What you are being asked for is the implementation of a non-functional requirement.

You are being asked for a usability improvement, not an expansion of functionality.

**Non-functional requirements of a system are *still* requirements**.

In this case, these usability fixes are intended to increase the user's productivity and lower their error rates.

Usability fixes can be non-trivial to implement.  This does not mean they should be dealt with as second-class concerns.  As a developer, you are there to create what is *important*, not what is *easy*.

An excellent book for helping undestand usability as a key, core, engineering concern is  
<a href="http://www.jnd.org/books/design-of-everyday-things-revised.html">"The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman (link)</a>.