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Out of interest more than anything else, I want to know why I don't have the option of plugging in a second mouse to my PC / Mac. Is it too difficult (as a user) to control each independently? Or is it more a case of the software hasn't been developed to suit two pointer inputs?

I imagine two independent pointers could be useful for collaborative works, i.e. one pointer to one person, especially if both can be used for sketching / working with controls. Similarly, one set of screen, mouse and keyboard to one physical PC could also be useful if their inputs are separated and controlled independently.

It also got me thinking as to why we have multi-touch interfaces, but when it comes to mouse-pointers we're constrained to one at a time. Are multi-touch interfaces really that useful or rarely useful?

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6 Answers

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Two pointers, one person

Don’t forget, that a single user with two mice would be very difficult to use, as your eyes are unable to look at two places at once. Mice are pixel-precise, and our brains probably aren’t capable of being so precise with two inputs.

Two pointers, two people

Productivity would probably be lower as you’d probably need to vocalise every action that is about to take place e.g. “I’m going to copy/paste this object here”.

Multi-touch

It’s the direct manipulation that makes multi-touch quite useful. However, it’s not ideal for highly precise manipulations, as the average index finger probably covers at least 0.5cm by 0.5cm, or about 25px * 25px (625px covered.)

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Actually we can have multiple pointers. Microsoft Multipoint. I've worked with it a couple of years ago to imitate (guess what?) multi-touch on a PC. What an unusual and exciting experience it was! Just try.

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Kostya, if I could give you an up-vote, I would. Thanks - busy downloading the SDK now. – ndorfin Oct 30 at 8:52
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Did you even try? Because I can easily add a usb-mouse to a pc with a ps2-mouse, and the other way round too, or multiple usb-mice. Also, we already have multi-touch interfaces: you DO touch your keyboard right? And how about those people that use a pen and a tablet? And that's even discounting the myriad of devices used as keyboard extensions or gamer-specific one-handed input devices...

Or do I miss the point of the question?

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Adding two mice will still only control a single pointer. I think the question was referring to two pointers on screen being used independently... – Alastair J Oct 29 at 19:34
ah, yes, that makes more sense.. as a question that is... – PatrickKanne Oct 30 at 15:30
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I believe that what makes multi-touch interfaces usable, at least those found on multi-touch screens, is heavily due to the fact that you get the feeling that you're interacting directly with the objects on the screen. With mice, keyboards and other interaction devices it's always about doing something here while something is happening over there. With the direct manipulation of objects that multi-touch screens provide, one layer of abstraction is removed and that, I think, is the key to why it's perceived as more easy and natural to use.

I think that using two mice would not provide that same natural interaction since you're not in that sense directly manipulating the objects on the screen.

The other aspect of it is that multi-touch interfaces are hard to design properly. It's easy to get it wrong and then it's probably not that natural or usable at all.

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Assuming it's one mouse per hand, and that yu want to controls two pointers, there aren't many activities that naturally require two hands -- at least, not for the types of tasks that people typically do on computers.

Or perhaps the reason there aren't two-pointer user interfaces, is because neither Xerox, Apple, or Microsoft has yet felt the need to offer this in their operating systems.

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Multi-touch is an input mechanism, meant for your fingers.

The cursor is the result of the input, meant for your eyes. At any given time, you can only concentrate on one part of the screen, that's why multiple pointers would be confusing.

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