Instead of considering broad issues, today I will concentrate on a single part of the problems some seniors have becoming comfortable with using a computer: the mouse. Achieving unconscious skill with the mouse and clicking is essential, yet we tend to forget that this is not a natural tool.

Those of you with a historical or psychological background can challenge that statement by referring me to books about PARC or Fitt’s law. Okay, but the rubber meets the road when a senior has difficulty clicking and dragging because her hand is partially crippled with arthritis. Arthritis was not part of the original testing leading to mouse design. Add to that the necessity of keeping in mind “right click for options: left click for actions,” when even that simple mnemonic is not always correct. Most of the people I have seen who have picked up a bit of computer lore have simply memorized certain clicking patterns to get specific tasks done without realizing there is an underlying rationale. This means that learning a new task takes more steps than if they understood the underlying ideas. [Note: "her" is used because most of my students are women, not as a PC revisionist convention.]

None of my students have come equipped with a trackball, but a few have laptops with either touchpads or eraser-type pointers. Each of these has its own special issues, but since the mouse is the most popular, let’s leave the others for another day.

Several issues arise when helping a new student become comfortable with a mouse. First off, try to get them to trash the old rubber ball-based one that came with their machine and get a laser mouse. I’ve measured out parts of my life with rubbing alcohol and Q-tips cleaning sticky mouses (I’ll use that plural until someone complains). It’s not fun. Naive users tend to attribute a jumpy or sticky mouse to something they are doing wrong or don’t understand why it happens. In fact, the little gray band of stuff that builds up on the roller wheels of the classic mouse is dead skin from the user - essentially dandruff. (Did you ever wonder why when you empty a vacuum cleaner bag, the contents are gray in spite of the multi-colored rugs you have? It’s all you. Gray is the color of skin when it dies and dries out, more or less independent of the living skin color.)

Make sure they are not being bothered by a mouse setting that is too “hot.” Many new users have never explored the control panel and do not appreciate that they can change the default settings. Some seniors prefer a slower mouse. All can benefit from knowing they have control. The same thing goes for setting the speed of double clicks. As we age, our reflexes do slow and what is a good speed for a younger person might not do for an older one. But as I said before, I also urge them to set the single-click option so the mental picture they develop of what happens when browsing on the Internet is the same as what they use when activating a local application.

Be sensitive to the fact that new students might not be able to separate the muscle control of moving the mouse from clicking. A common error is pushing the mouse upward when trying to left click. This can result in opening the item above the desired one. Another common error is not coordinating releasing the button with stopping the mouse motion in a click and drag operation. For one client with partially stiff fingers, I recommended keeping her ring finger and thumb wedged against the mouse and the pad to stabilize it while she clicked. Simply raising her finger and thumb a bit while moving the mouse and then lowering them to act as an anchor when she stopped helped her separate the clicking from the moving. Most users do something similar without thinking about it, but describing this technique explicitly helps hasten the process. In another case, a client tried the same thing and found that her little finger made a better anchor with her ring finger on the right button, the middle finger on the scroll wheel, and fore finger on the left button. Both women had various degrees of arthritis, and what was best for them had to be determined by trial and error. When dealing with this class of students, one size does not fit all.

Most of my students have been reluctant to use a scroll wheel, and are perplexed when the auto-scroll function is accidentally activated. I’ve not found a good way around this. Perhaps disabling all such functions until the student is ready could be best. Any hints from readers would be welcomed.