Computer keyboard, mouse and user interface for young ...



Computer keyboard, mouse and user interface for young preschool or primary school children and children with special needs

LAMBROS STAVROU1 –ANASTASIA MAKRATZI2

Department of Preschool Education

Laboratory of Special and Curative Education

University of Ioannina

45110 Panepistimioupoli Ioannina

GREECE

uoi.gr/laboratories/labespec

Abstract: Computer has been incorporated in school and house environment. The number of children under four who use computer is increasing every day. Are computers, input devices or interfaces, which young children interact with, proper for the needs of their developmental stage? In this paper we present the consequences that an improper equipment or software can have on the development of children. Furthermore this paper is a reference to solutions or recommendations we propose after a two year long observation of a representative sample of children in Greece. These references concern children, four to seven years old or younger which are beginners or not to the use of computer as well as children with special needs.

Key-words: computer, mouse, keyboard, accessibility, children, school, preschool, special education.

1 Introduction

Computer use in school and houses is increasing every day. Many children of the age 4 to 6 and even younger will be involved with computer in the next few years. Is the computer equipment that kindergarten, school or houses are being supplied with compatible with the needs and characteristics of the developmental stage of the young users? What is a convenient user interface if the software is going to be used by children?

In Greece, Kindergartens and primary schools are supplied with adult-designed computers which have adult keyboard and adult-size mouse and are, in most of the times, placed on high tables.

This paper is a reference to problems which appear from the use of an adult computer and input devices when are used by young children or children with special needs like mental retardation, attention disorders or spatial and temporal perception deficiencies and to the solutions we recommend. It is also a reference to some of the characteristics that the user interface should have in order to be easily used by persons of the age and characteristics which were mentioned above.

The conclusions which we present in this paper are based on the observation of a representative sample of totally more then 400 Greek children 3;9 to 6;5 years old, from all social and educational backgrounds, with a little or not at all knowledge of the computer or mouse use. This observation and test of all the elements we mention in this paper was conducted personally by the second of the authors and took place in a step by step, two years long procedure while we were trying to develop software for pedagogical and psycho pedagogical use for children who are in preschool education, beginners or not in computers use, as well as for children with special needs.

2 Computer input devices

The main input devices at the present time and the most common way to interact children with computer and software are mouse and keyboard. Are these devices as they are designed for adults suitable for children?

2.1 Keyboard

Young children or children with special needs have abilities and dexterities which are limited by their age or because of their deficiency. This fact makes difficult the use of an adult designed keyboard. There are many buttons which do not have any obvious or clear differences between them. For a beginner or a person with deficiencies it is extremely confusing and stressing to distinguish those buttons and simultaneously to achieve the educational or amusement goals of the software. All the attention is focusing on searching for the correct button on the keyboard, while the same size, color and the fact that there are too many buttons leads the child to many wrong key strikes. A wrong key press is not an effective press. Even software which is carefully designed and checked is not working. The child is not taking a positive feedback and becomes disappointed and frustrated. The whole procedure of introducing computer use to the child is being destroyed and probably child will hesitate to work again with computer especially in a case that the adult who is supervising child is not sensitive to stop child of trying or if he is not either a competent computer user to help child immediately to correct the results of a wrong movement. A wrong key press or many simultaneously key strikes, which is a very common phenomenon as children of that age are very clumsy, especially if the computer system is not very good quality, can make the whole system or the software to collapse and to have to be restarted. In the same time child should, not only always been supervised by an adult, which any way is necessary, but to be helped and controlled by him as well. This prevents it from acquiring autonomy and self-confident about the use of computer or generally about itself and furthermore can make it to be afraid of not being the cause of a system problem. This way computer instead of being a factor which can improve the development of many aspects of the abilities or generally the personality of the child becomes a cause of exactly the opposite results.

One more factor which should be taken in consideration especially in the countries that their alphabet is not based on the English alphabet, like Greek, or other worldwide which deviate from English is the letter representation on the keyboard. The common is to have double representation on the key-buttons for letters which are not similar with English. This is a cause of confusion for young children who want to write their first words or if the computer is used for their literacy introduction. The result they see on the screen after typing a letter is the most of the times different then the expected and wrong.

