GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven • Hacker News Board

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#531

Post by danaris » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 1:11 PM UTC

burnte wrote: post #504

ChickeNES wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the company that popularized the mouse and GUIs, why are you shocked?

Because it's stupid. Why would accessibility features enabled by default on Windows and Linux be disabled by default in MacOS? There is literally zero advantage to disabling it, and it makes life harder on users. Same thing with tap to click. Once everyone else enabled tap to click Apple disabled it. They just HAVE to be different, even if it's bad for users, and that stubbornness is frustrating.

To a large extent, I believe it's a holdover from the earliest days of the Mac, when the mouse was brand-new, and many developers had to essentially be forced to even support it, let alone treat it as a first-class interface device.

I agree that it would be nice if Apple would have more keyboard navigation available by default now than they did then, but given that it is readily available for those who want it, I don't really see it as a huge issue.

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#532

Post by danaris » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

rhdunn wrote: post #374

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's exactly what I'm saying basically everyone uses Excel. And basically everyone is a MOUSE-first user (or, even further along the chain: TOUCHSCREEN-first) keyboard-based menu navigation is not intuitive. it can be "poweruser" oriented, but it's not for most of the userbase

Keyboard shortcuts for those menu items are what most people will learn -- save, print, cut, copy, and paste will be the common ones that a lot of people will know. I'd be willing to bet that professional typists and people who spend the majority of their day typing (email, word, IDEs/text editors, etc.) are the ones who will know more keyboard shortcuts and navigation, especially for the things they do repeatedly.

> Keyboard shortcuts for those menu items are what most people will learn -- save, print, cut, copy, and paste will be the common ones that a lot of people will know.

I would say that it's true that the keyboard shortcuts for those items are the ones most likely for people to learn, but not true that most people will learn them.

I've spent 15 years in (tech support/programming for) academia, working with genuinely very smart people who use computers every day of their life, many of whom are actively looking for better ways to use those computers in their teaching and research, and 9/10 of them go to the Edit menu for Copy and Paste every. single. time.

Re: GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

#533

Post by fny » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

prmoustache wrote: post #136

fny wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power user experience is not the same across disciplines either. God forbid I should ever be forced to use Blender or Inkscape with only buttons.

Why do you introduce the concept of being forced to in the conversation?

Accessibility != Keyboard