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DESCRIPTION: In Engelbart's left hand, he uses a chording keyset which is small keyboard with five long keys. Each time a key is pressed, it corresponds a number that is converted into a string (a letter). When pressing two keys simultaneously, the strings become a "chord" command which instructs Augment to perform specific actions to documents. For example "DW" instructs Augment to delete a word, "TW" transposes a word, and DV" deletes visible characters. 31 different commands can be inputted using a keyset and up to 256 commands when using the keyset together with the mouse buttons.

At first glance, Augment appears a daunting system to master but is just a matter of learning the different chord commands. In fact, Engelbart's two daughters learned to use the cording keyset at an early age in less than two weeks. So when thinking Augment is difficult to learn, he insists that Augment just "looks too hard."