Initial Direction

Reason

This topic is of interest because from personal experience, computer mice are generally not cohesive with the working environment, and their traditional shape is not comfortable to work with on a consistent basis. ” According to a report by Forrester Research, there were over one billion PCs in use worldwide by the end of 2008, and over 2 billion by the year 2015.”(Worldometer, 2020). Especially now with Covid-19, more people are working from home on their computers. Carpal tunnel has been combatted with new designs, however newer more ergonomically designed mice although minimalistic, tend to be quite bulky and/or cannot be easily transported in a seamlessly portable manner. Another issue that mice seem to have is that as a mouse becomes increasingly ergonomic, the presence of secondary features and functions is likely to also increase; most of which are normally non-intuitive and require long manual reads to utilize.

SCOPE:

• Focus
  • To find a computer mouse design solution that is more ergonomic, efficient, effective, and low profile. 
• Industry
  • Creative industry/tech industry

• Target Market (this may change)
  • Primary Focus: Creative industry users who spend long hours on a set few of applications including: Video Editing, Visual Effects, Graphic Design, and CAD software.
  • Secondary focus: everyday users / general public Individuals who use computers on a daily or frequent enough basis (at
    
• Exclusions
  • Most computer mouse designs that are at market stage have specifically designed PCBs (printed circuit boards) that are small enough to fit into the enclosure. Although my research will ensure that it would fit, this project will not be finalized with a functioning PCB. Instead I will likely be using Arduino.
  • A base level and/ or a steak holder taught level of coding will likely be utilized, however very high levels of coding will be considered out of the scope of this project.

Methodology

I intend to use the school library online database, along with the internet and primary observation to accumulate the initial bit of research. I will then conduct user interviews with some friends that are within my target demographic, and then with other users (drafting a form 7 if necessary).Eventually I will transition into ongoing user consultation with some of the more experienced users. After the bulk of my research is collected, I will analyse the data using a series of tables and graphs. I will then synthesize this data using a list of pros& cons and with a table of product requirements that I will develop over the course of the project. After my research and data is synthesized, I will then begin initial concepts based on the requirement and pros & cons lists. I will subsequently produce many iterative designs, models, and prototypes (much of which will likely be lightly tested). once I have some concepts that are to full scale, I will begin full testing. I will then go back and forth between revisions to come up with a final working model. This model will not include a PCB and will instead be utilizing Arduino or another coding device such as raspberry pi.  I will then produce a series of posters and video demonstrative elements to showcase the full conceptual design.

Anticipated Obstacles

one obstacle I may face is if the design solution includes secondary mouse functions, some of these may require a high level of coding that is outside the scope of this project. 

References

“How many computers are there in the world?”, Worlometer, 2020, worldometr, retrieved from https://www.worldometers.info/computers/#:~:text=The%20second%20billion%20mark%20was,billion%20by%20the%20year%20201.