I thought I broke FireFox the other day. I was browsing as usual, with a couple tabs open in the background, when I decided to open a new tab. I hit CTRL+T, the keyboard shortcut, and up popped a document layout editor. I thought I hit the wrong key, so I tried again. Same document layout editor. I figured a must have changed a setting, so I gave the “Tools” menu a scan. Nothing.

I opened a new browser. CTRL+T worked there, right off the bat. Then I realized the difference between the two browsers: one had a tab featuring normal websites, the other “broken” browser had a PDF open in a background tab. The PDF had hijacked my keyboard shortcut!

Adobe broke a cardinal rule of usability: their software altered and broke the fundamental experience of the parent software that it was supposed to enhance without giving me, the user, a choice in the matter.

Keyboard shortcuts are learned ways to navigate through a system; users have invested time and effort to learn these things, to become “power users” of the system. Designers and developers looking to enhance that system should spend time and effort to learn the same things, so that their products don’t break or alter the sytem’s fundamentals, changing it in unpredictable ways.

Perhaps, keyboard shortcuts aren’t viewed with the importance that they should be: they’re not for casual users, who might represent the biggest chunk of an audience. However, they are an important function of any system: they enable users to accomplish their tasks faster and with ease, allowing users to power through those quick, routine tasks while saving time and effort to difficult problems or more enjoyable things. Once you learned that CTRL+C copied and CTRL+V pasted, how often do you find yourself moving your mouse all the way up to the “Edit” menu to accomplish those tasks? Those seemingly unimportant keyboard shortcuts form a large part of your experience while you use many different products; they help to speed things up and make you a power user with a few simple keystrokes.

If you’re designing a piece of a system (software, a plugin for a browser, etc.) make sure that your piece of software lives and plays within the rules of that system. If CTRL+C copies, follow that rule. If CTRL+T opens a new browser tab, follow that rule, too. Don’t alter the fundamentals learned, enjoyed — and heavily invested in — by users.

And, from now on I’ll be sure to use CTRL+N to open a new window whenever I need to view a PDF.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 2:32 pm and is filed under usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.