Command K Bars

The important tensions we're going to focus on are the trade-offs between pixel real estate, cognitive load, and complexity.

By stashing infrequently-used items in a command bar like this, you can clear up a lot of screen real estate. You don't need to add that extra toolbar or layer of menu items. Keeping the interface clear of options helps reduce the number of things users need to pay attention to at any one time. Which means they're less likely to be overwhelmed and

Before GUIs, every computer interface was a command-line interface (CLI). You typed memorised text-based commands into an input. This certainly kept the screen free of clutter but had several downsides. It was difficult to remember what commands were available. You couldn't see the current state of the system. Everything was hidden away b

Bars like this let users search through all the available commands in an application. Rather than remembering which sub-sub-sub menu a function lives in, users need only remember its name.

We usually rely on a mix of spatial memory and well-written labels to find what we need in this kind of interface. But that only goes so far. At some point, we have to find ways to help users navigate apps outside of graphical menu bars, mystery icons in toolbars, and tabbed settings panels.