2.2 Mouse

The same way mouse, even though nowadays is very accurate and easy to be used, normally has got two buttons and a wheel which can be very easily confused by children. The limited fine motor skills and perception abilities that young children or children with special needs have, can result to a simultaneously press of all the buttons or the wheel use when it is not necessary. Again we have the same results. Ineffective working, deleted work or other unwanted results which can prevent child from a successful with positive feedbacks work and to lead to the distraction of the attention from the software to the mouse and the computer use which is not the anticipated especially if we want to use the computer for psycho-pedagogical reasons. Furthermore child can develop an incorrect hand positioning habit which leads to many mistakes and future hand injury.

Mouse size is also very important for a comfortable and correct use of it. Children have got a small size palm and fingers. Especially if they have developmental deficiencies the size of their hand is even smaller and their fine motor skills are less developed then other children of their age. Our observation has revealed, as we expected, that the normal size mouse is too big for the small child hand. Because of the big size of the mouse and the sort child fingers and the small palm the mouse buttons cannot easily be reached and the hand slips down. This may result to ineffective use of it and to a quick tiredness of the hand as well as to bad habit hand positioning on the mouse which gradually may become a cause of injuries.

Another factor which is connected with the mouse use is the cable length that it has. The child, especially if it is a beginner in computer use, cannot yet control his hand motion. His movements are big and the length of the mouse cable must be long enough for them at least in the beginning of its training. Short length cable frustrates and prevents child from a successful work, until it learns to control his motion and eliminates the pedagogical value of the software.

2.3 Interface

The user interface is another very important factor if the software is going to be used by young children. That is because the developmental characteristics of their age especially the fact that their fine motor skills are not well developed and children are very clumsy doing big or uncontrolled movements while they use the mouse. So a quality factor of the software is to have an interface that can bear that clumsy behavior of them. Otherwise unwanted windows or functions open and files can be deleted. All these make not only the supervision but moreover the intervention of an adult necessary. The appearance and interference of an adult minimize the percent of autonomy, self-confidence and the feeling of self efficacy that the child can acquire while it is working with the software. Also a not proper interface can distract children attention or create confusion minimizing the educational results which would be expected by the use of the software.

3. Recommendations

What can be done in order to reduce these unpleasant affects of computer and equipment when they are being used by persons of this age and capabilities?

The observation of a considerable sample of children working with normal adult size mouse and keyboard and the evaluation of all the elements we mentioned before directed us to the conclusions and solutions which are mentioned below.

If the computer is to be used by a child the mouse must be of a small size. A search in the web as well as in the market has revealed that there are some types of small size mouse specially designed for small children palm and fingers.

But are all of them proper for children?

They also must have some features in order to be appropriate for children use.

Firstly they must not be glossy, caused by the use of a shiny color for attractiveness, because this makes hand to slip.

Secondly even though color is an important factor where and why color or drawings are used is an important factor which needs further examination. According to Vygotsky [1], signs and tools which can be words, colors, or other elements can work as intermediary tools which remind child for an action or a mental activity until this function becomes internalized. As it become obvious and according to it colorful mouse or keyboard are not always effective.

The color has to be on certain points on the mouse in a way that it will serve not a toy presentation or a consumer advertising policy but certain educational and psycho pedagogical purposes. The color for a beginner has to make easier for him to distinguish the buttons. In our case and for the special needs of the users we investigate the most important is the left button. The left button on the mouse is the one which help the child to work with the majority of children software requirements. Color must be used in an obvious way on this button to make clear and to remind to it not only which button has to use but to be an indicator of the correct position that the palm and fingers must have on the mouse. Our two years observation proved that the use of color can help child not only to use mouse effectively but it can also be an indicator of correct finger and palm positioning on it. The color on the left button is resulting to an effective use of the mouse even with the younger of the children we observed. It also can automatically remind the correct position of the palm and fingers on the mouse and can lead to a proper repositioning of them on the mouse by child itself without the need of adult interference. This way child becomes autonomous, self confident and earns the most of the educational software. Furthermore the correct position of the palm and fingers as well as of the arm can prevent it from future injuries. During our research we have discovered that the most of children who had a previous knowledge of the mouse use were placing their fingers and palm with a wrong way on the mouse. This was resulting not only to a misuse of it but it was also very difficult to reeducate them to use it correctly.

According to our opinion mouse size and color must be changed according to the age, the general developmental stage and the computer competence stage that the child belongs. Additional color can be used according to the needs of the software we want to introduce to the child.

