11 apr 2013 kl. 14.03 skrev Stefan Sperling:
> The keys people type at the conflict prompt will eventually become
> part of muscle memory. What is mnemonic to one person might not be
> mnemonic to someone else.
[...]
> In which case having to type different keys
> at a menu prompt depending on the language can be counterproductive,
> especially for fast typists.
Thanks for explaining your line of reasoning. I wonder how common it
really is to jump between different localisations like that. Please
permit me to expand on my argument:
With English-mnemonic codes for all translations, the gain for the
LANG-switching crowd, to which you belong, is a loss for the
monolingual non-English user. At best, with reduced usability
(arbitrary codes that are difficult to remember in the way that you
mention); at worst, with increased risk of errors (when the English
mnemonics are falsely suggesting a different choice).
Other than translating the codes, the obvious solution would be to use
a neutral sequence -- 1, 2, 3 or a, b, c. While I wouldn't be opposed
to such a scheme, it may appear a tad inelegant since different
conflict prompts expose different subsets of the options, which would
make them appear non-consecutive. Perhaps this would not be a serious
concern in practice. However, the codes would also cease to be
mnemonics for anyone. Translating them still appears to me as the best
solution, only slightly inconveniencing a small group.
Comparing localisation of the mnemonics to that of GUI acceleration
keys (which indeed usually is a mistake) is stretching it, I'd say.
Keystrokes like Apple-Q or C-M-\ are always muscle-memory-inducing --
my hands know a lot more about Emacs than I do -- and the actions take
effect immediately; they do not generate letters that turn up at the
cursor for inspection before pressing Enter.
This isn't to say that I'd be a strong opponent of English interactive
mnemonics; I'm just trying to find the best overall design.
Received on 2013-04-11 21:38:11 CEST