Hijacking Standardized Keyboard Shortcuts
I love keyboard shortcuts, and I think they can make you extra productive if you utilize them. I always use keyboard shortcuts, and use them for everything when I can: alt+tab, shift+end, ctrl+tab, ctrl+c, etc. I even use ones that seem crazy complex for certain applications like Photoshop: ctrl+alt+shift+s (save for web), but it definitely saves time. Using these shortcuts, I can pretty much use almost all the features on a computer without a mouse.
The problem I have is with the use of keyboard shortcuts for web applications. The keyboard shortcuts that are used for web applications are not standardized! Keyboard shortcuts should never override commonly used ones like ctrl+c for copy or ctrl+v for pasting. I bring this issue up because of my recent frustration with the ctrl+b shortcut.
In Word and other text editors, ctrl+b bolds text. This is pretty much a standard convention, and it’s something ingrained in my muscle memory. However, when I’m editing text in a content management system or email on a website, ctrl+b does some funky things. The first program that overrode my ctrl+b shortcut was Delicious. I installed the Delicious toolbar in Internet Explorer, and it hijacks my ctrl+b shortcut to open up the Delicious bookmarks sidebar! This was unbelievably frustrating when I edit text and forget that ctrl+b does something else in Internet Explorer.
On top of this, I recently installed the Last.fm application on my desktop, and now that hijacks my ctrl+b shortcut to “ban” songs in my playlist! So now every time I forget and hit ctrl+b to bold something, it “bans” a song in my Last.fm playlist, or opens up the Delicious bookmark sidebar!
There needs to be some kind of standardization of keyboard shortcuts so that the most common ones aren’t hijacked by new applications. It’s extremely difficult to train someone to forget or change the mental association of keyboard shortcuts, especially the most standard ones. So application developers please leave my keyboard shortcuts alone!
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March 15, 2009 at 9:55 pm | Usability | 2 comments
Cool site, love the info.
Thanks for sharing I learned a new lesson again. Cheers