Cursor Displacement and Velocity Profiles for Targets in Various Locations

In order to create an algorithm, which predicts the endpoint of a cursor movement, an experiment was performed to reveal characteristics of cursor movements. In the experiment subjects had to click on a button in the center of the screen after which they moved the cursor onto a target which subsequently appeared. After the target was reached it disappeared. Targets were radially located at angles of n * 45 degrees (0 ≤ n ≤ 7), and at distances of 150, 250 or 350 pixels (34 pixels/cm). Each of nine subjects executed this experiment three times, using either a mechanical mouse, an optical trackball or a mechanical force feedback trackball. The variables included in the analyses were curvature, variability around the mean path and the distance whereon peak velocity occurred. The results show that there is no need to compensate for a curvature other than zero in the algorithm. As the devices differ in their amount of variability and the location of the peak velocity one algorithm for each device is preferable. Within one device it could be considered to have a less accurate prediction or to make a special-case algorithm for direction and distance. To increase the accuracy even more one could choose to make an algorithm for each person separately.