A pilot naturalistic study of PC mouse usability

Abstract

An uncontrolled study took place in course settings with 30 3rd year undergraduates. Standard graphical tasks were generated from dedicated software. Subjects used their own and other subjects’ pointing devices. Pointing efficiency was calculated within each 2 to 4 subjects group. Hypothetically, subjects would not experience improved efficiency in pointing and dragging tasks when switching to other devices from their own device. The other devices might share the archetype of the owned device, but differ in dimensions and shape details, or activation thresholds. Reasons are suggested for cases where the hypothesis is not verified in the results. Literature review and prior experimental results tentatively explains the subjects’ improvement in efficiency when changing to unfamiliar pointing devices. Familiarity with the tasks and improved fitness with borrowed device are potential motivators for efficiency gains observed that do not comply with the hypothesis. A snapshot of PC mice used by students is provided.