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Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

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Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#51

Post by ineedasername »

tambourine_man wrote: post #43

Something I've been noticing lately is the disappearance of the “power user”. Someone who's not a programer, but has learned lots of smart and efficient ways to getting their computer work done over the years. Shortcuts (keyboard or otherwise), click-hold-cmd-tab-drop or similar patterns, tags/labels for deep file organization, etc. It seems like there's now a much wider gap between the smartphone tap-only user and…

I'm not sure how related they are, but I noticed an inverse correlation with users have full access to their systems. As companies locked down systems, users had less opportunity to explore, learn, optimize (and also break or infect) their systems.

Given solid UI design, the security tradeoff is probably worth it if the two are actually connected.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#52

Post by Moto7451 »

tambourine_man wrote: post #43

Something I've been noticing lately is the disappearance of the “power user”. Someone who's not a programer, but has learned lots of smart and efficient ways to getting their computer work done over the years. Shortcuts (keyboard or otherwise), click-hold-cmd-tab-drop or similar patterns, tags/labels for deep file organization, etc. It seems like there's now a much wider gap between the smartphone tap-only user and…

At work (generally, inclusive of but not only my company) you’ll find power users in Solutions Engineering implementing and automating nuts and bolts integrations and performing data wrangling on BI teams. There’s a lot of work to be done by people who don’t really code, and if they do it’s light scripting. They take a huge load off of the Engineering staff. I’ve also seen power users make their way into UI Automation.

It seems like once they get a few years under their belt they move into Product or Project Management or gain sufficient scripting experience that they move into an entry level Software role.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#54

Post by jakear »

tshaddox wrote: post #40
karaterobot wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't hover or have tooltips on mobile". they are trying to achieve uniformity between mobile and desktop. Achieving uniformity by reducing the user experience to the platforms' lowest common denominator. Not the best solution!

It actually doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea to me, at least under the assumption that you’re not going to maintain an entirely separate UI for the mobile and desktop apps (which would be ideal, but is incredibly expensive and tends to result in broken and missing features on one or both platforms even for companies with enormous budgets). I would argue that “reducing to the lowest common denominator” actually i…

Best option is to provide choice. Icons with Labels by default, show keyboard shortcut on hover. Want just icons? There’s a config option for that. Want just labels? Also an option. Want no toolbar at all, and only use shortcuts? Also an option.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#55

Post by ineedasername »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #41
blondin wrote: post #8

> "People need to feel that they can try things without damaging the system," recommended Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. well, for what it's worth, many modern apps aren't following that guideline. for a long time i have questioned the disappearance of tooltips in user interfaces. especially when everybody seems to come up with their own iconography nowadays. the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't ho…

I don't understand the relationship you are suggesting between tooltips and feeling that you can try things without damaging the system.

It's harder to damage things if tooltips give you some idea of what's going to happen when you push a button.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#56

Post by clusterfish »

n3t wrote: post #47
godDLL wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, wasn't that Cmd-L?

ctrl+k → focus the search bar ctrl+l → focus the address bar

Why do people use a separate search bar, when typing the search query into the address bar works the same? Unless you're often searching for strings that look like URLs?

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#57

Post by ok_dad »

Const-me wrote: post #36
starkd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to type commands when you have to do it alot. It uses muscle memory rather than deplete your attention span. Might be difficult at first, but it's easier once you get used to it.

For the use cases you’re talking about, I prefer keyboard shortcuts. No need to click search bar, or look at the search result list. One only needs to memorize, or setup, a keyboard shortcut like Ctrl+Shift+M, and with muscle memory it will consistently take well under 1 second. Search UX is slower, needs more clicks or key presses.

In vscode I press one set of keys and get fuzzy search access to every feature. I'd rather barely memorize the phrases to search with (several phrasing find the same settings for me) than to to memorize dozens of barely used hotkeys. Most of my day is scrolling through code and editing it occasionally, not doing actual commands from the menu or whatever.

To each their own, however I can see how it would be annoying when they don't include a menu for anything for folks who prefer that.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#58

Post by wildrhythms »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #13

Every macOS application has a command palette in the help menu: command-shift-/ will bring it up and you can incrementally search all the commands in the menus.

Back in the day I used Alfred on OS X... basically a system-wide command palette. Lots of its features now exist in Spotlight natively- not just file/folder search- it can do math equations, dictionary lookups, email search with date/keyword matching, currency and unit conversions, language translation, it also supports boolean operators.

I have yet to find a similar functionality from any other OS.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#60

Post by tambourine_man »

ineedasername wrote: post #51
tambourine_man wrote: post #43

Something I've been noticing lately is the disappearance of the “power user”. Someone who's not a programer, but has learned lots of smart and efficient ways to getting their computer work done over the years. Shortcuts (keyboard or otherwise), click-hold-cmd-tab-drop or similar patterns, tags/labels for deep file organization, etc. It seems like there's now a much wider gap between the smartphone tap-only user and…

I'm not sure how related they are, but I noticed an inverse correlation with users have full access to their systems. As companies locked down systems, users had less opportunity to explore, learn, optimize (and also break or infect) their systems. Given solid UI design, the security tradeoff is probably worth it if the two are actually connected.

I think there's a strong correlation. We did gain a lot in security and simplicity with the App Store model. Lots of people that would never install apps on Windows or Macs, due to fear and ignorance, do so regularly on their smartphones. Moreover, they upgrade their OSs and pay with credit cards, etc.

On the other hand, those same people had folders on their desktops and managed files reasonably well. And now that even got a bit more confusing on the desktop, especially with MS/Apple insistence in selecting One/iCloud drive by default.

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