How do you use the UI?
 

I'd be very interested to know how you're all using the UI in Maya.

I'm quite a nOOb, so I tend to use a bit of everything... I'd be interested to know what the more experienced folk find themselves doing.

I use the shelf pretty heavily. Not sure if that's what you mean by shortcuts or not. Have to say I rarely use the Hotbox.

Shortcuts = shortcut keys.

I must say ever since they introduced the shelves I have been using them alot more. Majority of the tools I use are set there if not I can easily just put something in the custom shelf.

hotkeys mostly, no hotbox. but ya didn't have that one. So I used the 2nd one anyway.

Always use the shelf, some shortcuts, menus when needed.

I use the hotbox alot and ocassonally the shelf. but that is what I got used to after Maya 4.5 fundementals:p

I use mostly the hotbox and some custom marking menus I've set up. Some shelf stuff too, but not very often.

All hotbox and custom marking menus. The only menus I use are from individual panel sets.

Shelves, marking menus, and hotkeys for me. I like things in consistent places, so the Hotbox doesn't really work that well for me. Shelves work great for me, because I customize them like crazy. I some shelves that stay the same. I have others that I customize and change on the fly as I work. And of course, nothing is faster than hotkeys. A lot of the default hotkeys don't exist anymore. I've pretty much remapped most of the keyboard to my own keys. :)

I should amend...I do have a few shelves setup but they're more for specialized tasks like creating paintfx hair....or using CPS. I rarely use them but I can definitely see their usefulness. Most of the time I have everything in the UI gone except for the views and their panel menus. I toggle the attribute editor and the channel box on/off as need be with hotkeys as well as the outliner and several other windows I use frquently.

I think the hotbox is pretty consistent for me because I use the default that shows all the menus. Then I just have specialized marking menus setup for various modeling types and editing so I don't have to hunt for them in the hotbox. As I go along, I find more things that I tend to use alot and just add them to the appropriate marking menu.

i use my, MIND...... and give commands to maya. no hands needed. that's because i have the "limitless unlimited" version, that costs a whopping 45k USD

I use whatever is the easiest for a particular task. In general I try to avoid the menus as much as I can so that means I use a lot of shortcuts. My left hand is constantly on the keyboard while with the right hand I use the stylus pen (for all mouse work). I should get into that custom marking menu biz too since it certainly would speed up many tasks. Bottom line is that I try to do everything with minimal effort :)

shelf with all my short cuts=)

don't rightly know what hotbox's are, but I use shelves, the menus, and shortcuts equally. I do not use custom marking menus at all.