GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 80372
Go>Up shortcut should be Alt+UpArrow instead of Ctrl+U
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
The Go>Up shortcut should be Alt+UpArrow instead of Ctrl+U. The motive is that Alt+UpArrow is a natural extension of the similar scheme of Alt+Left for Back and Alt+Right for Forward (bug 48317), and for that reason, it's easy to remember. If you know any of those other shortcuts already, there's a chance that you will try Alt+Up and see if it does what you would think it does. Arrow keys are usually tied to navigation, and they are positioned so that it resembles navigational controls. I don't think that can be said about Ctrl+U in a similar manner. It's more of a random key in the middle of your qwerty keyboard that could have any action tied to it, any action with an U. And it lacks the perception of being directional because it is neither placed with symbolizing direction in mind nor is it marked with a symbol that is reserved for directional use. On a cognitive level, using the Arrow keys for navigation is both easier to "get" and remember because it takes a navigational concept and uses the most natural visual mapping of this concept that we usually are trained to recognize; directional arrows. If you have experienced directional arrows before, then knowing what it symbolizes is an experiential process. The "U" key on the other hand is reflectional because you have to remember both that is tied to a navigation action (because it lacks all visual clues of being tied to a directional action), and that it represents the direction "Up" (because you have to map it to first character of the literal word "Up"). "U" also localizes more badly, you cannot expect users with another first language than English and whose language word for "Up" doesn't have "U" to get that last word matching at all.