Journal tomhudson's Journal: The Toyota Way, keyboard shortcuts, and Bill Gates 15

I know - weird combination ... but there IS a connection, which I'll explain.

Last week, I was asked to add a couple of users to one of the projects in svn. No problem - logged into the server, fired up vi, and added them.

This week, I watched as one of the more experienced users did an update ... go to the file explorer, right click on the directory, select tortoise svn, click, scroll down the choices, click, a window pops up showing the commit messages, click to dismiss the window, go back to what they were doing ...

One of them wanted to update the repository on a dabian box, and was looking for the clicky tools to do it. I showed them that we just type "svn update". A lot less work.

Which brings us to keyboard shortcuts. I've noticed that almost nobody uses them. I'm talking about basic stuff, like cut-n-paste, or alt-tabbing to another window. Even ctrl-t to open another browser tab is "harder" than going to the start menu, selecting the browser icon, starting up another instance of Internet Explorer, selecting the previous browser from the task bar, highlighting their current url, selecting Edit|Copy from the main menu, then selecting the new browser from the task bar, selecting the url box, then selecting Edit|Paste from the main menu.

I've seen machines with dozens of copies of Internet Explorer sitting on the task bar. Or, when they use firefox, dozens of copies of Firefox sitting on the task bar.

Which brings us to Bill Gates.

His original plan was that EVERY mouse command have a keyboard equivalent, and it was a pretty good idea for the major commands. This wasn't some new insight from Gates, btw - it was common practice for all programs in what we now call the "Text User Interface" world. How many of us still remember clt-k-b, ctl-k-e, ctl-k-y? Those Wordstar shortcuts made it into everything from quickedit to borlands' IDEs.

But back to Gates and Windows. To encourage people to learn to use the keyboard shortcuts (or accelerators), each menu item would list its' equivalent keyboard shortcut, so people would learn them. This also wasn't a novel concept, but a good, obvious idea that he adopted as part of the design.

An amazing thing happened. Studies show that 98% of users become selectively blind when given a mouse. Like the banner ads on web sites, they don't even notice the keyboard shortcuts exist, even though they see them at least ten thousand times a year. (If you've ever worked on source code from such a user, you'll find tabs interspersed with lots and lots of spaces to "get things to line up" from code that was drag-n-dropped - and your tab settings better match theirs. Worse, you edit window and font size better be the same as well, because to help things "line up better" they keep on inserting spaces so that the next line wraps around. You can end up with dozens of lines of code that are 300 characters long, mostly spaces ... and since their code is a mashup of spaces and tabs, forget about auto-indent).

Now for the connection with The Toyota Way. People confuse The Toyota Way with ways to increase productivity, missing one of the key points. The Toyota Way makes work easier for people. It's a mindset that says "not only is it okay to invest the time to figure out how to do things better, it's expected - and you'll find your work easier, your quality higher, your life better, and as a consequence those you interact with (from your co-workers all the way to the consumers of your product) will be happier.

But this requires people adopt a mindset where they're open to continuous improvement. Where they're not PERSONALLY satisfied if they haven't learned something new, or tried something different, every day. This isn't about business - it's about how you want to live your life, and most people seem to be stuck in the "I've learned one way to do things, and I'm not going to change unless I'm forced to, because that's how I've learned how to do things." Curiosity and initiative are dead, as is the ability to take on responsibility for change.

Life is about change. That which doesn't change, dies.

Sure, it impinges on work. For software developers, it means, among other things, not being satisfied with code that looks like someone asked "does it blend?" Of taking time to ask "are there better ways of doing this?" It might mean, for repetitive code, writing programs that write programs ("'cuz programs that write programs are the happiest programs in the world").

It also means working on your people skills. I've been in the habit of, when I need a break, making a pot of coffee and making the rounds of the office with it. I have a couple of bags of cookies tucked way in my desk (this week it's Oreos and Chunky Chocolate Chip - last week it was raisin pecan and oatmeal), and I offer them up first thing most mornings. I take the time to make small talk, ask about how their weekend went, or what they're doing next weekend. I think it helps make the work environment a bit better, which has the side benefit of making my own life better.

Because I really never was one of those people who is content to spend their whole life slowly mousing around the same old problems, the same old ways, blind to the possibilities ... and I don't believe people are really happy stuck in that sort of a rut, but they don't seem to be able to extricate themselves from it (helplessness is a learned response, and one most people have learned well in our "it's not my responsibility so I'm not doing anything about it OMG I am a VICTIM you have to BAIL ME OUT NOW!" society).