Design and Manufacture of an Ergonomic Computer Pen

Abstract

A user friendly ergonomic computer input pen capable of obviating the use of the keyboard has been developed. It integrates the standard or conventional mouse functions with the touch stick input device functions. The pen-shaped input device developed can perform the normal mouse functions of scrolling and clicking together with handwriting recognition functions. From the stand point of ergonomic considerations, an input device which does not involve the keyboard and allows an operator to work efficiently is to be preferred in order to reduce the medical conditions called cumulative traumatic disorders (CTD) and repetitive strain injuries (RSI). A test set up to determine the acceptability of the ergonomic input pen using participants drawn from traditional mouse and keyboard users indicated a preference for the ergonomic computer pen. Also the average time by 15 participants to type a particular sentence containing all the letters of the English alphabet using the keyboard was 39.6 seconds, while the average time of the same 15 participants to write the same sentence using the ergonomic pen was 38.5 seconds.