dm@BBN-RSM@sri-unix (08/09/82)
From: David Mankins <dm at BBN-RSM> Two papers discussing selection of text using various pointer devices (mouse, velocity joystick, light different flavors of function keys): CARD: Card, S.K., English, W.K. and Burr, B.J., "Evaluation of mouse, rate-controlled isometruc joystick, step keys, and text keys for text selection on a CRT," in \Ergonomics/, 21, 8 (1978), pp. 601-613. ENGL: English, W.K., Engelbart, D.C., & Berman, M.L., "Display selection techniques for text manipulation," \IEEE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics, HFE-8/, 1 (March 1976), pp. 5-15. CARD, in summary (from a human factors tutorial I took at Siggraph): for time to locate text: mouse < velocity joystick < text keys < step keys for errors in locating text: mouse < text keys < joystick < step keys learning improvement: beginner expert mouse 2.2s 1.3s joystick 2.2s 1.6s text keys 3.9s 1.9s step keys 3.0s 2.3s "Step keys" are the little arrow keys, up, down, left, right, one step. "Text keys" are function keys "next word", "next paragraph", "next page", etc. ENGL, in summary: For experienced users: mouse < light pen < joystick (time) mouse < light pen < joystick (errors) For inexperienced users: (mouse, light pen) < joystick (time) mouse < light pen < joystick (errors) The human factors guy didn't know of any studies comparing track balls to mice, et. al.
cak (08/11/82)
I seem to recall that there was an invited lecture by Allen Newell of CMU at this year's Computer Science Conference (in Indianapolis) in which he talked about research they (or someone else) performed showing that the mouse was the lower bound for a pointing device; you can't get better than one. Sorry, but I don't have a more specific reference. Chris Kent, Purdue CS