![]() Summaryĭesigning keyboard shortcuts isn't too different from designing anything else - you need to have: ![]() This level of localization isn't common, however it's still something to think about if your basing your hotkey choice in a word (semantic) vs. For example ⌘ + F opens up the "Find" dialog in most apps, however in the Spanish edition of Word, the hotkey is ⌘ + B (buscar). In addition to keyboard layouts, if your shortcut is based on the first letter of a word, an alternative could be considered. You'll need to localize the hotkey either way - by setting the alternative (in my case, I set shift + 7 as another trigger), OR creating a custom hotkey per locale (I briefly entertained the idea of using - for Spanish but that introduced another layer of technical complexity that I wasn't willing to embrace for this example). They maintained the / across languages, so either they didn't consider it or they tested it and it's fine for their audience - which is good enough for me. In this specific case - I went to GitHub Docs to see how they handled it. This presents a couple issues - ergonomically, it could be more difficult (or at least unexpected) for someone using a Spanish keyboard to use shift + 7 than it would be for an American audience. Add an international keyboard on your screen In my earlier example / in American/English keyboards the key is directly left of the shift key - but in Spanish keyboards, the / is typed by combining the shift and 7 keys. It's important to remember that keyboard layouts vary from country to country. Apple keyboards also have a control ( ^) key.įor example, if you want your hotkey to use the ⌘ key in OSX and you don't specify one for Windows, the default corresponding key will be the Windows key - which is often not the most ergonomic choice so you'll most likely want to set it to the ctrl key. While the ⌘ key and ctrl key are often interchangeable between Mac/Windows, they aren't always. Once you've decided what combination of keys to use - you have to consider how you'll account for them across operating systems.Īlmost everyone knows the classic "undo" hotkey - ⌘ + Z (or ctrl + Z for Windows/Linux users). My first thought was to use the hotkey pattern that I'm always reaching for in VS Code - ⌘ Shift F.Īfter implementing, I heard from a couple people that it was kind of clunky - so I ran a poll and turns out - literally 80% of the team preferred an alternative, the / pattern popularized by Google in pretty much all their apps now - Gmail, YouTube, Drive, etc. designers who are used to apps like Figma, Sketch, etc).įor example, we recently implemented Algolia's DocSearch in our design system documentation. people in a certain age group), to specific (e.g. Research common conventions for your audience - depending on your project this can be fairly vague (e.g. If the product you're working in isn't a native app, you have to be aware of browser defaults as well - again, it's possible to override them (as long as it makes sense) just note that there are costs to be weighed. To date, this does not work and my right hand has to make the grueling journey to the trackpad and click on the Search field, and then enter my query. For example - I find myself always hitting ⌘ + F in the Figma home screen hoping to activate the Search. It's expensive to override system defaults - you'll most likely have engineers doing a lot of extra work to cover multiple operating systems.Ĭonversely - you can use system defaults if you're providing a similar experience.It can be frustrating for users who are expecting the system shortcut and instead getting your custom idea instead.There are a number of universal hotkeys in any given operating system ( OSX, Windows, Linux) and in 99% of cases it's best to avoid overriding them for two reasons: Learning the hotkeys is one of the quickest ways to that. ![]()
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