Article

Developing steady clicks:: a method of cursor assistance for people with motor impairments

Authors:

Shari Trewin,

Simeon Keates,

Karyn MoffattAuthors Info & Claims

Assets '06: Proceedings of the 8th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility

Pages 26 - 33

https://doi.org/10.1145/1168987.1168993

Published: 23 October 2006 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

Slipping while clicking and accidental clicks are a source of errors for mouse users with motor impairments. The Steady Clicks assistance feature suppresses these errors by freezing the cursor during mouse clicks, preventing overlapping button presses and suppressing clicks made while the mouse is moving at a high velocity. Evaluation with eleven target users found that Steady Clicks enabled participants to select targets using significantly fewer attempts. Overall task performance times were significantly improved for the five participants with the highest slip rates. Blocking of overlapping and high velocity clicks also shows promise as an error filter. Nine participants preferred Steady Clicks to the unassisted condition. If used in conjunction with existing techniques for cursor positioning, all of the major sources of clicking errors observed in empirical studies would be addressed, enabling faster and more effective mouse use for those who currently struggle with the standard mouse.

References

[1]

Accot, J. and Zhai, S. (2002) More than dotting the i's - Foundations for crossing-based interfaces. In Proceedings of CHI 2002, Minnesota, USA, April 2002, pp 73--80.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[2]

Blanch, R, Guiard, Y., and Beaudouin-Lafon, M. (2004) Semantic pointing: Improving target acquisition with control-display ratio adaptation. In Proceedings of CHI '04, Vienna, Austria, pp 519--526.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[3]

Brownlow, N., Shein, F., Thomas, D., Milner, M., and Parnes, P. (1989). Direct manipulation: Problems with pointing devices. In Resna '89: Proceedings of the 12th Annual Conference,. Washington DC: Resna Press, pp 246--247.

Google Scholar

[4]

Cockburn, A. and Firth, A., Improving the Acquisition of Small Targets. in People and Computers XVII (Proceedings of the 2003 British Computer Society Conf. on Human-Computer Interaction.), (Bath, England, 2003), 181--196.

Google Scholar

[5]

Grossman, T. and Balakrishnan, R. (2005) The bubble cursor: Enhancing target acquisition by dynamic resizing of the cursor's acivation area. In Proceedings of CHI '05, Portland, OR, USA, pp 281--290.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[6]

Keates, S., & Trewin, S. (2005). Effects of Age and Parkinson's Disease on Cursor Positioning Using a Mouse. In ASSETS '05 Proceedings of the Seventh International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies. 68--75.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[7]

Keates, S., Trewin, S., & Paradise, J. (2005). Using Pointing Devices: Quantifying differences across user groups. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction.

Google Scholar

[8]

McGuffin and Balakrishnan (2002) Acquisition of expanding targets. Proceedings of CHI 2002, Minnesota, USA, pp 57--64.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[9]

Paradise, J., Trewin, S., & Keates, S. (2005). Using Pointing Devices: Difficulties Encountered and Strategies Employed. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction.

Google Scholar

[10]

Riviere, C., and Thakor, N. (1996). Effects of age and disability on tracking tasks with a computer mouse: Accuracy and linearity. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, 33, pp 6--15.

Google Scholar

[11]

Trewin, S., and Pain, H. (1999). Keyboard and mouse errors due to motor disabilities. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 50, pp 109--144.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[12]

Worden, A., Walker, N., Bharat, A., and Hudson, S. (1997) Making computers easier for older adults to use: Area cursors and sticky icons. In Proceedings of CHI '97, Atlanta GA, pp 266--271.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Lee HXie I(2025)Disability, Accessibility, and Universal DesignEncyclopedia of Libraries, Librarianship, and Information Science10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00139-5(511-518)Online publication date: 2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00139-5
Wu ZWang DZhang SHuang YWang ZFan M(2024)Toward Making Virtual Reality (VR) More Inclusive for Older Adults: Investigating Aging Effect on Target Selection and Manipulation Tasks in VRProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642558(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642558
Taieb-Maimon MRomanovskii-Chernik L(2024)Improving Error Correction and Text Editing Using Voice and Mouse Multimodal InterfaceInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2352932(1-24)Online publication date: 22-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2352932
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Developing steady clicks:: a method of cursor assistance for people with motor impairments
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Interaction devices
      1. Touch screens

Recommendations

Effect of age and Parkinson's disease on cursor positioning using a mouse
Assets '05: Proceedings of the 7th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility

Point-and-click tasks are known to present difficulties to users with physical impairments, particularly motor- or vision-based, and to older adults. This paper presents the results of a study to quantify and understand the effects of age and impairment ...
A comparison of area pointing and goal crossing for people with and without motor impairments
Assets '07: Proceedings of the 9th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility

Prior work has highlighted the challenges faced by people with motor impairments when trying to acquire on-screen targets using a mouse or trackball. Two reasons for this are the difficulty of positioning the mouse cursor within a confined area, and the ...
Expansion cursor: a zoom lens that can be voluntarily activated by the user at every individual click
OzCHI '16: Proceedings of the 28th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction

Both situational handicaps and motor impairments can make small targets difficult to acquire accurately when using a mouse. The expansion cursor was designed to make accurate movements easier to perform. For every click of the mouse, users can choose ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

Assets '06: Proceedings of the 8th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility

October 2006

316 pages

ISBN:1595932909

DOI:10.1145/1168987

General Chair:
Simeon Keates
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA
,
Program Chair:
Simon Harper
University of Manchester, UK

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 23 October 2006

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Conference

ASSETS06

Sponsor:

ASSETS06: The 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

October 23 - 25, 2006

Oregon, Portland, USA

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 436 of 1,556 submissions, 28%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

73
Total Citations
View Citations
1,032
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)19
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 29 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Lee HXie I(2025)Disability, Accessibility, and Universal DesignEncyclopedia of Libraries, Librarianship, and Information Science10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00139-5(511-518)Online publication date: 2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00139-5
Wu ZWang DZhang SHuang YWang ZFan M(2024)Toward Making Virtual Reality (VR) More Inclusive for Older Adults: Investigating Aging Effect on Target Selection and Manipulation Tasks in VRProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642558(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642558
Taieb-Maimon MRomanovskii-Chernik L(2024)Improving Error Correction and Text Editing Using Voice and Mouse Multimodal InterfaceInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2352932(1-24)Online publication date: 22-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2352932
Bowman MRobinson JBuehler EKane S(2023)“I just thought it was me”: How Smartphones Fail Users with Mild-to-Moderate Dexterity DifferencesProceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3597638.3608396(1-12)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597638.3608396
Wang TMonacelli ERabreau OBoulesteix CVarillon SGastal ARiman CPeralta H(2023)How does the dedicated software PLEIA provide computer access assessment for people with physical disabilities?Universal Access in the Information Society10.1007/s10209-023-01005-x23:4(1779-1794)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-023-01005-x
Sarsenbayeva ZVan Berkel NVelloso EGoncalves JKostakos V(2022)Methodological Standards in Accessibility Research on Motor Impairments: A SurveyACM Computing Surveys10.1145/354350955:7(1-35)Online publication date: 15-Dec-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3543509
Aziz FCreed CSarcar SFrutos-Pascual MWilliams I(2022)Voice Snapping: Inclusive Speech Interaction Techniques for Creative Object ManipulationProceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3532106.3533452(1486-1496)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3532106.3533452
Liu MKuznetsov AKim YChang JKittur AMyers B(2022)Wigglite: Low-cost Information Collection and TriageProceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3526113.3545661(1-16)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3526113.3545661
Hu XWang JGao WHu Y(2022)FootUI: Designing and Detecting Foot Gestures to Assist People with Upper Body Motor Impairments to Use Smartphones on the BedProceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3517428.3563285(1-11)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3517428.3563285
Wentzel JJunuzovic SDevine JPorter JMott M(2022)Understanding How People with Limited Mobility Use Multi-Modal InputProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517458(1-17)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3491102.3517458
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Abstract

References

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Effect of age and Parkinson's disease on cursor positioning using a mouse

A comparison of area pointing and goal crossing for people with and without motor impairments

Expansion cursor: a zoom lens that can be voluntarily activated by the user at every individual click

Comments

Information

Published In

Sponsors

Publisher

Publication History

Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Conference

Acceptance Rates

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Login options

Full Access

View options

PDF

eReader

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media

Affiliations