On Jun 28, 2009, at 12:56 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
Until you can demonstrate that the research is flawed and produces
unreliable results, I'm going to believe those who've actually taken
the time to design mechanisms for testing the proposition, rather
than going with the gut feelings of individual users.
Back in 1999 or thereabouts (WOW! Do I really keep emails that old?
Apparently!) Peter Castine argued a similar point, having done his
masters thesis on the subject.
I did some tests on the version of Finale I had at the time (probably
98) and tested the hypothesis that doing certain actions ONLY with
the mouse was faster than doing them ONLY with the keyboard, and I
compared them with what I thought was best practice.
To try be a fair emulation of an experienced user, I practiced the
combinations until I was fluent, then repeated the same action five
times in a row while timing myself.
The results of my little tests were as follows:
The combinations that I thought were the best practice (usually,
selecting and dragging with the mouse, but nudging and using
metatools and keyboard shortcuts where possible) were, predictably
enough, the fastest.
Next were keyboard only. I was hampered by the Mac's lack of menu
equivalents like Windows has had since forever, but I got through it.
with the help of a macro program (programming the macro was not
timed). Tasks like selection were slow, and probably skewed the results.
Slowest of all was the mouse alone, but not by as much as I had
thought originally. Nested menus slowed things up considerably (as I
predicted).
I did NOT select a bunch of representative tasks, indeed I tested NO
system or file tasks at all. I did note entry, assigning expressions
and articulations and page layout in Finale, which I was spending
most of my time on.
Now, it was not entirely scientific (I chose my tasks to represent
what I normally did a lot of, and I WAS more used to my usual
routine, even after practicing the others) but my conclusion was more
or less that you should do what you think is fastest. An additional
conclusion was that my impression when I was doing the test was that
the mouse was WAY slower, but the actual times were not as long as
they SEEMED to be when I was in the process. In other words, mousing
FEELS really slow, but it isn't really as slow as you think it is.
So gut feeling does affect our choices after all? You know, like you
speed to the next intersection way faster than the guy next to you,
only to wait at the red light while the guy you passed glides up
beside you. You FEEL like you are moving faster, though you are both
waiting at the next red light.
Christopher
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