The Philosophy behind Shortcutless Menus and Buttons in OS X

Hi all,

I was wondering what is the philosophy behind the decision of not having shortcut keys for menus in OS X.

In Gnome, KDE, and Windows shortcut keys are available for most menus and buttons and they are recognizable by the underline under the character associated with the shortcut key and the presence of this underline has an enormous impact on the user's productivity. It helps to become more productive with the UI without requiring the user to memorize or recall the associated key combo.

While IMO Aqua delivers the best overall experience compared to the aforementioned environments, I still find it questionable leaving such a useful and effective feature out of it. Or is there a philosophy behind it that I am not aware of? If so, I will appreciate if someone could explain this.

Cheers,
Behrang

Message was edited by: Behi

iMac Core 2 Duo 20", Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on May 12, 2008 5:28 AM

18 replies

etresoft

Level 9

56,722 points

May 13, 2008 7:03 AM in response to gumsie

I think the question was answered, but not to the Original Poster's satisfaction.

Smells like dogmatic Apple fanboyism here. I am out!

gumsie

Level 4

2,185 points

May 13, 2008 7:23 AM in response to etresoft

That's not our problem. Just started my Windows box and know what he's on about though you can navigate most things using them. Having said that, I -a) prefer the one button mouse it's much cleaner looking, and -b) remember the shortcuts anyway so can't see how the miniscule difference having the underlines make warrant having such a rant.

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,726 points

May 13, 2008 7:40 AM in response to Behrang

Well, I doubt if you'll be back to read this, but...

Like I don't need 2-button mouse!? Living in dogma is not a good thing.

And where did I say that I prefer, or use a one button mouse? I can't stand them. With every Mac I've had, I've replaced the original mouse with a Logitech unit.

You are free not to care, but not to be rude, you aren't the whole world. You are only 1 in 6 billion. And many people care.

Oh brother. It's hardly just my opinion. Many, many engineers decided that a menu heading shortcut wasn't necessary. You also are only one in six billion, and yet you immediately proclaimed "This violates an important principle of usability", making your statement pretty darn singular. And a violation according to who? Jakob Nielsen? Another one in six billion. So only he can be right and the rest of us must follow?

And I think you know that mouse was not invited by Apple...

Of course I know that. And it's inventor wanted to call it the Turtle. Did you know that?

Smells like dogmatic Apple fanboyism here.

Again, hardly. I've used PCs a lot longer than Macs. All the way back to an IBM XT clone running DOS 3.1.

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The Philosophy behind Shortcutless Menus and Buttons in OS X