I knowe you and others doubtless believe this. So, a uni-button mouse scores higher on 2 out of 3. Not bad. As for 3, productivity, that's something that comes later, as an advanced skill, much as does a 3 button mouse or an 8-chord transcription device.
As I'm guessing that the purpose of the right-click is to offer a short-hand access to a software's commands, it could be argued that keystroke-accelerator-comands are about as fast (slower, to be certain, unless you can tab to select items). Every day there are people who are new to computers who are learning to use them. I once had a retired cardiac surgeon take the 'how to turn it on' class. It happened to be on the PC platform. He got so confused over the two buttons that he ended up dropping the class. Clearly, he was not a stupid man. And then there's children still learning their left from their right. And then there's the elderly, with perhaps diminishing fine motor control (this was one of several issues at play with respect to the surgeon). I suppose a 2 (or 3, or ...) button mouse scores higher on productivity similar to how some people absolutely swear by an automatic transmission (predictably, I'm swearing _at_ it). Another issue I have with the right-clicking is that it sometimes seriously violates Schneiderman's articulation of the direct manipulation paradigm in that the user can sometimes right-click on nothing in the middle of nowhere. So, I'm happy to hear of another uni-button Apple mouse. People preferring a 2 (or 3 or...) button mouse can already buy them. (Kensington's trackball has up to 4 programmable buttons as you doubtless are aware). I wonder how well they sell? Doubtless, Kensington's not losing money, but still I wonder. And, for what it's worth, whenever we discuss this issue in class, only the unix geeks are (consistently) comfortable with a 3 button mouse. Judy On Tue, 2 Aug 2005, Richard Gaskin wrote: > Three factors come into play, with error-reduction being one of them. > The other is productivity, and a third being learnability. _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution