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Keyboard vs. Mouse--citations from Dave Collins's book
Subject:Keyboard vs. Mouse--citations from Dave Collins's book From:Susan Fowler <sfowler -at- EJV -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 3 Nov 1995 08:55:55 EST
Dave Collins, in Designing Object-Oriented User Interfaces
(Benjamin/Cummings, 1995, ISBN 0-8053-5350-X), says that research
shows that the keyboard is better for entering text and the mouse is
better for pointing and selection tasks, esp. as tested with Fitts's
Law. (Fitts's law says that the lower limit on movement time for
targets within arm's reach is attained using the finger or a simple
device such as a pencil. See p. 207 in Collins.)
Collins's references are:
Card, Stuart K., Jock D. Mackinlay, and George G. Robertson. "The
Design Space of Input Devices." CHI '90 Proceedings, pp. 117-124.
Fitts, Paul M. "The Information Capacity of the Human Motor System
in Controlling the Amplitude of Movement." Jnl of Exper Psych, 47
(June 1954).
Gregory, Richard L. "Whatever Happened to Information Theory?" in
_Odd Perceptions_, New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.,
1986.
Jellinek, Herbert D,, and Stuart K. Card. "Powermice and user
performance." CHI '90, pp. 213-220.
MacKenzie, I. Scott, Abigail Sellen, and William Buxton. "A
Comparison of Input Devices in Elemental Pointing and Dragging
Tasks." CHI '91, pp. 161-166.