Typical Appearance

Due to the several different types of information transfer, there is no typical appearence for an information transfer functionality. Most commontly, information transfer presents in the form of copy, cut, and paste of particular data, drag and drop operations, or specialized sharing operations. For this initial analysis of information transfer, we will focus on the intricacies of copy, cut, and paste within and between applications.

Different applications may show or hide the contents of the clipboard differently. Most platforms, however, provide a menu option that allows a user to view the contents of their current clipboard. For example, on a Mac OS X platform, opening the Edit menu from the Finder application, and selecting View Clipboard opens a small window with the contents of the current clipboard. An illustration of what that might look like is shown below.

Key Characteristics

The main goal of cut, copy, and paste is to provide users an easy and efficient way to transfer information from a source to a target without redoing previously done work.

Basic Rules

• When a user selects data and completes a cut or copy command, the selected data from the current application should be stored within a pasteboard.
• When a user completes a paste command, the data from the pasteboard should be copied to the new location.

Other Important Characteristics

• Data must be selected prior to any cut or copy action. This data is stored within the pasteboard of the program as a "pasteboard item." Within the pasteboard the data is stored as a key-value type where the key is frequently the type of information stored. For exameple, if you select the text on this screen and complete a Command + C action, the value of the data would be of type "text".
• This type of key-value system comes of importance when a user tried to paste source data to an incompatible target location. In the instance where the file type is incompatible with the target location, the paste action will not complete.
• Pasteboards can be persistent outside of a particular application. While system pasteboards persist until a system reboot, this may not be the case for application based pasteboards. When building an application with cut, copy, and paste functionality, an additional parameter must be written that enables the pasteboard of that application to persist even after the application closes.
• In some applications, pasteboards can carry single or multiple items. If a user selects data containing multiple data types, each of those data types would be stored in the pasteboard separately. In this case, when the user attempts to paste data from the pasteboard, the application can choose to either post all items in the pasteboard or only the items that have data types that are compatible with the target location.

Typical Behavior

Component in Action

After data is selected, a simple right click over the data will show the cut, copy, and paste menu options. Copying and pasting the data will simply duplicate the data from the source location to the target location.

In contrast, cutting and pasting the data will remove the data from the source location and duplicate it at the target location.

When a cut or copy command is completed, the clipboard is modified. When a paste command is completed, the clipboard does not change.

Keyboard shortcuts and drag and drop can both be used to cut, copy, and paste data as well. The keyboard shortcuts for cut, copy, and paste are Command + X, Command + C, and Command + V respectively. Below is an example of a user dragging and dropping data.

Different data types can be copied and pasted as well. Below is an example of folders being cut, copy, and pasted. More information about how to complete these tasks can be found in the Platfrom-Specific Instances section. Similar tasks can be done with individual files, applications, and more.

Priority Metrics

Because cut, copy, and paste is an incredibly useful and important functionality, each of the usability metrics are equally and especially important. Cut, copy, and paste tasks can be completed via menu options, keyboard shortcuts, and drag and drop interfaces. In fact, several menus in various locations carry these functionalities including right-click menus and application menus. The user has the ability to go to various intuitive locations or complete intititive actions in order to perform these functions, thereby decreasing the number of errors they might make along the way.

Furthermore, learnability is fairly high because even users with only basic knowledge of computers are aware of right-click menus, or even more simply, Edit menus, and can therefore find and learn how to use these functionalities quickly. The names of the functionalities represent real-world actions, allowing the user to create a clear and memorable picture of the commands they are completing. The high level of learnability combined with the intuitive nature of the functions allow for great memorability.

Keyboard commands and drag-and-drop compatibility allow these functionalities to be completed efficiently as users can quickly use these commands without accessing any other menus. While users may not be actively thinking about their satisfaction levels when completing cut, copy, and paste functions, the existence of these functions and the ease of use intrinsically allow for satisfaction. The user is saved from retyping or recreating a set of data because they can easily and efficiently move that data from location to location.

Variants

• Drag and Drop is another form of information transfer that allows users to physically move certain types of data from one location to another. For more information on this, please read the Drag and Drop page.
• Sharing is a variant that will appear and function differently across different platforms and applications. Sharing featuers allow users to move data between platforms (i.e. between their laptop and mobile device) or between applications. Most platforms and applications provide sharing, but because this is a relatively newer functionality, the implementation varies greatly. To see examples of sharing, please read the Platform-Specific Instances section below.