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UI Keyboard and Shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcut Maps Must Be Consistent and Discoverable

7 min read

Global shortcuts must be documented, conflict-free, remappable, and visible via a help overlay triggered by the question mark key.

Rule

Every app-level keyboard shortcut must be catalogued, conflict-checked, and discoverable.

Why

Undiscoverable shortcuts go unused. Conflicting shortcuts cause silent errors or browser interception.

Must

  • Maintain a single source-of-truth shortcut registry.
  • Check for conflicts before registering any shortcut.
  • Show a keyboard shortcut reference panel triggered by ? or Ctrl+/.
  • Never override default browser shortcuts (Ctrl+R, Ctrl+W, etc.).
  • Disable shortcuts while focus is inside text inputs, textareas, or editors.

Should

  • Group shortcuts by context in the reference panel.
  • Support user-defined overrides stored per-account.

Anti-patterns

  • Shortcuts that silently fail because input focus is not guarded.
  • No way for users to discover what shortcuts exist.

Test Cases

  • ? opens shortcut reference on all major surfaces.
  • Shortcuts do not fire while user is typing in a form field.

Telemetry

  • shortcut_invoked
  • shortcut_reference_opened
  • shortcut_conflict_detected