Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [58]
Even though it’s slower, many people use the mouse, not the keyboard, to save a file. Consider the steps it takes to use the mouse. Unless they know a shortcut, users must...
take their hand off of the keyboard and reach for the mouse
move the mouse pointer up to the File menu
click the mouse
move the mouse down to the “Save” option
click the mouse again
and move their hand back to the keyboard.
That’s six steps, including two broad physical movements, just to write some bits to the disk. To call this inefficient is a bit of an understatement. It’s like someone who doesn’t want to use a key to start their car but instead prefers to open the hood, fiddle about with some wires, hear the car start, close the hood, and then get in the car. If this person drove the car with any frequency, it would be reasonable to expect him to take a minute to learn the easier alternative.
Now consider the one-step alternative to saving a file: type command-S.
And “Save” is just one keystroke that is useful to know. Most applications have several common commands—open, close, cut, copy, paste, and so on—that have keystrokes. (They’re usually displayed in the menus; look for them when you drag a menu down with the mouse.) Why wouldn’t every single user use keystrokes? After all, they’re easier, faster, more accurate, and physically healthier than the mouse. (Frequent mouse use, like typing in Qwerty, contributes to repetitive stress injury.) Some users may be unaware of the keystrokes, never having been taught; others prefer the mouse because it’s more familiar and doesn’t require memorizing any keystrokes. Bit-literate users, though, must master the common keyboard commands—and then constantly improve their productivity by finding other ways to use the keyboard instead of the mouse.46
For advanced users: macros
Advanced users should learn how to create macros. A macro is a series of steps—commands, keystrokes, clicks—that users can program into the computer once, and then run many times with a single keystroke. (If you’re not sure how to get started, ask the nearest techie—or IT department—for a tutorial on macros; someone may be happy to teach you.) For example, say someone hands you a text file and asks you to “clean up the data” (perhaps to prepare a mail merge or some other task) by deleting the second comma on every line. One way is to do it manually: search twice for a comma, delete, go to the next line; search twice, delete, next line; and so on. But for a file with thousands of lines it would be impossible. A macro, however, could loop these steps into one command, allowing you to execute the process with a single keystroke. Macros can thus turn the keyboard into a bit lever for arbitrarily complex actions.
Some applications, like FileMaker and Excel, have a built-in macro or scripting utility for use on their own files; there are also software tools like QuicKeys (available at quickeys.com for both Mac and Windows) that can run macros in any application. Without macros, users are at the mercy of any repetitive tasks that come their way; with them, they never have to do repetitive work on the computer ever again.
One-touch access
Many users constantly use the mouse to start common applications or switch between them. For example, to start Microsoft Word—a common daily task—many Windows users grab the mouse, click the Start button, then click the Word icon. Switching from Word to the e-mail program requires grabbing the mouse and hunting for the appropriate icon on the task bar (among a slew of icons for other applications, folders, and files in that area of the screen). This is an awful waste of time and energy.
The solution