Strategies for accelerating on-line learning of hotkeys

Hotkeys are extremely useful in leveraging expert performance, but learning them is a slow process. This paper investigates alternative menu designs that can motivate and help users remember associations between menu commands and hotkeys. Building upon previous work on paired-associate learning, we suggest that the transition to expert use can be accelerated by manipulating feedback and cost associated with menu selection. We evaluate five designs in a pilot study and then two of the most promising ones in a formal experiment, showing that the speed of hotkey learning can indeed be significantly increased with little modifications to the standard menu/hotkey paradigm.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Tovi Grossman, Pierre Dragicevic, Ravin Balakrishnan
• Keywords: Alternative Menu Designs, CHI 2007, Hotkey Learning, Human Computer Interaction, Menu Commands