Humane Interface, The: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems

5-6. Cursor Position and LEAP

The target of a LEAP is a single character. Should the cursor land to the right or to the left of this character? Placing the cursor to the left of the character is correct only if you intend to insert at that character location. Placing the cursor to the right of the character is correct only if you intend to delete that character. The computer, it would seem, has to know your intentions before it can position the cursor properly.

For insertion, consider instead the old-fashioned cursor that forms a rectangle about or an underline beneath the letter. When you LEAP to a letter, the cursor should land on the letter itself. (The cursor does not interfere with the readability of the letter; see Figure 5.9.) Now you ...