EXPLORATORY EVALUATIONS OF TWO VERSIONS OF A FOOT-OPERATED CURSOR-POSITIONING DEVICE IN A TARGET-SELECTION TASK

Abstract

An investigation is on-going concerning the use of feet instead of hands to perform workstation cursor-positioning and related functions. In the exploratory studies reported here, two versions of a particular foot-operated device, the swing mole, were assessed against a mouse in a base-line target-selection task. This task had some of the elements involved in text editing, but did not directly include keyboard entry. The study showed that novices can learn to select fairly small targets using a mole, while revealing shortcomings in the current mole design and suggesting directions for redesign.