Speed-accuracy measures in a population of six mice

Pointing involving fingers has been speculated to be faster and more accurate than pointing involving only the wrist and forearm. In the context of computer mice this could lead to the general rule that smaller and lighter mice are faster and more accurate. This would be because small mice can be moved with fingers whereas larger mice tend to immobilize the fingers and force the user to use the wrist and forearm. We compared six different sized mice using the throughput measure suggested in the ISO-9241-9 standard. Our results show that there are small differences in the throughput of the different mice, however, the differences are small enough not to be significant in practice. Thus, users can freely choose a mouse that they find attractive without risking significant performance penalties. In addition to this main result, we discuss the lessons we learned on the interpretation of the standard testing procedure. Keywords: Fitts ' Law, ISO-9241-9, pointing devices, mouse size 1