Double clicking is evil

To both a novice and an advanced user, there is no conceptual difference between pressing another button on the mouse and double clicking. Well, actually there is one: you can proceed with superior comfort and greater speed after a bit practicing of the former, while the latter will remain awkward forever. Therefore, it could greatly improve usability if the pointing device had additional buttons to replace this vulgar action. Chording (simultaneously pressing multiple buttons) is also an option. See Wikipedia: Chorded keyboard for more information.

As you probably already know, I'm all against any form of double, triple or even quadruple pushing the same button on either the keyboard or the mouse. As a historical note, I'm positive that no human with expert knowledge in the field - or even having any trace of commonsense - would recommend such crippling of ergonomics and usability as banging the same button in succession.

I think they have implemented this because the interface they have copied used only a single mouse button (Apple), whose designers have taken some dirty shortcuts to get their job done with little effort. Note that having a user interface that uses a single button mouse can be a neat idea and very novice-friendly if done right, but the same can't be told about one requiring double clicking.

Comments

  1. BenceApril 20, 2009 at 9:07 PM

    Wow, what a rant :)

    Although double clicking sure is a pain in the bottocks, but if you ask me multiple input device chording (ie. pressing command on the keyboard AND clicking the one and only button on the mouse) is even weirder.

    Luckily, under M$WIN we've got the great freeware AutoHotkey tool so you can remap your Nth mouse button to act as a dobuleclick by writing 1 line'o'script, compiling it and making it run automatically.

    ReplyDelete
  2. bkilApril 23, 2009 at 3:01 PM

    Hey, what did you expect? ;-D This is part of a series related to computer ergonomy. As usability of today's computers are so last millennium, they could surely be improved upon. You may be right in that in this post I give few alternatives. That's because I thought the solutions were pretty self-evident. I could write follow-up posts with mock-ups about my ideas if you're interested.

    -

    And of course you can solve any problem with third-party freeware tools, but that still doesn't justify bad user interface design. By the way, the FOSS solution isn't much more complicated, and in this case you have multiple choices: xmacro, xvkbd, xautomation and xbindkeys.

    Thankfully, most interfaces I use work with single clicks, but this is a bit random, as it is on almost any system. Take for example vista's desktop. They have now realized after the decades what a 5-year-old would have told them instantly: single clicking is a more ergonomic, more comfortable, less tiring, less confusing and faster alternative to double clicking. And by the way, I forgot to mention the joy of having an additional function on some systems for two consecutive single clicks that makes the user experience even more "fun" (ie. easier to confuse). Actually, this has been in my mind for many years now, but back then, I thought so called "experts" have "invented" and designed these things well and it's me the one who is in error.

    Nowadays, I've taken up the habit of applying a healthy amount skepticism, especially in my own field! ;-) If you don't like your keyboard layout then replace it. If you don't like some aspect of your software then change it. If you can't change it, then scrap it altogether for one that you could! :-D

    "A computer scientist who is being ignorant of open source software is just like a mechanic who takes his own bike in for every adjustment or repair."

    -

    Multiple device chording you ask? I agree that if you have more than a hundred keys on the keyboard, why on Earth would you be required to simultaneously press a mouse button to take action?! :-D However, it's actually much better for your arms if you use none of your mouse buttons and substitute keys on the keyboard instead. You can also position the cursor with higher accuracy this way while drawing, for example. Try it if you don't believe me! The X way of doing this is the same as above, but I'm sure you'll eventually find a solution for winblows.

    Furthermore, while chording mouse buttons isn't ideal, I presume it's still more ergonomic than double clicking.

    -

    And I see you have also posted to your blog recently. Should I take this as a sign of rebirth...? :) I've signed up for its RSS, just in case. ;)

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hidden TFTP of TP-Link routers

I did some more investigation after the positive results with the TL-WR740Nv4  (click the link to get introduced to the way of recovery). Most users report that devices and firmware updates released after a point in time usually have this mode enabled. If a firmware update is available from the vendor for your device, it's a good idea to apply that update before installing OpenWRT or dd-wrt UNLESS you own something for which upgrading will ensure incompatible with OpenWrt, like a TL-WR730N , and possible some other models (please report). Note that some old models have newer updates in different languages, those may also be worth a try ( TODO : compatibility?). Also remember that later on, tftp recovery will need a type of firmware image without a boot loader, so strip it with dd if yours has it ( grep U-Boot , or check the filename). Positive reported claims so far (personal results highlighted): TL-WDR4300 router 192.168.0.86 server 192.168.0.66 query wdr4300v1_tp_...
Read more

Tftp secret of TL-WR740N uncovered

I've found out that even this particular entry level router supports anti-bricking, so there's no need for soldering, unless of course you are modding. The method I used is the following: Set up a tftp server  on your PC and verify if it works correctly (configuration, permissions, firewalls, etc.) Rename your target firmware to wr740v4_tp_recovery.bin and copy it to your base folder (by default /tftpboot). I tested with openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr740n-v4-squashfs-factory.bin r43602. Set up the following static IP for your PC: 192.168.0.66 /255.255.255.0. If you're not sure about the firmware name on a different model, start a packet sniffer on your PC ( tcpdump -i eth0 -n -l ) and look for the name in the RRQ message. Preferably disconnect WAN from the router Connect the PC to a LAN port Power off the router Press and hold the reset button Power on the router After the leftmost (power) LED and the rightmost (padlock) LED turn on alone in a few seconds, release...
Read more

When both Google *and* AppStatus is down

Here is a link where you could theoretically monitor Google outages: https://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=status I had a problem with Google services just recently. However, as I wanted to verify whether the problem is on my side, this monitoring site was down as well. At the same time, the third party reports on alternative sites started to grow: http://outage.report/google http://downdetector.com/status/google http://aussieoutages.com/status/google This highlights why we should not put all our eggs into the same basket.
Read more