Taming Your Round Mouse:
What The Manual Doesn't Tell You

Jun 4, 1999

In a previous article in March, "A Solution For The iMac's Mouse: Simple As A Dimple", I wrote about the problem that everyone seemed to be facing with the iMac's mouse and offered a simple solution that should pacify users and yet wouldn't upset the iMac's production schedule in a major way.

Coincidentally enough, (or was it because someone at Apple had actually taken the suggestion seriously?) barely a month later, right about the same time that the 333MHz iMacs arrived in mid-April, so did a new breed of mice that had — guess what? — buttons with dimples on them. You probably have one of them right now.

All well and good if you do, but what about those who don't have that crucial dimple on their iMac mouse button? Well, many of you who fall into that category have probably griped about the iMac's mouse at one time or another, and your complaints would boil down to basically two points: one, it tends to wander; and two, it's an awful ergonomic design.

The Wandering Mouse Syndrome
The real problem, as I see it, is not so much the mouse itself but the cable attached to it. Your mouse came packed with its cable nicely coiled up into a loop. Just like most cables would, the mouse cable tends to bounce back to its original coiled shape if you try to straighten it out. And when you try to fight it, the stubborn cable takes it out on the poor mouse, twisting it askew as soon as you take your hand off it. And when you place your fingers back on the mouse, it's no longer pointed the same direction. But because it's round, you think nothing of it. You give the mouse a push and whoops! it goes off in a slightly different direction. Well, the trick is to tame the cable, not the mouse.

What I do — and you can try this if you want — is to let your mouse cable keep to its natural coiled-up state in a loop or maybe two, like in the picture on the right so that the mouse ends up close to one side of your keyboard, leaving enough room for you to manoeuvre it. Preferably, the "home" orientation of your mouse should be somewhere between pointing straight ahead and slightly towards your iMac. This is so that it will be aligned nicely with the line of your forearm.

Getting the cursor on the screen to move exactly to where you want it requires that you keep your mouse oriented correctly in your hand at all times. That we all know, and with a regular mouse, it seems simple enough. More precisely though, it also means that your mouse should be aligned with your forearm, so that you can direct your cursor intuitively without ever taking your eyes off the screen since the mouse becomes an extension of your forearm. Anyone who's ever experienced the "wandering mouse" problem has probably overlooked this little detail, and then blamed it on the round mouse. Now, I can't say they're wrong about the mouse, but I have to believe there are people like myself who've gotten used to its round shape without too much fuss. And it's probably because they notice the little details like I have in the design of the mouse that are not so much mere aesthetic as they are function-driven, like the colored plastic trims on the sides, for instance.

Apple's design team added some pretty subtle touches to the mouse too: you'll notice that the colored plastic trims on the sides have a different texture from the rest of the mouse, including the button. There is a smoother and satin-like feel to it. Go ahead, fondle your mouse now and tell me you don't feel the difference. Well, I talked about this before. But while I wasn't sure then, I am now. That subtle design detail actually allows you to feel where your mouse is pointed without looking at it — as effectively as if it had been a more conventional shape. And if you've used your mouse for as long as I have, you've probably realized that by now. The dimple they eventually introduced on the button may well have been a move to pacify customers. But really, you won't be lost without it. As I've mentioned in another recent article, I'll admit having experienced this "wandering mouse" syndrome — but only in the first two days after getting my iMac. The problem disappeared shortly thereafter. So it's simply a matter of getting used to it.

Using The Round Mouse
As I write this, I'm thinking how ridiculous it seems that I should be describing in such detail something so simple as using a mouse. But then again, I thought that if I had no problems using my mouse, or at least had learnt to deal with them positively, that perhaps my experiences would be of some benefit to those of you who do. So here goes:

You hold it between your thumb and ring finger so that they rest on the satin-smooth trims on both sides of the mouse. Your index and middle finger will then naturally rest on the button, and if you've got one of those dimpled buttons, that's a bonus. Now you'll notice that the rest of your palm is sort of in limbo, with no mouse to rest on, as has probably always been the case ever since mice were invented. (Horrors! Ergonomic catastrophe!) The bigger the hands you've got, the more so. That's fine — because now you can rest the ball of your palm on your desktop and it acts like a pivot from which you can manoeuvre your mouse around using your fingertips. Left, right , forward, back, it's so easy really. You can easily swing your cursor to almost every corner of your iMac's screen without needing to shift your palm from its position. Try doing the same thing with a regular elongated mouse and you'll find you can't because you'll only be able to pull the mouse back so far before you have to move your whole hand backward. And so that's pretty much how we've used mice in the past  — it's always been that way — your whole forearm glides along with your mouse.

Ergonomic Nightmare?
Is the round mouse really an "ergonomic nightmare", as someone recently asserted? I'm not going to say that those who regard the mouse with such disdain are mistaken. But there is such a thing called mindset. And because we've all used oval-shaped mice in the past, suddenly when a round mouse pops up, we say it's not "ergonomic", like we all know exactly what the science of ergonomics is about. We think that just because a mouse is shaped to mould itself into the hollow of your palm, that automatically makes it ergonomic.

I'm perfectly happy with my round mouse, dimple or no dimple. I use it on average 8 to 12 hours a day, sometimes more, and have been over the last couple of months. No repetitive strain injury, no carpal tunnel syndrome, nothing. I actually find it comfortable. And I'm certain I'm not the only one who feels this way.

When the first Mac appeared in 1984, it came with a mouse that could hardly have been deemed as ergonomic by today's notions of what that means. Only after almost ten years, about the time that I bought my Color Classic in 1993, did the elegantly-profiled Apple Desktop Bus Mouse II (the immediate predecessor of the subject of this article) make its debut. But up until that time, everyone seemed contented enough with a rectangular mouse, right? Mindset.

If you really want to talk about ergonomics, then talk about the keyboard, something which you use just as often if not more than your mouse. Unlike the cool translucent Adesso keyboard for the iMac shown on your right, most are designed as if we had arms sticking straight out of our chests six inches apart. Fortunately or otherwise, that isn't the case, and so as my forearms extend towards the keyboard at a 60-degree angle, my wrists have to be turned back outward so that my fingers conform with the keycap positions. Now how ergonomic is that? And then there's this whole debate over Dvorak and Qwerty key-positions...

The bottom line is this:

• You can easily tame the iMac's wandering mouse if you'll just cast aside any preconceived notions of how a mouse ought to be shaped and spent a few moments acquiring a feel for a mouse that's, well, different.
• Whether the round mouse is ergonomic or not is subjective at best.

Related Articles:
Want to read more about ergonomic keyboards? Check out Charles Moore's article, "Ergonomic Keyboards For The Mac: An Overview".

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