People still don't understand right click. Hate to break this to you. UI that isn't clear and visible on the screen is unhelpful UI.
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/feature-richness-and-user-en...
This also falls under the "myth of the stupid user." http://infodesign.com.au/usabilityresources/articles/themyth...
Be very careful about conflating the two issues. Usability studies have shown that users struggle with inappropriately labelled hamburger menus. Usability studies have also shown that users of intermediate to advanced skill do not struggle with right click. One is an issue regarding appropriate labelling and visual affordance, and the other is one of system and hardware affordances.
(I just changed the setting on my desktop to use single-click-to-open, and was immediately punished by it. Couldn't merely select files anymore without fear :) )
[Select] [DO!] [Context]
Adding another button reduces simplicity, but enhances the other two. Apple's one-button mouse—at the other extreme—makes things simple and discoverable, but often not as useable as I'd like. I still don't know how OSX's equivalent to Windows' [Alt] key access to menu items (does it exist?)
Which leaves us with a bit of a problem for touch screens. While it might be ok to demand users to learn one and two-finger touch -- three finger touch might be going a bit too far...
[ed: And for those that want to remap buttons, but avoid the bloated logitech software, in windows I recommend: http://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/XMouseButtonControl.htm
In X it's of course much easier (or more difficult, depending on your point of view): https://wiki.debian.org/Keyboard/MultimediaKeys ]
Unfortunately I love trackballs more than mice now, and am severely limited in my choices. The Trackman is nice, and has a couple of extra buttons, but it would be so nice to have something close to what I had with that Revolution mouse.
In response to your comment above, no I wasn't being ironic :). I'm sure I've seen similar schemes before that informed my "idea", though.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Revolution-Cordless-Laser-Mou...
Are you being ironic? I can't tell :-)
"Red button
The left button on a three button mouse: Used to select information (...)": http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/1904
"Yellow button
Middle button (usually) on a three button mouse: Activate a menu to invoke an action concerting the contents of a window; e.g. carrying out an editing operation on text withing the window. (...)"
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/1905
"Blue button
Right button on a three button mouse: Activate the menu or invoke an action concering the manipulation of the window (view / Morph) itself; e.g. moving or closing a window.
The blue button is for meta actions. (...)"
a. long-press on a touch-screen device to select text, show a menu etc.
b. buttons with hieroglyphics to indicate what to do (worse than the old floppy disk for save) - eg. iOS' share button is a box with an arrow going into it (which is confusing to me as I do not want to put my concept into a box - I want to share it OUTSIDE my box of a device).
c. Sliding from sides of the screen to show notification areas, control panels (iOS), or "split screen" apps (Samsung Note), or charms (Windows).
d. Using different gestures to do things like take screenshots on Samsung note devices (swipe your entire hand across the screen)
e. Hiding UI elements until something is done, eg. scrollbars on OSX by default until you scroll (which you would need the scrollbar to actually do...)
They are all very simple once you know them but it must be very difficult as a first-time user, particularly if you are an older first-time user where your ability to absorb information like a sponge is diminished.
Every couple of years interaction is reinvented it seems! This differs from the decades of computer use where the only massive changes were scrollwheels on mice.
It's unintuitive and undiscoverable, but I wouldn't necessarily call it unhelpful...