Guidelines for ‘manipulative’ text editing

The term ‘manipulative’ text editing is introduced to describe the low level aspect of text input/editing user interfaces, where editing commands are almost entirely manipulative rather than symbolic, primarily for editing at a word and character level. Manipulative editing covers the use of function keys such as ‘rubout’, cursor motion and various methods for inserting text. A variety of methods commonly used for manipulative editing are critically reviewed in order to gather together a number of relevant guidelines. This paper proposes the basis for an effective standard which encourages the ready acquisition of skill.