Carl Tyler's Blog :: Will Notes 8 make me less productive?

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I know a provocative question, especially when the product hasn't even used it, and maybe even more strange when I haven't even used it yet. The reason I ask the question is I'm a keyboard junky, R5 (or was it R4) was a painful transition for keyboard junkies like myself with many of the keyboard shortcuts changing. I've noticed from some of the screenshots on Mary Beth Raven's blog that many menu choices have been changed. For example, Databases are now applications, so what happens to my Alt, F, D, O or Alt, F , D, R ? These key sequences I hit without thinking about them, finger memory kicks in, much like playing a musical instrument, your brain doesn't even have to think about moving your fingers in the right way, it just happens.

I really hope someone at Lotus ensures they go through current keystrokes, and if there's a key sequence is used today, it doesn't perform some different task, for example it would be terrible if something like Alt F, D, O deleted a database versus opening it.

I don't believe Notes 8 will make me less productive in the long run, but I think I may find retraining my fingers, ie learning a new instrument will take some time.

Comments

1 - Switch to CTRL + O.
:)

Elijah

Posted by Elijah Lapson At 10:13:07 PM On 02/09/2007 | - Website - |

2 - And you suggestion for all the other keyboard shortcuts that will probably change

Posted by Carl Tyler At 10:54:08 PM On 02/09/2007 | - Website - |

3 - It doesn't do anything destructive. It just does nothing. The switch to Ctrl + O took me about two weeks, using Notes 8 parttime.

It's really not a difficult transition. There's pain for a couple of days.

Posted by Nathan T. Freeman At 07:34:49 AM On 02/10/2007 | - Website - |

4 - As an Eclipse based product we should actually be able to change the key bindings to suit corporate or personal needs on an installation by installation basis. The question is whether it will be possible in Notes 8 and whether the functionality you want to reach is actually exposed. It could be a possibility though...

Posted by Mikkel Heisterberg At 09:15:54 AM On 02/10/2007 | - Website - |

5 - I only have an hour or so's experience with Notes 8 during one of the usability tests at LS but I have to agree with both you and Nathan. It appeared that all of my usual keyboard shortcuts (Alt-1 for Sending an email for example) had gone or changed and it certainly slowed me down. That being said I think within a couple of days experienced Notes users will be back up to speed whereas the whole experience for new Notes users should be somewhat easier to grasp than it currently is.

Matt

Posted by Matt White At 03:02:27 AM On 02/12/2007 | - Website - |

6 - Alt-F-D-R/F/A and several others are in wide use by these fingers. I am very dependent on these keyboard shortcuts, and would miss them greatly if they went away. Don't get me wrong though - I could get over them *changing*, as long as I still have a way to accomplish key tasks by keyboard.

The point I would make is that heavy keyboard users like us are by and large pretty adaptable to begin with, and will learn new keyboard habits pretty quickly. If there are good reasons to remap keyboard combos in order to improve general usability, I would support that with the caveats that 1) old combos don't do something potentially damaging, and 2) old combos for common actions have a new combo replacement.

Posted by Kevin Pettitt At 10:11:22 PM On 02/21/2007 | - Website - |