Case Study 1 - Text Editing

WorldTech conducted an experiment to see how much time computer users can save by using keyboard shortcut commands as opposed to using the computer mouse. A scenario was repeated several times using both methods. We found that using the keyboard shortcuts and mouse method consistently outperforms using the computer mouse method.

The chart below shows the times it took for the user to complete the same scenario using the two different methods. The scenario was repeated eight times. (See scenario description below) In each case the keyboard shortcut method beats the computer mouse method. The scenario took anywhere from 29 seconds to 34 seconds using the mouse only method. In contrast, the keyboard shortcut method took between 20 to 28 seconds, beating the mouse method by an average of about 6 seconds. An interesting note is that as the user gains more experience with the scenario, the time on both methods improve. However, there is a greater improvement on the keyboard shortcut method than on the mouse method.

The chart below shows the percent savings using the keyboard shortcut method than the mouse method. The time savings range from 6% to 30%, with an average about 20%.

Conclusion & Justification

Using shortcut commands can increase employee productivity and significantly contribute to the company's bottom-line.

Take an example of an employee who spends an average 5 hours a day on a mission critical business application. Assuming that the employee is working on an application that requires 30% user interaction time, the remaining of the time is spent thinking, gathering data, or waiting for the computer to respond. If the employee can improve his/her input performance by 20%, he/she can save 20 minutes a day (5 hours x 30% x 20%). That equates to a total of 80 hours a year (48 working weeks per year times 5 days a week). That's an equivalent of 2 weeks of additional time that the employee can contribute to the company. On a $50,000 a year salary, that's a payback of $1,923. Multiply that by the number of employees who are using the same application within the company, and you can see the tremendous opportunity in productivity gain and return on investment.

Scenario

1) Open a file with text.
2) Search for a key word in the text.
3) Copy that key word.
4) Open a new file.
5) Paste the copied key word into the new file.
6) Save the file with a default name.
7) Close the new file.
8) Close the original text file.

This scenario is designed to eliminate system performance as a factor and focus on the user interface functions. Of course, real performance will vary with different applications, different scenarios, and different users.