The Problem With (Computer) Mice #
I’m not sure why, but this bit of idle technological speculation caught my eye. Jonathan Hedley wants to know why all modern mice seem to use a clearly inferior design.
Matrix found that the best place for the ball was up front as far as possible between the users thumb and forefinger. The forefinger can be controlled very precisely — much more so than the wrist and forearm. Matrix found that users would move their wrist and arm to move the cursor are large distance, but for fine control relied on the thumb and forefinger.
.. It simply seems that designers and manufacturers have, over the years, forgotten about the benefit of putting the sensor up front, or have placed precision and control further down their list of priorities. I hope that this isn’t the case: that newer research has shown that the current placement is the correct placement, or that something else has changed over time. But if that’s not the case, then I hope that some design team will rediscover either the principle, or the findings — so that we can continue to strengthen the connection between the user and the computer.
(via Big Contrarian)