Improving Users' Command Selection Performance
Joel Harrison
Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering
University of Canterbury
Abstract
Hotkeys have been shown to improve user command selection performance through proving a flat selection
hierarchy and fast activation through the keyboard. However, hotkeys are often not learn ed by users even
though command selection performance improvements are possible . Part of the hotkey learning problem is the
current hotkey feedback methods which require the user to acquire the command with the mouse in order to
display.
In this paper we present ExposeHK, a new interface technique which allows the user to browse, perform and
learn hotkeys from within the hotkey modality. ExposeHK encourages users to learn hotkeys through practice
thereby providing a seamless transition from novice to exper t performance. Our evaluations demonstrate that
with ExposeHK users are able to achieve a significantly higher level of command selection performance.
Furthermore, our final evaluation demonstrates that when ExposeHK is available in an application users’ hotkey
usage is extremely high.
