Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
GUI Software Technology

Easy to Use Mice for Handicapped Persons? 36

Posted by Cliff from the alternatives-to-clicking dept.
Gavin Miller asks: "I've got a good friend with a disease that limits the use of his limbs, mainly his fingers. He says he can move a normal mouse but is no longer able to click. Does anyone know of input peripheral options that might be easier for him to use? I don't know exactly how much movement he does have in his fingers, or what he can or cannot do. I'm simply looking for some options that he can look into. Thanks!"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Easy to Use Mice for Handicapped Persons? More

Easy to Use Mice for Handicapped Persons?

Comments Filter:

  • Tried a Mac mouse? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by leonbrooks ( 8043 ) <SentByMSBlast-No ... .brooks.fdns.net> on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @08:08PM (#10782613) Homepage
    That's nearly too easy to click, and with one of the plastic covers to return it to normal size, easy enough to handle as well.
    • Use one for moving, glue the other one down and glue paddles to the buttons to make them easier to hit.

      If you glued the "button" mouse to a shim to tilt it up a bit, friend could even use the wheel by rolling the heel of his hand on it. If that's still too hard, mount a larger wheel in contect with the mouse wheel and roll that instead. You can also wire up nice big buttons across the standard microswitches.

      These mice [aopen.com.tw] have two wheels, one of which doesn't click, which makes it easier to roll a wheel with
      • Using pedals of some sort might be helpful for Gavin's friend as well. Perhaps a click-less mouse driven by a hand, and a pedal for each foot to click left and right?

        In fact, I'd like that, just because I can't stand the wasted energy moving from keyboard to mouse and back. (Developers: please always have keyboard shortcuts. Thanks!)

  • apple mouse? (Score:3, Informative)

    by amorico ( 40859 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @08:08PM (#10782615)
    The apple mouse does not have any buttons and can easily be clicked with handscale motions.
    Apple keyboard and mouse [apple.com]

    The wireless mouse has a single button that makes it easy and comfortable to use, regardless of the size of your hand. Whether you have a light touch or a heavy hand, the thoughtful click-force adjustment feature makes it more customizable. And the optical engine provides accurate and responsive cursor movement unhampered by performance-inhibiting dirt and dust buildup.
    • I second the mac optical mouse (maybe not the wireless one).

      You dont click a button, you just push down in the entire top of the mouse...its annoying to me (as well as the lack of right click and wheel) but it sounds just right

    • as an aside - an apple USB pro mouse (the ones being discussed above) *will* work with Windows XP - by default every click is a left click.

  • Touchpad (Score:3, Informative)

    by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @08:09PM (#10782628)
    He might be better off with a laptop style touchpad. Especially if you can find one thats pressure sensitive (heavy pressure=click).
    • I used to have a friend who was a quadrapolegic(sp?) and he used a laptop with the stick mouse. He used some arm attachement dealy with a pencil looking thing attached to it.
  • I don't know the extent of his disablity, but a trackball might be an easier solution.

  • windows assist and voice (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ForestGrump ( 644805 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @08:12PM (#10782649) Homepage Journal
    microsoft put some disability assisy programs with windows. you might be able to use those as a free solution.

    if you want something less "hands on" try something like Dragon Naturally Speaking.
    • Or he could buy a Mac... Tiger's going to have voice support built in (to a greater extent than Panther does), and he gets the benefit (never thought I'd be saying this) of an Apple mouse.

      ~stephen
  • or wire a pedal to a second mouse's button(s).

    takes a little tinkering, but might be the best.

    • Sounds good....thats something I had thought about...However he is in a wheelchair a bunch....Dont know how easy that would work out for him...Im gonna talk to him tommorow afternoon and see if he thinks he could use any of these. Thanks, Gavin
  • Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I wondered about a trackball myself....I think a touchpad might work but I dont know how much pressure he can put with his fingers to move it/click...Ill definetly look into these. Thanks, Gavin
    • Ever think about a foot pedal? Don't know how good you are at fabrication, but it'd be pretty easy to make. Also, I'm sure someone makes this if you'd rather just buy it.
    • I work in a school for handicapped children, and deal with a lot of these types of problems with a few of my students. On easy solution I have found to be useful is Gus! Dwell Cursor [gusinc.com]:

      Gus! Dwell Cursor provides a practical method of activating mouse button clicks (click, double click etc.) for users who have difficulty accessing standard mouse buttons. . . Move the cursor over the item you want to "click", and Gus! Dwell Cursor automatically does the mouse clicking for you!

