Workstations require use of the hands both for text entry and for cursor-positioning or menuselection.

No abstract

Workstations require use of the hands both for text entry and for cursor-positioning or menu-selection. The physical arrangement does not allow these two tasks to be done concurrently. To remove this restriction, various alternative input devices have been investigated. This work focuses on the class of foot-operated computer input devices, called moles here. Appropriate topologies for foot movement are identified, and several designs for realising them are discussed.

We report a usability study of a prototype Google Maps web site -the "Nursing Home Screener" (NHS) siteintended for locating quality nursing homes. Usability testing was conducted in April of 2008 at a health-related public library computer training class for older adults. A total of ten older adults between 57-83 years of age that had little computer experience participated in the testing. Data from the interviews, surveys, and observation showed that the Google map page was puzzling to the majority of these older adults, who lacked the knowledge and skills to be effective with it. Age-related declines in vision and fine motor skills and the library setting also contributed to these participants' difficulties in using the NHS site. Based on the testing findings, we suggest a number of design and training guidelines that may help to facilitate older adults' adoption and use of Web map applications.

Abstrac tAn investigation is on-going concerning th e use of feet instead of hands to perfor m workstation cursor-positioning and relate d functions . In the exploratory studie s reported here, two versions of a particula r foot-operated device, the swing mole, wer e assessed against a mouse in a base-lin e target-selection task . This task had some o f the elements involved in text editing, but di d not directly include keyboard entry . Th e study showed that novices can learn to selec t fairly small targets using a mole, while revealing shortcomings in the current mol e design and suggesting directions fo r redesign .