Development and Test of the Recording System for Computer Mouse Activities
Date Issued
2006
Date
2006
Author(s)
Wang, Ching-Shyang
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
Objective: Due to the prevailing of internet and graphical user interface, the pointing device has already become an indispensable input device for computer work. Among them, computer mouse is the most common one. Usually, the tools for exposure assessment in musculoskeletal disorder study are very large, and expensive, and not appropriate for field epidemiological study. Thus, we try to develop a mouse activity recording program, Mlog, in order to meet such a need in large-scale VDT work task study.
Materials and Methods: The Mlog was programmed to record the following parameters: mouse action, time of the mouse being pressed and released, and the coordinates and their corresponding time of the cursor on the screen. There were both Chinese and English interfaces for Mlog. The Mlog user can set up parameters for keyboard control, filing path, filing frequency, and record sampling rate, etc. In the aspect of program test, we use oscilloscope measurement as a golden standard to compare with the electric signals of computer mouse recorded by Mlog v.1 in order to examined the accuracy and reliability of Mlog under various working conditions, i.e., three types of computer capacity – 1.0 GHz, 2.0 GHz, and 3.2 GHz, respectively, and four kinds of computer work loading – 0, 1, 5, 10 programs being executed, respectively. For each combination of computer working condition, the Mlog v.1 was tested with mouse being pressed for different time periods, i.e., 100 ms, 200 ms, 300ms, 450ms for clicking movement, and 1,000 ms, 2,000 ms, 3,000 ms, 10,000 ms for dragging movement. Mlog v.2 was also developed to improve the accuracy of mouse activities recording. In order to compare the accuracy of Mlog v.2 with that of Mlog v.1, Mlog v.2 was examined for different click or drag time periods, i.e., 100 ms, 200 ms, 300 ms, 450 ms, and 1000 ms on 3.2 GHz computer without program being executed . Mlog v.2 was also examined for different data reduce rate ranging of 1 to 9. In addition, we developed a force sensing mouse to monitor force exerted by mouse user. The accuracy of click time being measured by force sensing mouse was checked with level M5 counterpoise and Silicone Rubber Key Switch Feeling Tester.
Results and Discussion: The mean difference between Mlog and oscilloscope measurements was 16.2 (22.3) msec, while the mean (SD) of their ratio was 1.03 (0.04). Meanwhile, the Mlog and oscilloscope measurements was highly correlated with r of 1.000 (p<0.001). Besides, results of multiple linear model analysis showed that computer type has signification effects on the measurement for mouse activity by Mlog v.1, but the difference between computer types was less than 2.984 ms. The new version Mlog v.2 program improved the resolution of the mouse activities recording. The error of Mlog v.2 recording was less than 1 ms. In addition, for the Force sensing resistance) mouse, the force sensor A201 was first tested by level M5 counterpoise with a correlation coefficient, r, of 0.998. FSR mouse was therefore a reliable tool to measure force exerted by operator. It can also work together with Mlog, sEMG and electrogoniometer. Based on the above-mentioned results, it was concluded that Mlog could record the mouse activity accurately, precisely and effectively. The Mlog software developed in the present study could be used in the future study to record the mouse user's movements, and, even more, to probe into the relationship between the computer mouse movements and muscle activity of the user. In addition, it also can be combined with keyboard activities recording program, KBlog, as a more comprehensive exposure assessment tool, to validate the information collected through questionnaire regarding the time of computer, keyboard and mouse use by the VDT users.
Subjects
滑鼠
記錄軟體
Mlog
肌肉骨骼傷害評估
力感測滑鼠
Computer mouse
Record software
Musculoskeletal disorder assessment
Force sensing mouse
Type
thesis
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