Written on October 6, 2008 – 4:28 am | by Maria Mihale |


I have written before about an ergonomic mouse device, the Switch Mouse, released by the world’s better-known manufacturer of ergonomic products for the office, Humanscale. It’s very important for such companies to become aware of the fact that spending lots of hours each day in front of a computer is a widely spread activity and people must do that in maximum comfort and with minimal long-term health risks.

Clicking and scrolling on a regular basis is one of the causes that can lead to pain in the hands, arms, and even in the neck and shoulders. This is why scientists at the medical universities of Rotterdam and Maastricht have intensely dwelled on the problem and developed a new mouse called Handshoe Mouse which combines the state of the art design with usability.



The objective was to develop a contour which ensures a relaxed hand position and the resulting shape does precisely that. In other words, designers tried to create something like the best ergonomic mouse. In order to use the switches and scroll wheel, all you need is a minor contraction of the muscles of the fingers, contrary to conventional computer mouse which requires continuous lifting of the fingers and thus muscle action.

Scientists at the medical universities mentioned above started their research from a very specific purpose, to develop a mouse that is as healthy as a mouse can be. In order to do that, they measured muscular tension in the hands and arms of mouse users and analyzed control behavior over a period of 4 years. The conclusion was surprising: the test subjects had an unnecessary strong muscular tension, even when they are not using the mouse. Project Leader Prof. Dr. Snijders brings the explanation for something like this to happen: “It immediately became clear to us that this is an important part of RSI problems (repetitive strain injury). For the tension in the fingers also directly affects the muscle groups in the neck and shoulders”.



Therefore, they aimed at reducing as much as possible the muscular tension in the fingers, which makes the use of the mouse device a whole lot difficult. Snijders said that “we put the whole hand – id est the ball of the thumb – on the mouse in a relaxed fashion”. In addition, the Handshoe provides control and relief to the affected muscles.

The Handshoe is available in three sizes for the right hand: small, medium and large, so that the ergonomic design could work for anyone of you. To find out which size of the mouse fits your hand, you have to measure on the inside of the stretched out hand, the distance from your wrist (the cross over between hand and arm) up to the tip of the ring finger. This length provides an indication of the required size: length up to around 170 mm is small, from around 170 mm up to 190 mm is medium and larger than 190 mm is large. You have correctly measured the size when the wrist rests comfortably on the tail-end, the second joint of the thumb (proximal phalanx) rests on the thumb rest and the finger tips do not, or just lightly, touch the desktop. The finger tips should be near the lower edge of the buttons, close to the desktop.



The Handshoe Mouse is not only comfortable, but also nice to look at thanks to its special shape, and it’s available in three different colors: deep black, pearly white and high tech transparent. The device is compatible with Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, XP or Vista, with Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X and with Unix, and can be used as soon as it has been plugged into any USB port. It has an 800dpi precision optical tracking, twice the tracking precision of many other optical mice.

The Handshoe Mouse is now available on its official website for an amount of $119.95, for North America and Canada, and €119.95 ($166) for the rest of the world.

(Source Techpin)