Exactly the same notifications which were mentioned above are valid in the case of the keyboard. Distance between the buttons is needed so that unwanted double key pressings happen. Color is an important factor which can in the same way and according to the same theory help child to use it effectively. Color must be used in a way that will make it easier for the child to distinguish between buttons and to remind to it which button has to press and not according to an attractiveness policy. The space button and the arrow keys which are the most common for the interaction with the majority of children-software should have a different color. Again color should be used according to the level that the child belongs and the special features of the software or the educational purposes that the software serves. Also the case of letter representation should anyway been taken in consideration. Keyboards should be created with only one alphabet representation on them if they are to be used by young preschool or first level of elementary school children.

A type of mouse which can satisfy some of the prerequisites we mentioned above (even though we searched for the subject probably there are more types which we do not have in mind and so we could not try) is the Microsoft® notebook optical mouse. This mouse even though is not designed for children has a rather good size, is accurate, is not very heavy or very light and further more it has got hollow curved buttons which we found that can support children fingers.

A temporally solution for color and letters on keyboard and mouse is to stick color paper and paper letters only from the language which we want to be used by children. This way computer is not a distracting or confusing factor but it becomes a helpful instrument for further development and socialization of the child.

Since sticking paper is not permanent our solution is the “Adjustable Silicone Covers” (by Stavrou & Makratzi ©Laboratory of Special and Curative Education at University of Ioannina, 2004 [2]. These being changeable according to the developmental and educational needs of the children will satisfy the changing and deferent developing needs of preschool and first levels of elementary school children and children with special needs. These can also help training on the use of computer. The “Adjustable Silicone Covers” would be a solution for a worldwide usage and could additionally help children literacy as well as computer to be a learning and psycho-pedagogical medium.

The interface is one more element which has to be used in a very serious way and according to the goals that each certain software has and the continually changing needs of young children. In case of a psycho pedagogical use our two years long observation has proved that full screen is the most effective interface which can be used. Since children do not have well developed fine motor abilities many times their motion results to big mouse movement and cursor motion. This way if the interface is not full screen many troubling results can occur. This is causing frustration to the child and possibly to teachers or parents who are not computer proficient and capable to react and correct all the mistakes that child can make. The user interface for beginners should be as simple as possible according to the targets that the software has. This can be enhanced progressively according to the developmental level and the special needs of the user. Sound should also be used after critical thought and after taking in consideration all the factors which are involved in the child-computer interaction, the psychological knowledge and the special targets that software has.

One more factor which has already been mentioned above is the general quality of the computer system and hardware. Our research brought to light that children should work with good quality systems which can bear the clumsy behavior of them without collapsing or freezing and give to them stimulus of high quality. We should provide children the best quality of hardware and software, the best quality of sound, and generally quality interaction as children worth.

In case that children work in teams in front of deferent computers in the same class a solution which can protect children ears from noise chaos and simultaneously to give to each child the ability to work with his own tempo are headphones. These do not prevent children from speaking, communicating or collaborating with each other.

Finally if all these conditions are satisfied the computer should be positioned on low surfaces in a way that basic ergonomic principles [3] are satisfied. Low surfaces would integrate computer in the school curriculum or in house like all the other digital devices with which child can interact and not like something special which is for adult work and child is not allowed to touch.

6. Conclusions

Incorporation of computer and new technologies in school or in house for use by young children is not so simple. Many scientific researches should be conducted to give guidance to it having in mind that information technology is changing with the same fast speed that young children change. Decisions that are not based on previous research and planning will not have the anticipated results [4], [5], [6], and could also effect harmfully on health and generally to the normal development of children.

References:

[1]Vygotsky, L.,(A. Mpimpou, S.,Vosniadou Greek trans.), Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes, Athens, Gutenberg, 2000.

[2] Stavrou, L. & Makratzi, A, “Adjustable Silicone Covers”, ©Laboratory of Special and Curative Education, University of Ioannina, Greece, 2004.

[3] IEA Technical Committee, Ergononomics for Children and Educational Environments, Guidelines, URL:

[4] Warschauer, M., Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide, First Monday, Vol.7, No7,2002, URL:

[5] Warschauer, M., Demystifying the digital, divide, Scientific American (Greek Edition), Vol.2, No2, 2004, pp, 40-47. (In Greek).

[6] Stavrou, L. & Makratzi, A., Improving Preschool and Elementary School Children’s Perception of Space and Time Through Computer and Microsoft Power-Point, WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications, Issue 5, Vol. 1, 2004, pp.1417-1421.

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