With practice, keyboard shortcuts become faster than menu selection: A crossover interaction

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Cognitive Psychology
• Usability Studies

Background:

• The common belief is that graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are better for beginners, while command line interfaces (CLIs) are more efficient for experienced users.
• However, the interaction crossover point and the learning dynamics involved have not been thoroughly investigated.
• Understanding learning rates could explain why experienced users hesitate to adopt keyboard shortcuts, despite their potential to reduce task times.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the efficiency and user preference changes between keyboard shortcuts (CLI) and GUI interaction with practice.
• To identify the point at which CLI interaction becomes more efficient than GUI interaction.
• To explore the factors influencing the adoption of keyboard shortcuts by experienced users.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted to compare GUI and CLI performance.
• Experiment 1 involved participants responding to a word list using either GUI (dropdown menus) or CLI (keystrokes).
• Experiment 2 assessed user preference for continued interaction method after training.

Main Results:

• A crossover in efficiency was observed around 200 responses, with CLI becoming more efficient than GUI.
• Following training, the vast majority of participants in the CLI group opted to continue using keyboard shortcuts.
• Shortcut usage appears to be strongly correlated with the ease of command retrieval developed through repetition.

Conclusions:

• The efficiency crossover between GUI and CLI is empirically demonstrated, occurring after a moderate number of repetitions.
• User preference for CLIs, particularly keyboard shortcuts, increases significantly with practice due to improved retrieval ease.
• Findings suggest strategies to promote shortcut learning could enhance user efficiency and satisfaction in human-computer interaction.