Of moles and men: the design of foot controls for workstations

Abstract

Workstations require use of the hands both for text entry and for cursor-positioning or menu-selection. The physical arrangement does not allow these two tasks to be done concurrently. To remove this restriction, various alternative input devices have been investigated. This work focuses on the class of foot-operated computer input devices, called moles here. Appropriate topologies for foot movement are identified, and several designs for realising them are discussed.