Keyboard-card menus are a new type of menu system in which potentially hundreds of menu items are arranged in sets of keyboard patterns that are designed to be navigated using only a computer keyboard's character keys, for fast access. In selecting items from these menus, novice users physically rehearse the same actions that an expert would use. We describe these menus and their potential applications in further detail, along with a study comparing keyboard-card menus' presentation of what are effectively shortcuts with a presentation of these same shortcuts that uses dropdown menus. The data from our study shows that keyboard-card menus have significant advantages over dropdown menus in making the transition to expert use faster.

keyboard shortcuts, accuracy, efficiency, visualization, learnability, computer chording