

Why we should design things to be difficult to use - okhan
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/04/why-we-should-design-things-to-be-difficult-mastery

======
anigbrowl
_So his team devised a five-button keyboard where you pressed chords
simultaneously to write words, delete, copy and paste. In the end, the mouse
triumphed, as computer manufacturers believed that only hardcore programmers
had the patience to learn the key combinations._

Several chorded keyboards came to market in the UK, receiving plenty of press
(eg coverage on an influential weekly TV technology magazine program, in the
days when there were only a handful of broadcast channels). They all failed
dismally despite attracting a small core of devoted fans.

You can get highly customizable mice with multiple programmable buttons etc.
Only gamers buy them. I _do_ edit video and audio for work and while I like my
key combos as much as the next person and sometimes set up hardware mappings
on external devices for big jobs, I don't think any of them need to be
universal.

~~~
nemoniac
The author might not have intended it but what he's describing is emacs, not
chording keyboards.

