Light Pen Use and Practice Minimize Age and Hand Performance Differences in Pointing Tasks

Input devices for web browsing: age and hand effects

“…More specifically, the task that was employed mimics the procedure for completing fields in web-based forms that may require the user to select a hyperlink or radio button (e.g., male or female) or to position the cursor in a box to enter text (e.g., username, password, credit card number, search engine keywords or phrases). This study revealed a somewhat different pattern of results than past research utilizing pure pointing tasks [9]. While the prior study showed a strong advantage for a direct positioning device, the light pen, over a mouse even for experienced mouse users when data entry was not involved, this study demonstrated that in mixed pointing and data entry tasks, the light pen may be less efficient than the mouse for older adults early in training.…”

“…Thus, results provided some evidence that age differences in mouse use are partially accounted for by age differences in mapping operation efficiency. The study reported in this paper extends research by Charness et al [9] to compare the usability of both direct (light pen) and indirect (mouse) pointing devices for young, middle-aged, and older adults in a mixed pointing and data entry task. This task required users to point and click to places on the screen with a given input device and to shift the hand to the keyboard to enter requested text.…”

“…(Previous findings in a pure pointing task indicated a preference for the mouse when using the preferred hand, but for the light pen when using the non-preferred hand [9]. This study revealed a significant interaction of hand by device (F(1,69)=6.89, MSE=7.39, p<0.02) showing that users rated the mouse as easier and more acceptable to use than the light pen in both the preferred and the nonpreferred hand.…”

“…They termed changing from selecting a target with a pointing device to entering data on a keyboard ''mode-switching,'' and estimated that ''homing'' time accounted for 28% of the total time spent keyboarding. Thus, given the additional components involved in this mixed pointing and data entry task, a somewhat different pattern of results was expected than the one revealed by the pure pointing task used by Charness et al [9]. In the current context, it was predicted that the advantage to using a direct positioning device, the light pen, would diminish.…”

“…They provide a ''where you point is where you go'' (WYPIWYG) method of operation. Charness et al [9] showed that a direct positioning device (a light pen) was generally faster than a mouse and age-related performance differences were minimized relative to the mouse in a pure pointing task, which involved pointing and clicking on the requested targets using the specified input device, and did not require the user to input data using the keyboard or to shift the hand from one device to another for any procedure to be completed. Thus, results provided some evidence that age differences in mouse use are partially accounted for by age differences in mapping operation efficiency.…”