Usability Issues: Shortcuts

Your application has shortcuts. Every piece of software has some. Ctrl+S when you want to save something. Ctrl+O to open something. Ctrl+I to turn on italics or Alt+R,S to run spellchecker in my word processor.

Sure, no one knows all of them but every time people start using specific function very often they try to do it a bit faster. They won’t be moving their mouse lightning-fast so they start to use shortcuts.

If the application has some.

Shortcuts are not for fresh users. They are for users who know what they want to do and how to do it. As far as you care for experienced users too you should double check if all your functions are accessible via keyboard shortcuts.

That’s the same kind of situation as with tab order – with low effort you avoid frustrating your users.

Whole usability issues series.