Peripherals/Child Friendly Mouse

Young children have not yet fully developed their motor skills (fine motor skills in the hand and fingers typically develop fully between the ages of 5 and 6) and have trouble using traditional mouse buttons. It is claimed that children click next to targets, that pressing down is not intuitive, and that kids tend to grip all their fingers at the same time so that the mouse is squeezed rather than clicked. This could lead to frustration and detract from the educational experience.

The Child Friendly Mouse is intended to solve the problems children have when they use a traditional mouse. Besides being small, it has a single wide soft button under the front.

You can read the advertisement for licensing the patent from them.

Problems

• This mouse is not usable by children with long fingernails.
• While software can easily map two buttons as one, it can not go the other way.
• Because button presses are horizontal, undesired mouse movement is likely while pressing the button.