Break Free of the Mouse

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Users 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.

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