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Every UI designer knows the backstory of the QWERTY keyboard, how the designers arranged the keys to intentionally slow down the users, to prevent typing errors.

Well, Gmail's new pop-up Compose window makes me wonder if designers sometimes need to create interfaces that slow down users' cognitive processes as well.

In theory, it's more efficient to write emails using the pop-up window because you can easily reference other messages. But in practice it makes me less productive because I feel distracted by seeing all of the other messages.



Actually, the QWERTY-layout made typing a lot faster, since the keys didn't jam together.




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