Break Free of the Mouse

RECIPEUsers need to control the cursor, and plopping a conventional mouse onto the users' desks has long served that purpose. The problem is that millions of nearly identical mice have been plopped onto the desks of millions of users, where they use them for hours daily, for years on end, repetitively making the same motions. Perhaps it's no coincidence that estimates of the prevalence of repetitive stress symptoms among computer users range up to 56 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

By offering your clients alternative mice you can enhance their satisfaction by helping them fight the repetitive stress plague. And let's not forget that alternative mice are not low-margin commodities, but up-scale after-market accessories—a niche whose very existence you may have overlooked.

In this recipe, we'll take a look at three widely different examples: one that you control with your feet, one you control with your forearm instead of your wrist, and one you could hold in your mouth if you wanted to.

Foot-Controlled Mouse

If you've dreamed of not having to move your hand from the keyboard while using the mouse, the Nohands Mouse from Hunter Digital ($349.99), might be the one for you—but as I'll explain, there are also reasons why it might not be.The unit consists of two flat platforms that are each about the size and shape of the bottom of a clothes iron, as shown here:

Each platform is perched atop its own flat base, connected to it by a gimbal mechanism. The two are wired to each other, and as a unit they connect to the computer via a standard mouse port. There is no software—the unit simply replaces a standard mouse.

One of the platforms is for cursor control, and the other is for clicking. Which is left and which is right is entirely up to the user. I used the left for cursor control and the right for clicking, but it would have worked just as well the other way.

You simply sit down, put your feet on the platforms, and start using the computer. The first thing I discovered is that the directions that come with the unit were correct: good posture is important for good results. That means having your knees bent at a ninety-degree angle, with your legs vertical. In the position you have maximum control of your ankles. It is best to have your chair high so that your feet just reach the mouse platforms, so you can control them by just wobbling your ankles.At first, overshooting was easy, but a few games of Solitaire honed my skill. With controlled posture, cursor control was accurate enough for all word processing tasks, including highlighting individual letters.

No, accuracy wasn't the problem. The problem is that I was not able to exert fine control on my ankle without also exerting fine control over my leg and thigh muscles—and those muscles were not accustomed to that kind of work. (If you ride horses you might be better prepared.) Also, your leg is heavy, noticeably adding to the effort required for mousing.

Basically, after about two hours I would be groaning every time I realized that I had to make another mouse move—and was aghast at how much mousing is required to do anything. Also, retaining a rigid posture got really old, and I was surprised to find that simply leaving my feet in one place became a source of discomfort.

For a user who's already wincing from wrist or arm pain when using a conventional mouse (or, for that matter, for a user without functional arms) these may sound like trivial problems. A motivated person should be able to overcome them readily. Someone whose body is young and limber (unlike mine) may not even notice these problems. For everyone else, though, the Nohands Mouse may not appear to offer automatic advantages.

Joystick Mouse

Retailing at various prices between $50 and $75, the Ergonomic Mouse (from 3M, and previously marketed as the Vertical Mouse), is a mouse that looks like a joystick. Or, you can call it a mouse with a joystick handle, as seen here:

Basically, the unit is a flat platform with a handle that leans slightly toward you, matching the angle of your hand when you extend you arm slightly. In other words, instead of having to rotate your wrist to use it, as with a conventional mouse, the 3M mouse is a natural fit for your hand. Also, it supports the weight of your hand as you move it around.

Meanwhile, you don't have to flex your wrist and fingers to click the mouse buttons. The mouse button is embodied in a thumb-actuated trigger on top of the handle. Only a slight motion of the thumb was required.

My hand and thumb felt natural and relaxed when using it. Accuracy seemed as good as with a conventional mouse. The only problem, if it could be called that, was that the unit seemed clumsier than a conventional mouse, since it is bigger, your hand is resting on it, and you are pushing it around by extending your arm rather than rotating your wrist. That feeling quickly passed, however.

While there was no scroll wheel, there was a third button on the shaft of the handle that offered scroll control. When pressed, mouse movement generated both vertical and horizontal scrolling—at least in most software packages. 3M offered a downloadable driver whose main effect, as far as I could see, was to expand the number of software titles that the unit could scroll with. (It also let you program the third button with other commands.)Basically, I was able to adapt to it immediately and my wrist and hand remained stress-free at the end of the day. The only drawback was that there seemed to be no allowance for left-handed use.

Air Mouse

With the Nohands Mouse you're stuck in your chair, and with the 3M mouse (or any conventional mouse) you're stuck at your desk—but with an air mouse from Gyration, you can walk around the room and still control the cursor.

Air mice use a motion sensor to map your hand movements, which are sent to the computer via an RF link and converted to cursor controls.

Gyration has a number of air mice, and the unit I tested was the $199.95 Gyrotransport Air Mouse Presenter, as shown here:

Not shown in the above picture is a small RF antenna that plugs into a USB port on the computer. With the Gyrotransport, the antenna also contains a one-gigabyte memory stick, which evidently adds to the price, since Gyration air mice without it cost as little as $69.95 direct from Gyration. But the extra price for the Gyrotransport might be worth it to a traveling businessperson, who can plug the antenna into whatever presentation PC is available, stand back, and immediately call up and control the presentation.

Basically, after activating the antenna you hold the unit in your hand (with or without the car keys, as pictured) and turn it on. Thereafter, your hand movements are mapped to the screen as cursor movements. It's as if you are shining a flashlight at the screen, and the cursor follows the beam's movement—except the mouse still works if you point the "beam" at the floor or the ceiling.

Squeezing the left side of the mouse generates a left click, and clicking the right generates a right click. The problem is that the act of squeezing the button invariably moves the mouse slightly, and therefore moves the cursor. For instance, attempting to click an on-screen checkbox moved the cursor enough that I was invariably unable to click the checkbox.

To escape this impasse, the unit includes a control button between the two mouse buttons. In normal operation the cursor only moves when you are moving the mouse while holding down the control button. So I was able to catch those pesky checkboxes by pressing the control button while dragging the cursor to the box, letting go of the control button, and then pressing the mouse button.

If you double-click the button, movement is constant until you click it again. This lets you click-drag by engaging the cursor and then squeezing the mouse button, and then disengaging the cursor and letting go of the mouse buttonObviously, this adds another level of complexity to mousing. Meanwhile, I found that holding my hand up and waving it in the air was a lot more tiring than pushing a conventional mouse around on the table—and that mouse always remained where I left it, regardless of whether I had disengaged its cursor control.

The air mice are marketed to people doing presentations, who want to be able to move anywhere in a room while talking and controlling a computer. One could also be used by a person in bed, or someone whose mobile unit left no room for a conventional mouse or trackball. If you need to switch from one hand to another, it's trivial with an air mouse. But conventional deskbound users will probably not see air mousing as a compelling alternative.

By offering alternative mice, system builders can take the repetitive out of repetitive stress. Users will be employing different muscles after they make the switch. You can also sell some after-market hardware that the clients may be glad to buy. Even better, alternative mice can offer you more potential profit, if only because they cost more than the typical $8 mouse.

LAMONT WOOD is a freelance writer in San Antonio, Texas, who has been covering technology for nearly a quarter of a century.0