, try selecting "Areas" for a hierarchical view

I noticed a glitch in the demo. The "options" area, when only "animated" is selected, thinks that the three checkboxes are not vertically aligned (jumps from "animated" to "strict area", skipping "Areas" when pressing up / down, need to press "right" to get to "Areas")

Re: Spatial Keyboard Navigation

#8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not wish for eye tracking so we could simply look at something? Then a subtle Soli gesture to select. https://atap.google.com/soli/ I always think of this blog where the person had to use their nose because their hands were in pain. http://www.looknohands.me/ Discussion from 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8805053

Haha, eye only interface would be great. But why do I need Soli for it, wouldn’t webcam-based eye-tracking with one-eye blink for a click be enough?

Until your hands start hurting like the person who I mentioned. I was trying to discuss solving the general problem. Some people also suffer when using a keyboard

Re: Spatial Keyboard Navigation

#9
This is really good! So good that it ought to be implemented in browsers in my opinion, probably as a set of additional `aria-*` attributes.

In line with other common conventions, I'd also like to see Ctrl+Arrow to move between areas, home/end to move to the beginning/end of the current area, etc.

Re: Spatial Keyboard Navigation

#10
post #4

Looks great. I wish I could use keyboard navigation more because my wrist hurts from mouse, and mouse pointer is kinda hard to target. Is it possible to implement this thing as browser extension?

Why not wish for eye tracking so we could simply look at something? Then a subtle Soli gesture to select. https://atap.google.com/soli/ I always think of this blog where the person had to use their nose because their hands were in pain. http://www.looknohands.me/ Discussion from 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8805053

I've been wanting something like that for a long time. Eye tracking + a simple keyboard shortcut to trigger a click so I can select anything across the entire system instantly without having to take my hands off the keyboard. So far though I haven't been able to find any decent out-of-the-box solutions for that without any major drawbacks.

Eye-tracking is an underrated user input method in my opinion. I'm hoping eventually VR/AR will make it mainstream.

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