Evaluation of mouse, rate-controlled isometric joystick, step keys, and text keys for text selection on a CRT
Card, English and Burr compared four devices for selecting text on a display: a mouse, a rate-controlled isometric joystick, step keys and text keys. Their abstract reports that the mouse was fastest on all measures and had the lowest error rates, that positioning times for the mouse and the joystick fitted Fitts's law, and that the mouse's slope was close to values found in other eye-hand tasks, which they took to suggest its positioning time was nearly the minimum achievable. For the key devices, positioning time was proportional to the number of keystrokes required.
Card, English and Burr compared four devices for selecting text on a display: a mouse, a rate-controlled isometric joystick, step keys and text keys. Their abstract reports that the mouse was fastest on all measures and had the lowest error rates, that positioning times for the mouse and the joystick fitted Fitts's law, and that the mouse's slope was close to values found in other eye-hand tasks, which they took to suggest its positioning time was nearly the minimum achievable. For the key devices, positioning time was proportional to the number of keystrokes required.
Written from the abstract, publisher and Crossref record, 2026-10-31.
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Card, S. K., English, W. K., & Burr, B. J. (1978). Evaluation of mouse, rate-controlled isometric joystick, step keys, and text keys for text selection on a CRT. Ergonomics, 21(8), 601-613. doi:10.1080/00140137808931762 https://doi.org/10.1080/00140137808931762