I remember using a TUI for a Bank in the UK, and them switching to a web-based javascript system. Because the TUI forced keyboard interaction everyone was quick, and we could all fly through the screens finding what we wanted. One benefit was each screen was a fixed size and there was no scroll, so when you pressed the right incantation the answer you wanted appeared in the same portion of the screen every time. You didn't have to hunt for the right place to look. You pressed the keys, which were buffered, looked to the appropriate part of the screen and more often than not the information you required appeared as you looked.

Moving to a web based system meant we all had to use mice and spend our days moving them to the correct button on the page all the time. It added hours and hours to the processing.

Bring back the TUI!

A GUI can be as effective as a TUI if it's designed to be 100% usable from a keyboard - the problem is very few applications take the time to do that design.

I remember seeing how past people were in 1-2-3 for DOS using the / menu back in the 90's.

Sounds like the UX designers for the new applications didn't understand the requirements. I worked on two web app projects that required to be usable fast and with keyboards only. It's not that hard, if you define the requirements right.

Also no scrolling was a requirement. This was done by defining a min and max screen resolution, and designing everything exactly for that. The app was supposed to be used exclusively full screen, so no need for responsive design.

The result was a bit like a video game, very few loading delays and instant responses to user input.

I was making this argument in early 2000s, how the "upgrade" would kill efficiency - and it largely did for data entry. I did this swap in medical industry and finance industry and it landed on deaf ears all the time in the name of modernization. Actually, feels like I'm reliving it right now with AI.

Devil's advocate: There is one thing GUIs do better than TUIs: international text. Try to present on the same terminal screen text in Arabic and Japanese.

Acquiring the skill to fly through such interfaces is equivalent to learning to play a musical instrument, where the desired attention (taking cues) and action (body/finger movement) becomes second nature. Such skill and interfaces are, unfortunately, not viewed as similarly valued as playing a musical instrument, and such visual presentation of the TUI is thought to be "difficult" to use, and they do take learning and effort to achieve that level of mastery. Meanwhile, the interface to traditional musical instruments, while there's been some changes and improvements, have stood the test of time and remain attractive to a lot people who want to make music. Many of the claimed "improvements" that GUI interfaces have over TUIs look in some cases, to me, like busy box toys created for toddlers (this is how I feel about the Windows Ribbon menu widgets). Once something becomes second nature, it's not "I'm putting my fingers in this position" it is "I want to play an A after this series of other notes".

I experienced the same thing. The big Brokerage firm I worked for in the 90s had amazing TUIs. You could fly through the screens. They even had DMs and group chats. Pretty amazing. The next company I worked for was rolling-out a GUI replacement for their TUI interface and I watched people's productivity plummet as they went from keyboard, to mouse for every text box... Those old mainframe TUIs were amazing, probably the result of decades of time and motion studies.

TUIs have a high speed ceiling when muscle memory comes into play.