Comment by keyle
12 hours ago
This is a well documented issue, TUI vs. windows.
Back in the 90s when most SAP systems switched from AS/400 terminals to Windows NT, people reported massive losses in productivity.
I've never worked on SAP, my mother did. And basically, she went from a fully tabular, function-key based oriented workflow, to holding a mouse, moving around and clicking a lot (tabbing and F keys were lost for many functions).
She showed me how she could go from ESC ESC F4 F3 TAB TAB and she was across the whole system a super speed. And this was a terminal, not the actual system!
The short of the story is this
Windows based application work best for discoverability and new users
Terminal based applications work best for faster, memory based navigation and power users.
That's a problem with the specific GUI, not GUI as a concept. Good GUI frameworks should be built for predictability and keyboard-driven fast paths, and have this included by default so you don't have to make these decisions for each app.
In fact, all successful applications for professionals/power users are built with fast paths in mind. Even Microsoft's ribbon which gets a lot of hate for some reason is an example of that, it's keyboard-driven, customizable, and discoverable at the same time.
In fact, just about everything in Windows (not apps, since those can be created by 3rd party developers who may or may not care, but the OS) can be operated by keyboard: login, start menu, settings, even ancient tools like Event Viewer.
Except, strangely, for setup - if you don’t load your laptop’s touchpad/trackpad driver during the early select a partition screen, you seem to get stuck on later screens like when you are required to connect to WiFi.
There is zero reason this capability couldn't have been preserved in the GUI version. It's a common UX design failure mode when people who don't use and never have used the system are told to design the next version of it, but GUI or TUI has little to do with it. GUI just relaxes constraints (which makes shooting UX in the foot easier!)
It is also almost always less used and less discoverable. To most people using the keyboard in a GUI does not come naturally. It is also an extra effort for developers.