Robustness of hotkey binding layout

Robustness is the property of a layout. A layout X is more robust than another layout Z when the damage caused by wrong key presses using X for 100 games is less than the damage caused by wrong key presses using Z for 100 games.

Pressing the wrong key can be either harmless, a nuisiance, or a disaster. With certain layouts, pressing the correct key while the wrong unit is selected can also be dangerous. Certain game functions such as “cancel”, baneling’s “explode” and terran structures’ “lift” need to be bound very carefully. The smaller the risk of damage because of a wrong key pressed, the more the layout is resilient.

Because some keys are more prone to being mis-clicked than others, it is important that those keys are assigned to actions that have little or no effect when executed accidentally, and/or out of context.

We distinguish three types of "wrong key presses".

Robustness to context
A mistake may happen when the same key is bound to multiple commands and it is pressed with the intention of issuing one command to a specific group of units but because the wrong group of units is selected, another command is issued instead.

For example, if Stimpack and Train marine are bound to the same key, attempting to train marines may result in an accidental Stimpack if a group of marines is selected.

Robustness to displacement
Sometimes your hand shifts a little to the left or to the right, or it rotates a little bit, and it does not go back to the correct place. When this happens, you might accidentally press a key that is next to the one you intended.

Robustness to spam
Robustness to spam means that you can repeatedly press certain buttons without fear that a situation may occur where pressing those buttons would result in an unintended action.

For example, if the select larva and build overlord are assigned to the same key, tapping the select larva hotkey repeatedly while waiting for larva to spawn may result in the accidental creation of unwanted overlords when the larva become available. For example, if “morph drone” and “birth queen” are assigned to the same key, repeatedly pressing the “select larva” and “morph drone” hotkeys will result in unwanted queens to be created when no larva is available.