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GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

ckardaris.com

441–450 of 513 posts

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#441
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of discussing TUI vs GUI (as the article does), the accessibility and keyboard control balance probably swings very strongly to native GUIs; in a TUI you’re at the whim of the TUI framework’s stabs at accessibility support, while on a full fledged native UI you have all the bells and whistles of focus management and text to speech and voice control and high contrast and magnification and motion adjustm…

Besides the TUI program itself, you also have your terminal emulator (unless in a TTY) and possibly a multiplexer like tmux. I use irssi inside tmux from my phone a lot and you can get pretty precise control with keyboard shortcuts that make up for some of the flaws of a touchscreen. Like instead of mashing or holding the arrows to go back and fix a typo, I'll use the readline binds and hit esc and b a bunch of times…

[flagged]

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#442
I practically live in the terminal but can’t live without a mouse. I’ve been using Vim (now Neovim) exclusively as my sole editor and everything in tmux including my email. I agree with the power of the keyboard but a properly configured mouse is a truly powerful terminal utility.

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#443
When I learned Webdesign accessibility was a main factor, always. Today it seems more like the absolute exception, even Ai doesn't care about it by default.

In professional work many customers were like "nah, we don't need that, we won't pay for that"

I don't get how and why we evolve backwards in these things.

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#444
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because at the end of the day: - accessibility is just usability. all it is is making sure your product is as usable by as many people as possible. - it's a myth that "people with disabilities" are some other that excludes you, and 'accessibility' or assistive technologies only benefits other people . Everyone is only temporarily 'abled'. You need to use prescription glasses to comfortable read a computer scre…

> accessibility is just usability. all it is is making sure your product is as usable by as many people as possible. Not always. There are things that increase usability for fully abled people but decrease it for disabled people. Color-coding is a common one. Another is using smaller font size to make more info visible at once, or advanced touch gestures that can be accidentally triggered by shaky hands. Then there a…

> Another is using smaller font size to make more info visible at once

This doesn't sound very usable to me.

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we should not withhold accessibility features. I wrote nothing to suggest that we should. I wrote that a group of marginalised people would be further marginalised, and deprived of income and meaningful work in a sector where they are, by circumstance, subject matter experts. Anything else is projection.

>No, we should not withhold accessibility features. So if AI finds and fixes the accessibility deficiencies thats good for disabled people right? Not marginalizing.

The point is that there are unintended consequences, a real cost to people who are already struggling. The broader disability community is already noticing, rather sourly, that accessibility for "AI" is suddenly a prime concern, where they have been struggling for decades to get any attention or consideration for their own needs.

What is better for everyone is if the people building the systems start with considering accessibility beforehand instead of shipping something broken then fixing it.

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#447
And it's not just for websites.

Analogy: the doorframe is of a standard width so that a wheelchair can get through. This means manufacturers can make equipment that will fit in your house without calling you first! You never have to worry you bought a new refrigerator that needs to be pulled into a hole in the roof because it won't fit through the door. You never have to worry about delivering food to a grocer because your hand truck and boxes will fit, and there is a ramp instead of oddly shaped stairs. Nobody needs to be in a wheelchair for this.

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#448

I think the main reason people prefer TUI are certain assumptions that come with it. Like I assume a TUI runs on vim like shortcuts, allowing me to move with hjkl. It isn't the case everywhere, but it's what I have observed mostly. When a software is created for the terminal, it can expect the users to know these certain shortcuts. But this cannot be assured for GUI.

Most TUIs give you keyboard but mouse is a second class citizen, most GUIs give you mouse but keyboard is a second class citizen. To that extent, I’ll take the mouse only any day. I really want to learn over time the 5-15 shortcuts that speed up my day, not be forced to learn all of them day 0. And I say this as a power user, a casual user will use 2-3 shortcuts per app at most.

Nano always shows most important (all?) hotkeys on the screen. (works really well for its usecase)

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your three sentences encapsulate the textbook definition of ochlocracy (or laocracy) The textbook definition of ochlocracy is a small group of people taking justice into their own hands. That is not what I described in my post where I explained how they can come up with rules and processes and how to deal with things as opposed to having a mob deal with it.

> The textbook definition of ochlocracy is a small group of people taking justice into their own hands. No, that's not the textbook definition. That exchange has sadly run its course for me for I have no interest in reading tedious counterfactual clichés, especially not ones outside the scope of the thread's actual topic. One can only hope you embark on that suggested reading journey to better understand the emergenc…

No thank you. I will not be reading about what I already understand. If you want to believe a different set of definitions feel free, but you will find that you are overcomplicating simple concepts.
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