My mouse is dead

No, we haven't had a pet bereavement ... and there is no tiny rodent laying legs up in its little cage (although ... there's a thought. My daughter's pet mouse sometimes keeps us awake at night with its irritating noises....). No, I'm referring to that wonderful old computer peripheral device that was first introduced in the last century. The mouse has served its purpose, and has been a faithful servant for all those using computers. But the fact is, the mouse is going the way of 5.25 inch disk drives (remember those?), CRT screens and dot matrix printers. Many of us wondered what we would do when the floppy disk drive was phased out. But how many of us miss it now? Same goes for the bulky visual display units and the clunky, noisy printers.

The computer mouse is old technology, and for a growing number of users has recently been superceded by touch screen devices (and the soon to be widely used non-touch devices). The only time I ever use a mouse now is when I am at my desk at the university, and am compelled to use a desktop computer. Most of the time I'm out and about using my iPod Touch, iPhone and a touch-pad laptop. Personally I haven't needed computer rodentia for several years. My mouse is dead. It is an ex-mouse. It has gone to join the squeaky choir of rodents in the sky.

I'm wondering how many other people are also of the same opinion. I have often watched young children trying hard to control a mouse, particularly when their hands are small and they can't quite grip it correctly. I have also watched children with fine motor control problems struggling to use them. Perhaps it's about time the more intuitive touch screen interfaces were introduced widely in schools. Hand-eye co-ordination is also required to control a computer from a mouse. Most of us can do it easily, but it's not everyone's experience. I have watched some older people struggle to get the mouse pointer in the correct position to execute a click. For older people with motor control difficulties or reduced visual accuity, the more intuitive touch screen, voice activation and gesture control may also be a clear advantage over mouse driven computers.

I think the mouse has had its day. The cat can have it. Now it's time for the next generation of intuitive interfaces. What do you think?

Image by Nik Hewitt


My mouse is dead by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.