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> the mainframe 3270 terminal user interface experience is terrible

[... for new users]

For expert users? I'd pit it against any interface you want.

No-mouse + hands-on-keyboard + tab is hard to argue with.

Sadly, the number of people who remember when GUIs could be driven from memory by keyboard-only has dwindled.

Watch a 10-year veteran insurance employee use a green screen.

Or as a counter-example, try to tab through your modern app du jour. (Modern developers often don't even bother to set indexes correctly)



> Watch a 10-year veteran insurance employee use a green screen.

Yes! I knew an Insurance customer service op who self-described as having no computer skills, but when I saw her using Reflection it was like watching a speedcuber savant.


The spit take for me was doing process documentation, screen by screen.

I would explain to them to stop after each screen or keystroke, so I could document it.

Despite being smart people and understanding the ask, almost every SME I worked with failed at some point, blazing through multiple screens without even realizing it.

That's some strong muscle memory there!


My mom, who worked in insurance customer service, was very quick with the green-screen interface. Not so much the J2EE replacement for said interface.


> For expert users? I'd pit it against any interface you want.

Linux CLI with a good modern shell and Python versus 3270 block mode and Rexx would be an interesting match up.

Similarly Emacs vs XEDIT.


> Sadly, the number of people who remember when GUIs could be driven from memory by keyboard-only has dwindled.

This is so very true, and it's tragic.

Watch an experienced keyboard user, such as many blind users, navigating Windows and it's a wonder of efficiency and speed. It makes the Vim prowess of many Linux folks look very sad, because Vim is just a single editor, while with Windows' keyboard UI, the entire OS and all its apps are operable at this speed. Desktop, file manager, all bundled apps, all 3rd party apps... everything has one global unified keyboard UI.


There was a big appliance/tv/stuff retail chain in my home country that create a fancy new web app for their sales personnel. If you were smart you'd always look for the older salesman, that would ignore the new web app shell and use the old mainframe app from a terminal emulator. it made the sales experience like 3x faster.


Except when you must set tabindex="0" or "-1" or Bootstrap's modals won't work. /grin




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