Slim Kiwi

November 13, 2008

My tedious but fruitful transition from using a mouse to using a tablet

by Alastair Halliday

The motivation: purely ergonomics

After 12 years of sitting in front of a computer, working all day with a mouse, I began to develop just enough discomfort in my right hand/wrist in order to consider giving up my incredibly efficient mouse/button layout for a potentially less efficient solution that was more ergonomically sound. Just to be clear, this wasn't a Tylenol kind of pain, but I figured if I adapted soon enough I would be better off overall. The problem searching for a solution is that not a single mouse on the market, at any price that I could find, is designed for the human hand. The natural position of the hand from a sitting position is almost vertical, and while I found one such mouse solution, the button position was reported by users to be so out of place that it caused other hand issues. Thus at a family BBQ I lamented my dilemma to a favorite sister-in-law (easily in the top ten) and she recommended the pen position of a tablet. It seemed to make logical sense. The only issue: I already owned a small tablet and stylus from many years ago and never enjoyed it or stuck with it.

The purchase: Intuos 3, 6" x 11"

Do non-Wacom options for tablets even exist? I purchased a Wacom Intuos3 6" x 11", where the surface of the active area is 6" x 11" but the overall footprint is significantly larger. Out went my logitech keyboard and in came an Apple wireless keyboard to make the distance between my left hand, which I would now need to use more frequently for quick keys, and my right holding the stylus close enough together to keep a natural working position.

Features

Sorry about this reality check from my perspective, but there aren't many usable features to an Intuos. For starters, take away your numerous mouse buttons, remove the scroll button and replace it with a single button that has a rocker in two positions, placed a bit too high to use with great frequency. The lower part of the stylus rocker button is accessible, but still too high. The stylus has an eraser, which I understand in theory but in practicality makes no sense to me. I work with two hands. The left is always on the keyboard using modifier keys. Lifting the stylus, turning it over, "erasing" and then lifting it and turning it back over just isn't an efficient tool-changing process. I could perhaps see an illustrator reclining in his chair without a keyboard using this feature, but I am simply using it as a mouse replacement. The Intuos tablet does come with four buttons and a touchpad slider (like on your laptop) on both sides. So 8 and 2 in all. These too are useless. Thanks for providing them as an option, but to take my stylus hand off the plane in order to use these buttons is just not an option for me. As before, efficiency is sacrificed, especially with your other hand on quickeys.

Using the tablet with multiple displays

I have two displays, a 23" and a 20". There are many options for mapping your Intuos to your displays. One option is stretch-to-fit, a phrase to a designer that's unbearable in any context. That's the way my engineer friends/clients like to view my designs, without regard for the sizing ratio, stretched in any odd way. The problem with the Intuos "stretch-to-fit" option is that, depending on the dimensions of your tablet and dimensions of your monitor, your x and y movements are disproportionate. Move your hand one inch to the left and it will travel 200 pixels, but move your hand one inch up and your cursor will move only 100 pixels. Not having the cursor directly map to my movements in the stretch-to-fit mode wasn't an option for me.

Another mode mapped to the display perfectly. However, my displays' width to height ratio are greater than 6 x 11, leaving me with full horizontal coverage on the tablet, but dead space on an inch vertically. Moving the cursor all the way to the top of my display left an inch of space on the tablet where nothing would happen if I put my stylus on it. I expected this, but would highly recommend measuring the pixel ratio of your displays and matching that with the ratio of the tablet you intend to buy.

Intuos Pre-sales and Tech departments didn't seem to understand my concern regarding pixel ratio and displays. Let me be clear here: While the Intuos technology may feature an incredibly precise amount of resolution, its small size is a limiting factor. With only 6" x 11" of physical space to move a cursor over a huge amount of display pixel space, my translated movements are just not as precise.

Think of it this way: A designer ignoring usability may embed a 99-page document in a small Flash frame with a scrollbar. Dragging the scroller in that small window just a little bit, many, many pages of text will fly by. Trying to drag just enough to read the next line or paragraph becomes very difficult. The same is true for the tablet. My movements, unlike those of a mouse, are simply less precise. In fact, I had planned on purchasing a third display, but since getting the Intuos I can see that doing so would only continue to reduce the precision of control I have. Bummer.

Thankfully, Intuos provides an interesting solution to this problem in the included software, which I have assigned to the only button on the tablet that I make use of. Using the software, you can map your tablet to a single display or across all displays. I continue to use both my displays and have the tablet mapped to both. If, however, I'm really struggling with getting a pixel in just the right place, doing detailed work, I hit the toggle button and map my tablet to a single display. Then when moving across the tablet I'm only moving my cursor across one screen, increasing my precision twofold.

Precision stylus handling (why I can't use the tip of the stylus to "click")

The default way to use the tablet is to move your hand over the tablet with your stylus, watch the cursor on screen follow your movement, and then press down to click on something or to drag something. Double-press down on a folder to double-click, etc. I tried this and very quickly found that with my large display space this doesn't make for very precise and efficient use. Taking your stylus from way up in the clouds somewhere and moving down gives you plenty of opportunity to move your cursor in an x or y direction and miss the target you're aiming for. Using the stylus this way is like throwing darts. I changed the settings so that my stylus is always pressing against the tablet in order to stablize it and add friction. This solved the issue of precision and control but took away the default "click" action. I found that using the lower click button on the stylus works best for a "click," in the same way that you use your typical mouse button. Unfortunately, that button is really not positioned in the best place for constant ease of use.

Physical setup and the tablet adjustment period (patience, my friends)

In short, it took me a solid two weeks during a very heavy project cycle to get completely comfortable using my tablet. I found recommendations online to be sure to unplug your mouse and put it in a drawer until you are comfortable with the tablet. I would have to agree. Some designers have said it will take a couple of days, but for me, it was a minimum two weeks. I tried putting the tablet in front of my keyboard, behind the keyboard, on my lap and on a plank of wood across my chair arms (seriously). In the end I found that just placing it to the right of my keyboard where my mouse used to be worked fine once I adjusted to the stylus.

Why I would never go back to a mouse

Given all the hardships and obstacles above, I must say I finally love using my tablet and wouldn't go back to a mouse. The feel of the stylus in my hand, once I got used to it, is far superior to that of the mouse. The lack of pressure on my wrists or hand is great, the feeling is natural, a sense of great control is felt and a little something of a romantic connection to artists and writers throughout history, with their pens and quills, is present. Additions that I didn't count on like pressure control brushes in Photoshop and Illustrator are fantastic also and most likely one of the key reasons others turn to the tablet. Very quickly after getting the Intuos I had a client that immediately took to logos that I created for them using pressure tools in Illustrator. I never would have produced those with a mouse. If you stick to it long enough, and don't expect some great, technological blessing from purchasing one, I think you will find a tablet connects you to your computer in a way that the mouse never can.

Find the Intuos3 6" x 11" on Amazon.