From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Subject: Re: Am I being turned into a handicapped programmer?
Summary: of mice, and markets, and scissors...
Organization: eklektix - Boulder, Colorado
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 03:20:19 GMT

de19@umail.umd.edu (Dana S Emery) writes:
>Interesting point, guess lefties, as all minorities, are subject to
>market-strtegy discrimination.  Unfortunatly, the push for cheaper hardware
>forces the marketplace to go for volume-based strategys, and there lies the
>rub.

Yes, if it actually gets down to the decision to make a product which is
definitely "handed", with no adaptability, then it's unlikely you'll see
left-handed mice.

The solution lies upstream, in the design.  For example, it wouldn't have
been hard for Logitech to make the Trackman adaptable: They just need to
allow the buttons to slide over, or swap places with a spacer block, or
have an extra button--there's probably half a dozen design variations which
would have made it adaptable to use with either hand.  None of them would
have increased the product cost very much.  There are other asymmetric
mouse designs where the adaptability would be harder, but that's because
the design was done without thinking about left-handed users.  (Just
because they can design a right-handed mouse with no obvious adaptation to
left-handed use doesn't mean that it's *necessary* to design it that way.
The case of the Trackman only shows how close they could get and *still*
ignore the issue.)

If the design mostly ignores the handedness issue, the manufacturing and
marketing isn't going to fix it.

>I supose one could startup a mailorder catalog for lefthanded computer
>users, maybe the targeted audience would give it a chance to be
>competitively priced.  Understand its been done before for more general
>stuff like scissors.

Yes, there are left-handed stores and mailorder catalogs.  Occasionally
they're a real find; as often as not they have average-or-below quality at
greatly inflated prices.  (They also like to spend a lot of their space on
novelty items--cups and t-shirts with cutesy sayings, posters, etc.
Nothing wrong with those; they just don't solve the problems of left-
handers.)  I wonder if a left-handed store/catalog wouldn't end up carrying
the left-handed Mouseman--at 1.5x what it would cost in, say, Fry's--and
little else.  Maybe I'm being too cynical.  (Or maybe I'm looking at a
business opportunity?:-)

BTW, if anybody can recommend *good* left-handed stores or catalogs, plz
send me email.

Also, ceb@dbrus.Unify.Com (Caroline E. Bryan) writes about scissors:

>Do not despair, however.  It took scissors manufacturers generations to fig-
>ure out that lefthanded people who used righthanded scissors tended to view
>the scissors as being at fault, not themselves.  All the better quality
>scissors (and garden shears and secaturs) manufacturers now offer lefthanded
>scissors at the same price as righthanded ones...

I wish this were really true.  There are some true left-handed scissors and
shears, but not a lot.  Unfortunately many of the "left-handed scissors" are
actually left-handed handlgrips on right-handed bladesets.  (I know Fiskars
regular orange and budget blue-handled lines are like this.)  This left-
handle/right-blade combination produces scissors which don't work well in
*either* hand, and there's a dishonesty in marketing them as "left handed".
[This is getting off the subject of comp.human-factors...if you'd like a
full explanation of scissor handedness (with free diatribe:-), send me
email.]

>...A little agitation by 25%
>of mouse- and pointer-makers' potential customers ought to inspire the more
>quality-conscious manufacturers to smell the coffee in a tad less time than
>it took the scissors manufacturers.

I'd like to think so.  I guess part of the reason I started this thread was
to explore how many people have had problems and how big the problems are.
It does seem like it will get worse, since the "handed" mice are relatively
recent.
-- 
Dick Dunn    rcd@raven.eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado
   ...Never offend with style when you can offend with substance.