Re: Some dudes opinion on Ctrl-Tab

[Sam Thursfield <ssssam gmail com>]

On 9/17/16, Daniel Beecham <daniel lunix se> wrote:
> + All major web browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Internet Explorer, Opera,
> Midori and others) use ctrl-tab to switch tab. Neither <textarea> nor
> <input> consumes tab in any of these browsers, it's just used to change
> focus.

Cool, I never realised because those that I use also allow tab
switching with ctrl+pgup and ctrl+pgdn.

...

> * The argument of obviousness ("don't make me think", or "great design is
> invisible")
>
> Ctrl-tab is such an ubiquitous binding by now, that users just sort of
> expect it. I saw a design talk by some designer on google the other day,
> and she talked about how they'd just plop a UI in front of people and see
> what they'd do - and then make the UI such that those interactions made
> sense. Like A/B testing a'la extreme. You want an interface which is
> obvious, which makes sense, is intuitive, doesn't get in your way. Those
> are the successful interfaces. ctrl-tab is obvious.

Is your point here that people who've never used a computer before
will figure out that ctrl-tab switches tabs without any kind of
instruction, but will not figure out that ctrl-pgup and ctrl-pgdn
switch tabs unless someone tells them? I find that hard to believe
without evidence. Maybe I'm missing your point.

Sam