The Triangle

Issue date: 8/19/05 Section: Sci-Tech

Media Credit: www.apple.com After over 20 years Apple has released their first two button device. But it´s actually a no-button device, since the input on the Mighty Mouse(pictured, bottom right) is done with capacitative sensors, like a touchpad. There´s also a scroll ball up on top, and left and right "squeeze" buttons. All at the cost of $49, and it´ll play on your PC just as nicely.

Mongello

In the beginning, there was no mouse. Users typed away at their keyboard, using cryptic keyboard shortcuts to perform functions. Then, Xerox PARC came and designed the first device that people think of when they think "computer mouse," with three buttons. Always going against the grain, Steve Jobs insisted on having a mouse with only one button for his then new Macintosh. Apple has stood its ground on keeping things simple for users by only giving them one button to click, but the times have changed and like with their switch to Intel, new conditions exist that obsolete their one button mouse philosophy and Apple has finally designed a mouse with multiple buttons. What can I say? Two heads are better than one.

Anyway, that's not to say Apple's one button philosophy was flawed, just misunderstood (after all, too many cooks spoil the broth). Apple forced the issue of a one button mouse to make things easier on the user. Apple is known for being on the forefront of usability, and even in the early days Jobs went to great lengths to ensure that anyone who could turn on a Mac would be able to use it right away. The youth of today generally takes right clicking for granted; however, Jobs was concerned with people who have never seen a mouse before (which at the time was approximately 100% of his intended user base) and people who might have poor motor skills or a disability rendering their dexterity too bad to control two smaller mouse buttons. Plus there was the issue of which hand a user would use the mouse with. How would you explain a double-click over the phone to a southpaw with their left pointer finger on the right button? All of these were just contributing factors to Jobs' main concern which was having a consistent interface showing the user all of the available functions.

Having a one button mouse made things simpler for the user, but required software developers to put a little more thought into the design of their interfaces. With only one button, nothing can be hidden behind right click context menus. Everything has to be visible to the user from the start, making things easier to find and use. This sounds great, so why did Apple cave in? The main reason is Mac OS X. While Apple has just only recently released a multiple button mouse, OS X has always supported them. This is because of OS X's Unix background. While it is true that Apple software was designed with a one button mouse in mind, Unix software often assumes the user has two or three buttons. Using applications designed for a two button mouse with a one button mouse is anything but user-friendly. So Apple did what it had to do and designed their multiple button mouse.

Apple's Mighty Mouse features four buttons, two on the top, a squeezable button on the side and a clickable scroll ball that also scrolls through pages both vertically and horizontally. Since it is touch sensitive and programmable, it can even be used as just a one button mouse. Also since it is touch sensitive, the buttons don't give any clicking audio feedback. This is achieved by an internal speaker that emulates the clicking sound when a button is touched. The buttons can even be programmed to run Expose or Dashboard. Of course, as with most Apple hardware, the biggest downside is its price. At $49, you can buy 5 Logitech mice.

It's nice to see that Apple is listening to the masses and offering them a mouse with the buttons required to run today's complicated programs. This isn't an admission of defeat in their crusade for usability, but rather a realization that software developers simply don't care about designing applications for one button mice. To use a quote from their website, "Who has time for intuitive, elegant design when there is so much clicking to do?"



Dennis Mongello is an pre-junior majoring in information systems. He can be reached at dennis.mongello@thetriangle.org.

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