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by amelius 2643 days ago
Solution: show only the main features and hide additional features under an "advanced features" or "settings" button.
1 comments

Then if you need those features on a regular basis, you have to make a lot more clicks to access that hidden menu. I personally really like the Microsoft menu paradigm where I can either click on the File, Edit, ... menus or press Alt and then a memorized sequence of characters. It allows for discoverability as well as efficiency.

The Emacs equivalent also works nice: press a memorized key binding for something that you do frequently, or press M-x to type into an autocompleted (and fuzzy searched, with the right packages) list of commands for some particular functionality.

Or, better yet, a UI builder accessible through that "advanced features" menu that lets the user decide what is accessible and easy.
Or, in case of Emacs: just bind the M-x feature you're using to a key.

The overall principle is sound, IMO: present the "simpler" UI up-front to not overwhelm newcomers, but have advanced features available and a means to bring them up to front of the UI, for repeat users.

Like Firefox! I agree, that’s a very nice feature.
I also love that I can put things in Word's Quick Access toolbar and then Alt+1 will do the first thing, etc.