Why are “Universal Keyboard shortcuts” essential? From a User’s Point of view.
In this modern era, it’s safe to say “Computers run the world,” because they do. They are everywhere. In developed countries, every home has a computer in some form, like a desktop or a Portable laptop. Many Depend on Computers for their pay, and we spend much time on these devices. Our lives are intertwined, and they revolve around them.
While we work on computers, keyboard shortcuts are a lifesaver for us. Instead of doing many Consecutive moves to complete a task, use a tool, or achieve something, we press some combination of keys on our keyboard in order to achieve it instead of using the mouse and dragging it around the screen.
In Keyboard shortcuts, User Experience is very important. There are two Operating System giants that roam the tech world: Microsoft’s Windows OS and Apple’s Mac OS. These two have different shortcut keys for the same tasks. In Windows, it’s quite simple. You have Control. On Mac, it’s a little bit confusing and complicated. Windows has put a lot of thought into assigning their shortcuts; it Uses simple Logic and is easy to remember. On the other hand, “Why Apple?”
Unofficial Universal Shortcuts
If you are working on an image editing interface of any kind,
To move the page up and down, you use the Mouse’s wheel, and the page moves accordingly.
To move the page horizontally, you hold the shift key and Scroll the Mouse’s wheel, and the page moves horizontally.
Then, to Zoom into the Image, you Hold down the control key on the keyboard and scroll in for zooming in and out for Zooming Out of the Image.
Now, if you want to resize the image, you pull the borders of the image in and out to fit it accordingly. But when you do that, you can see the image getting transformed unequally. One side change, and the other doesn’t.
To resize the Image Equally on all four sides, Hold Down the Shift key and grab the corners of the image, and now if it’s moved, the image won’t get disfigured.
Canva’s Success
In recent days, Canva has gained a lot of popularity in a short time since its Debut. Any simpleton can figure it out. One, their UI is absolutely stunning, and their UX too is easy to understand, and they have the familiar Keyboard Shortcuts that are known to Us.
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Canva follows a set of easy shortcuts. In Photoshop, you have to hold alt and scroll to zoom into an image, whereas in all the other editing tools, it’s control and scroll. Why Adobe? And Horizontal Scrolling doesn’t even work. The shortcuts are a small thing that Photoshop messed up.
Even Microsoft itself doesn’t follow this. It would be really useful for Users if they tried to maintain that Uniformity across all editing Software. Which would make the Work session in that Software or Editor a Pleasant Experience for the User. Universal Shortcuts save us some time when we learn new Software and are less annoying to Use.
Problems in many Software.
When Using multiple Applications for a work flow like creating a poster or something else, we use two to three applications simultaneously. Of course, the shortcuts are common in all Adobe software, but the thing is, we don’t use only Adobe. We use some open-source, free software where the shortcuts are different. Microsoft they themselves don’t follow this Uniformity. There are some Inconsistencies in their Office Lineup as well. I am not saying it’s a grave mistake. It’s a small thing that can change the User’s experience, and it’s Logical and easy to Remember. Even if they don’t fix it, it’s not a big deal; we can survive with the existing shortcuts. Somebody might think, who cares? Right, but this is a small thing that caught my attention that I thought I’d share.
These would be the best Universal shortcuts. (Summary)
For Scrolling Up and down, use the mouse wheel.
For Scrolling horizontally, hold the Shift key and Mouse wheel.
For Zooming in and Out of the image, hold the Ctrl Key and the mouse wheel.
For Transforming the Image freely — Drag Borders
For altering the Dimensions equally, hold the shift Key and Drag borders.
These would be so Useful if they were the same across all the editors.
The suggestion is that Assigning Shortcuts must be given some time and thought to make them easy for the User to Experience. The Above-Mentioned Shortcuts are not Used across all editors. And I feel it’s a Game Changer.
