Modeling the Orientation of Graphical Objects on Computer Displays Using Indented Mouse Wheels

Graphic designers and model builders frequently rotate graphical objects on computer displays to make a drawing or scene. This experiment measured the movement time and error rate for participants to rotate sectors with various angular widths within larger target sectors with various angular tolerances, using a mouse wheel with discrete physical indentations. Tolerances were varied from very precise and difficult (a single mouse wheel position) to very gross and easy. The analysis modeled orienting by dividing the total movement time into three periods in order to determine the separate effects of the object angular width, angular tolerance and amplitude. The results explain that the mouse wheel with physically discrete indentions is particularly adept at precise orienting but slow at rotating the object through large angles.