Professional and High-Level Gamers: Differences in Performance, Muscle Activity, and Hand Kinematics for Different Mice

ABSTRACT

Computer mouse design can impact user comfort and performance. The effect of mouse design on gamers, who use a mouse for long hours and apply higher velocity movements than office workers, is uncertain. Professional (N = 29) and high-level (N = 19) gamers participated in this laboratory study and performed Fitts’ and gaming tasks (Overwatch^TM) with different mice, and this analysis compared results from a light-weight (87 g) wireless mouse and a very light-weight (80 g) wireless mouse. There was little difference between the mice on muscle activity, hand motion, usability, or fatigue; however, professional gamers preferred the 80 g mouse. Professional gamers achieved higher levels of throughput and lower levels of path deviation than high-level gamers and their hand movement velocities and accelerations were significantly higher (p<0.05). The observed hand movement patterns used by professionals may be useful for instructing other gamers on techniques to improve performance.

Notes on contributors

Li contributed to the data collection, performed the data analysis, and prepared the first draft of the manuscript; Wang contributed to the data collection and survey; Arippa and Barr contributed to the data collection and manuscript editing; Liu and Rempel contributed to data interpretation and manuscript editing. Harris Adamson contributed to experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation, and manuscript editing.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Logitech for their support in this study and two anonymous reviwers for their suggestions and comments.

Disclosure of potential conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no financial conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province under Grant 2019B010149001 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61960206007 and 111 Project under Grant B18005.

Notes on contributors

Guangchuan Li

Guangchuan Li is a Ph.D. candidate at the Beijing Institute of Technology and was invited to attend a joint Ph.D. training program at the University of California, Berkeley for two years. His major is to design and recognize finger microgestures to improve user comfort and interaction efficiency.

Mengcheng Wang

Mengcheng Wang is a Ph.D. candidate in Industrial Design at Northwestern Polytechnical University, majored in Industrial Design. She earned her master’s degree in Design Science from Northwestern Polytechnical University in 2016. Her research interests are ergonomics, work exposure measurement, and product design.

Federico Arippa

Federico Arippa is a biomedical engineer and received his Ph.D. degree at the Biomechanics and Industrial Ergonomics Laboratory of Cagliari University. The main focus of his research is to study the numerous cardiometabolic and musculoskeletal disorders associated with prolonged sitting posture.

Alan Barr

Alan Barr has degrees in biomechanics and biomedical engineering. He is the senior engineer on staff at the UCB/UCSF Ergonomics Graduate Training Program. He has designed and built many prototypes to be formally studied as effective interventions in mitigating potentially harmful effects associated with traditional drilling methods.

David Rempel

David Rempel is an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and started the UC Ergonomics Program in 1991. His research focuses on work-related upper extremity disorders and their prevention through the ergonomic design of tools, workstations, and tasks.

Yue Liu

Yue Liu received his Ph.D. in Telecommunication and information System from Jilin University, China in 2000. He is currently a professor of optics and photonics at the Beijing Institute of Technology, China. His research interests include computer vision, virtual and augmented reality, and the evaluation of 3D display devices.

Carisa Harris Adamson

Carisa Harris Adamson, received her Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Harris is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Her team focuses on preventing work-related injuries and improving human performance, productivity, and health.