      It basically works by autom
    • My previous VA rep was a quadriplegic. She had some use of her arms & hands, but using any kind of a mouse or track ball was a real challenge. For her quite often the issue wasn't clicking the buttons, but clicking when she didn't want to or movin' the mouse while clicking. Everything she tried required finer control than she could attain & the keyboard was even harder to use. Frankly, the solution for her would have been voice navigation. At that time OS/2 was doin' it nicely w/ 99.5% accuracy
  • The 3M ergonomic mouse might help. It uses the thumb instead of the fingers.

    http://www.3m.com/us/office/myworkspace/mos_ergo.j html [3m.com]

    -Derek

  • Infogrip [infogrip.com] has a few alternatives.
  • If your friend can use keyboard then it should be possible to map certain keys to produce mouse buttons events and press them with the second hand. I know that people are doing it for example to emulate three-button mouse using Debian on Mac with one-button mouse. Google for mouse button emulation [google.com]. Alternatively, you can prefer a very simple, low tech, portable, fully hardware solution: open the mouse and replace button switches with pairs of wires e.g. using 3 pairs in the standard ethernet cable. Other en
  • http://orin.com/access/headmouse/index.htm [orin.com]

    -Wireless Operation
    -No Cumbersome Head Mounted Apparatus
    -Pixel Precise Pointing, CAD Ready
    -Operates in Conjunction With or Replaces Standard Desktop Mouse
    -USB Mouse Interface

    The HeadMouse replaces a mouse for people who cannot use their hands. It sits on top of a computer monitor or laptop and measures the user's head movements.

    Unfortunately I can't find pricing anywhere.

    Loomis
  • Early today I read about mice being grown for Nicotine Addiction studies... Now they're growing them for Handicap people?

    What do Handicap people need with experimental mouse varieties? Isn't the stem cell research enough for these people... first the parking spots, now their own breed of mouse.. jeeezzzz.. they aren't THAT special
  • I found a review:

    http://www.ace-centre.org.uk/headpointers/headdeta il.asp?ID=14 [ace-centre.org.uk]

    Unfortunately I think this unit is pricey. The review does mention other alternatives by name, so that might be helpful as well.

    Loomis
  • I'd say go with a touchpad and mouse combo. That way he'd have the somewhat insensitive movements of a mouse, and the sensativeness of a touchpad's clicks.
  • P&G make some wonderful trackballs with larger than normal balls and very "clicky" buttons. Their products are pricey but worth it, made for people with disabilities, industrial use and various armed forces.

    Google it and look around on the hit pages for other makes as well as the resellers that carry P+G will carry other input devices for various disabilities.

  • No one yet mentioned the "Gyration ULTRA GT 30 CORDLESS MOUSE" which lets you move it in 3D. ..I think that's how it works. I've wanted one of these myself for a while.
  • Warning: Offtopic somewhat

    How about using 2 mice at once, one in each hand.? I've always wanted to set up a system like this. I wonder how hard that would be in Linux to set up?

    Of course there'd be lots of decisions to make like how to handle focus, which mouse has priority, etc. Anyone know of any projects like this?

    I'm not sure what the benefit of two mice would be but it would be neat to see 2 mice moving around the screen, 2 windows moving at once, etc.

    Discuss, discuss!
  • There are several utilities (one is built into KDE I think) designed for disabled people that should help with auto-clicking if the mouse is held in a place more than a few seconds.
  • http://www.enablemart.com/productDetail.aspx?pid=6 65&dept=21&store=10

    I bought this when Crayola sold it for kids, after my carpal tunnel got bad, surgery to correct it failed to help, and I had to find "the biggest trackball possible" and "something impossible for you to try to squeeze" -- and it's great.

    Use "Froogle" for "Crayola trackball" and it'll also pull up a lot of related or similar devices.

  • I assume your friend uses an OS that supports using more than one mouse in parallel, i.e. Linux, MacOS X or recent versions of Windows (98 or newer, 2000 or newer). I assume that your friend can use at least one foot (or hand) to operate a foot switch.

    You need two mice, one for the cursor movement and one for the buttons.

    The "buttons" mouse should be a cheap one, preferably with a removeable ball and a long cable. The entire ball mechanics is no longer needed, just the electronics. You need one, two or

    • When I drive, both my hands are busy (one for acceleration, one for steering), so I use something called a DigiTone to do turn signals, the horn, etc. It's basically a big-ass (3" to 6", depending on the model) button that you push and hold to do stuff; it goes through a musical scale (Do-Re-Mi) or you can just count beeps, and when it gets to the tone that you have hooked to the option you want, use it.

      This would allow him to have right click if he wanted with just one switch (one tone=left, two tone=r
  • Microsoft Easyball - we use them in spec ed classrooms all the time. Photo:

    http://www.theapplecollection.com/design/pcproto /MicrosoftEasyball.html
  • search for...

    1. "vertical mouse" -- the difference in the required finger motions might help.

    2. "foot mouse" -- self-explanatory

    3. "mouse keys" -- is the msft-win-specific name for a facility for replicating mouse functions via numpad keys.

    4. touchpad -- either outboard, or integrated in keyboard. Mouse clicks are accomplished by tapping instead of pressing. Can even be used in *addition* to other mice, so clicking (tapping) could be shifted to the other hand. Some ergonomic keyboards (including
  • You can check out this Slashdot article [slashdot.org] about a new input device called a nouse [iit.nrc.ca]. A nouse make use of "Perceptual Vision Technology", which is "the technology for designing systems, referred to as Perceptual Vision Systems (PVS), that use visual cues of the user, such as the motion of the face, to control a program."

    You just need an ordinary USB webcam and some special software (available here [iit.nrc.ca]) to make it functional.

    Matt

Slashdot Top Deals

"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."

Close