Motor skills are an important aspect to
take into account in Web designs.
Motor skills are about user's ability
to physically manipulate devices such as mouse or keyboard and
interact with the Web page.
For example, how much mouse movement
around the page is required to get things done is an important
concern to address in the overall design of the page. On one hand, a
user with poor motor skills will have trouble with a UI that requires
extensive mouse movement and input. On the other hand, it will also
have an impact on the productivity of the users, even of they have
good motor skills.
Also, over time, when the user gets
familiar with the user interface with extensive use, the user will
naturally want to minimize the number of interactions, to get stuff
done faster. When the users reach that stage, they would look to see
for keyboard shortcuts rather than use mouse inputs. This is why
heavy user interactive Web applications such as Gmail[1] and Jira[2]
always provide keyboard shortcuts for traversal and actions in their
Web applications.
Mouse input is good for novice users, but make sure to make it really productive to use mouse. Keyboard shortcuts are useful for advanced users, and would boost productivity by several factors, given the user's motor skills to use the keyboard effectively as well as the ability remember the shortcut key combinations.
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