How to Design a Computer Mouse: The Ultimate Human Factors Exercise for High School Students

What better way could there be to teach human factors, ergonomics, and anthropometrics to high school industrial design students, then to have them design an piece of technology they use every single day? And what better piece of technology to design than a computer mouse?  A computer mouse has to be comfortable. It has to be gripped easily in either hand (right and left). It has to be intuitive. And it has to look great too.

Ensuring a computer mouse is comfortable, and is gripped easily in either hand is not an easy task. Students need to measure key dimensions on their hands and document the extreme large and extreme small sized hands in a given population (in this case their classroom). Since a computer mouse has to be used by everyone within a given population, it needs to be comfortable, and be gripped easily by the largest and smallest hands - as well as every sized hand in between.

Once the extreme large and small hand sizes are documented, students can calculate the median sized hand (seen in the above sketch). Students design to this median sized hand, but each prototype must be tested by the given population and confirmed. Because the mouse is in essence a compromise in size, it isn't perfect for everyone. But it is nearly perfect for everyone, and that is the target.

After the median hand is traced onto paper, students layout a top view, side view, and end view for the mouse - on top of the sketched hand. The length of mouse is roughly the distance from the tip of the middle finger, to the middle of the hand - as this is the working position. Industrial design students must pay close attention to the grip area on the left and right sides of the mouse (top view), and make the design symmetrical, to accommodate left and right handed users. They must also ramp the mouse from the back to the front, to ensure a natural grip and for the fingers to comfortably reach the front buttons.

Next, the top, side, and end views are traced onto a piece of surfboard foam (11-15 pound density) with dimensions of about 4" long x 3" wide x 2" high. The three views are easily transferred to the foam by poking holes through the layout paper, along the lines of the views, into the foam - then connecting the dots on the foam. Once the three views are transferred to the foam, its time to band saw the mouse form - in two steps.

First the top view is cut out. Care must be taken to not remove the cut out piece from the rectangular block. The rectangular block, with the cutout piece still intact (a bit of tape to keep it in place is ok), is then laid on its side and the side view cut out. The result are cuts that combine the top and side views. What's left is for the student to replicate the end view by hand using a sanding block. And wholla! the mouse form is complete.

Finishing steps involve "skinning" the mouse form (but not the bottom) with joining compound (water based and safer), or with thinned Bondo (styrene based and not safer), sanding the final form, and painting the mouse gloss white. The end result are prototype computer mice, based on solid human factor research, and a classroom full of accomplished future industrial designers.   

Industrial Design Education for High School - Breaking the Rules

Traditional industrial design education focuses primarily on creating industrial designers. Competent designers. Innovative designers. Designers that think out of the box. While design programs differ, the focus is essentially the same. Create industrial designers.

School districts are looking at industrial design education for their high school students, but for entirely different reasons. While it would be wonderful for high school students to fall in love with industrial design with the dream of becoming a designer (this does happen), the vast majority do not. But this is not a failure. Quite the contrary.

Industrial design education in high school can be the ultimate motivator. Students that don't engage with traditional curriculum, become extremely engaged with industrial design. Why? Researchers know project based learning engages. And industrial design education is project based learning. How does it go beyond mere project based learning?

In a word, it's cool. In a sea of un-cool subjects and curriculum, designing cool stuff is hard to resist. OK, it should be said that designers do more and should do more than design "stuff". But this is high school. Give the student a break.

For the college student in an industrial design program, problem solving and the creative design process are essential tool box skills to be learned and honed - for the program and for one's career. But for the high school student, in an industrial design program, problem solving and creativity are life skills.

While industrial design programs that teach user-centric design enable the student (and eventually the industrial designer) to engage the user as a key element of the design process with the goal of optimizing user experience, for the high school student, user-centric design teaches empathy.

Math, science, and writing are an essential part of design education, yet their role in college level curriculum is essentially supportive. Designers need to know these skills, but for the high school student, that either lacks this knowledge and ability, or shuns it, industrial design education can "sneak in" these skills and make them relevant.

Industrial design education curriculum for high school and for college are very much the same. But what students take away is very different. In this way high school industrial design education does break the rules. But as high school students might say, some rules are meant to be broken.