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2020-09-17-Keyboard-only

Keyboard only

If you're anything like me (and we're at least *somewhat* alike, we're both using a totally niche protocol when most people don't even know or care what a protocol is), you probably use your keyboard a lot. You probably know a lot of keyboard shortcuts, like the classic Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V for copy and paste, Ctrl-L to focus the addressbar in web browsers, etc. Keyboard shortcuts are great, the keyboard is great, I fine-tune my setup to use the most keyboard I can, with tiling window managers, terminal applications, Emacs, and all of that. From what I've read from a lot of yall, you do too. So this isn't about all of us, zooming around like we own the place.

It's about the people at my library who don't know how to use a computer, like, at all. Who've only interacted with their phones, and who don't realize that the Gmail App is the same as gmail.com.

It's about the guy who came to the library today and wanted to print his W-2 from the local university, who said he did not know how to use a computer, and whose hands shook so badly he couldn't properly click the mouse -- it kept micro-dragging (my term) when he'd try to click it. It's about the woman yesterday who didn't know where any key is on the keyboard, who, to type a "S", typed Caps Lock - s - Caps Lock. I see these people every day in the library.

I'm writing this right now because the man I saw today talked about how he needs to come to one of our computer classes, when they start back up, because he's got to figure this out. He sees others zip around and get everything they need done on the computer in record speed and he's awed and ashamed, because he can't use it. I told him it's like a language, where it's really not hard once you know how to speak it, and once we get our classes back in he really should come to them because they'd help him.

But I kept thinking about his shaky hands. Even when he goes to that class, he's going to have trouble gripping the mouse, reliably moving it to the desired location on the screen, and clicking it. Honestly, it's an accessibility issue. And that made me think about, well, accessibility.

People have done a lot of work advocating for, and implementing, accessible computing environments. Even on Windows, and probably on Mac (I don't use Mac, so I'm not sure), you can use the keyboard to do pretty much anything. Right now, I'm testing my theory out. I haven't touched my mouse since I sat down at my desk -- about a half hour -- and I've opened Firefox, checked my email (in my personal and business accounts!), figured out the keyboard shortcuts in my personal email (Fastmail is pretty great actually) by searching Google, navigated to an internal chat service, set up startup programs, and opened Emacs and have been typing this. I haven't even touched the mouse to move it out of the way. It's really possible.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep going with my little challenge to myself, and then I'm going to head to the powers that be and see if I can't get keyboard work incorporated into the computer literacy classes. I want to develop a pedagogy around teaching keyboard shortcuts, instead of "click here--click there". Of course, first I should attend a computer class, to see what they're already covering. But I have a fire within me now.

So .. yeah. I guess this is a post just about how that happened and keyboards are cool.

Failure

I had to use my mouse to select, then copy and paste a patron's card number to reserve them a book. Still, most of a computer's use can be run with keyboard, I think. I was doing something pretty specialized.

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