Conclusions

Impact for practitioners

From analyzing the results of the experiments, no single input device was found to be significantly optimum in speed, accuracy, and subjective preference than the others. In all 3 dependent variables, the results consistently showed optimum results in the TouchPad. However, the difference between the 3 devices were not significant enough to conclude any of these devices to be preferred.

Against our hypothesis, the similar structure of the TrackBall to the standard mouse did not prove to increase performance nor subjective preference.

Suggestions for future researchers

Many variations of these notebook computer input devices are out in the market. The TrackBall we used for our experiment consisted of the TrackBall built in on the right hand side of the screen. Notebook computers with TrackBalls below the spacebar are also available. Also, TouchPads come in various sizes. The one we used was 5.75 cm. x 4 cm. More thorough research could be conducted in analyzing the speed, accuracy, and subjective preference on the variety of the models of the 3 notebook computer input devices. The fact that our experiment only analyzed 1 model of each input device may cause our results to be brand specific.

Our experiment analyzed the operations pointing, clicking, dragging, and releasing. Due to the short amount of time to conduct our experiments, we did not analyze the double-clicking operation. Being that double-clicking is a common operation, future researchers may want to pursue study in this area.

 

Refine the theory or develop a new one

For standard mouse users, TouchPad will have slight better performances in speed and accuracy and higher preferences over AccuPoint and TrackBall on a notebook computer. However, the difference is marginal, so a strong conclusion cannot be made.

Department of Computer Sciences Direct questions and comments to the student editorial team