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I have three Perfits, pretty much spanning the evolution of this device, an original ADB unit, a middle generation USB model with a mechanical tracking ball, and the current USB Perfit Mouse Optical with its side-mounted scroll-wheel and rocker switch in addition to the three conventionally located mouse buttons the Perfit has always had.
Contour emphasizes that the Perfit Optical's scroll-wheel is located on the side of the mouse not just to be different, but in order to facilitate unimpeded manipulation of the three mouse buttons. A rocker switch, which sits below the scroll wheel, can be used to page forward or back in a browser, or it can be customized like the other buttons for a total of five programmable buttons. (The mouse is available also in a Perfit Mouse Classic Plus version, without a scroll wheel or rocker switch).
The Perfit Optical's rocker switch can be used to page forward or back in a browser, or otherwise custom configured like the other buttons for a total of five programmable buttons counting the clickable scroll wheel. The two-position side rocker switch uses very light touch internal switches and is designed not to require pinch force to activate. The switches "click" with a very slight forward or backward motion of the thumb.
I'm not completely smitten with the side-mounted scroll-wheel, as I generally only make use of the left and right click buttons, but for folks who like to utilize the full range of mouse click programmability afforded by this mouse, I can see how having the wheel on the side makes sense, and the rocker switch can be handy as well.
A relatively largish mouse with a broad supportive shape in any of the available sizes, the Perfit is contoured to protect against carpal tunnel syndrome, and features a biomechanical advantage that Contour Design claims allows users to click with 50% less click force than with conventional mice. The Perfit was co-designed with a CAD designer who faced losing his livelihood due to repetitive stress injuries incurred by conventional mouse use.
The Perfit is contoured to protect against carpal tunnel syndrome, and features a biomechanical advantage that allows users to click with a claimed 50% less click force than with conventional mice. The broad supportive shape also eliminates unhealthy gripping or clutching. The Perfit was actually co-designed with a CAD designer who faced losing his livelihood due to repetitive stress injuries incurred by conventional mouse use.
The Perfit Mouse Optical, which takes the excellent classic Perfit Mouse design to a new level. Reengineered to incorporate optical technology, improved reliability, and increased functionality, the Perfit Mouse Optical retains all of the ergonomic benefits which have made the original Perfit Mouse so popular.
Carried over from the legacy Perfit Mouse are the basic form factor with:
• Tilted palm support that prevents static gripped by allowing the hand to rest comfortably and rock freely in a balanced, natural posture.
• Elevated wrist support which reduces stress on the wrist by keeping it off the desktop,
• Sculpted elevated buttons to reduce excessive load on fingertips and to help keep the fingers positioned for comfortable activation.
• Thumb support which reduces grip force which has been associated with carpal tunnel syndrome.
New in the Perfit Mouse Optical are:
• An 800 DPI optical sensor which provides precise control, durability, low maintenance, and tracking on virtually any surface.
• A scroll wheel activated by the thumb. This gives you the user added Support, Control and Comfort. Allows you to move the mouse with reduced Pinch Force which is known to increase the risk of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The Scroll Wheel provides scrolling and the textured, rubber coated light touch two position rocker switch provides access to additional repetitive commands.
A light-pressure two-way rocker switch, also a thumb-activated, for initiating chores such as forward and back in a browser. The 2 position side rocker switch uses very light touch internal switches and are designed not to require pinch force to activate. The switches "click" with a very slight forward or backward motion of the thumb. The switch "rocker" is rubber coated and textured to provide maximum grip, with little effort.
"Our primary goal is to provide a high performance mouse that allows users to be comfortable and not become fatigued." said Keith Dupont, Perfit Product Business Unit Manager. "The addition of a scroll wheel and more buttons is certainly not ground breaking for a mouse, but our implementation of these features on our award winning design is."
While my USB and ADB Perfit mice are excellent products, the Perfit Mouse Optical is a significant improvement across the board. I tried using the old and new models back to back for a few days to gauge the difference, and I had almost forgotten what a pain it was to have to frequently clean the ball and rollers in ball type mice - one of those annoyances that quickly disappears from your mental radar screen when you no longer have to deal with it.
I live in a wood-heated house, and dust is a fact of life, so over the years mouse-cleaning was a frequent maintenance chore until the changeover to optical mice, of which I have several. Optical is better, although I find that it's best to use a solid-color mousepad for reelable tracking performance.
As with its predecessors, the Perfit Mouse Optical comes in three left-hand and four right-hand sizes, ranging through small, medium, and large, with an extra-large version available for right-handers only. The sizes are color-coded with the scroll wheel and rockers switch being orange on the small unit, red for medium, blue for large, and green on the extra-large rodent.
The appropriate size Perfit Mouse Optical for you is determined by measuring from the tip of your middle finger to the first crease on your wrist. For me, that turned out to be eight inches on the nose, so I fall in the range for the large size Perfit Mouse of 7 1/2 inches to 8 1/4 inches.
The Perfit Mouse is designed to minimize biomechanical load and to reduce hand and arm deviations from the neutral pronation position. The shape of the original Perfit Mouse was the result of 3 years of testing with users complaining of mouse hand and wrist pain from their existing devices. The mouse's top surface is contoured to fit the palm of the hand to disperse pressure across the palm during use, and the thumb side of the mouse is higher than the other to minimize pronation strain. There is also a support provided for the thumb, which allows movement of the mouse with reduced Pinch Force which is known to increase the risk of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
It is important to read the instructions on proper hand positioning before using the Perfit Mouse, The prescribed mode is to lay your hand more or less flat on top of the mouse, with the weight of your hand and arm resting on your palm, your fingers together rather than spread, with your index, middle, and ring fingers resting lightly on the Contour Perfit Mouse's three buttons. The buttons are elevated and shaped to reduce load on the fingertips.
The elevated wrist support reduces pressure on the wrist by keeping it off the desktop, maintains a straighter wrist alignment, minimizes lateral deviation, balances the hand in a neutral, tilted posture, and prevents static grip by allowing the hand to rock freely.
This posture allows mouse clicking pressure to come mainly from the whole finger being depressed from its base joint, which, once you get used to it, begins to feel quite correct and natural, as well as less stressful on the muscles of your fingers and wrists. From this perspective, the big mouse began to make "perfit" sense.
The Perfit Mouse Optical is highly configurable and programmable in OSX using the Contour Mouse Control Panel, with which you can customize the actions of the five buttons and scroll wheel, as well as other characteristics. A 17-page PDF manual is bundled with the software.
Additional functionality can be added to device by downloading the 3rd Party Shareware driver, Alessandro Levi Montalcini's USB OverDrive. The mouse settings allow you to speed up your daily tasks by assigning useful actions to all the extra buttons in your USB mouse. You'll typically want to assign a control-click to the right button for easy contextual menu access, and use the middle button for auto-scrolling which makes it easy to scroll your documents using the mouse. All the settings can be configured globally or on an application-specific basis. enabling the user to have a "user definable" mouse Control Panel interface as well as application-specific mouse settings, such as auto-scrolling (the ability to scroll applications with a mouse button), smooth scrolling (line by line), user-definable keystrokes using the mouse, double-click, option-click, control-click, and a other button options.
Contour's claim of the Perfit Mouse's ergonomic goodness has been scientifically validated.
One study, entitled "Ergonomic Test Of Two Hand-Contoured Mice" conducted by Wanda Smith, Bob Edmiston, and Dan Cronin of Global Ergonomic Technologies, Inc. in Palo Alto, California, tested the Contour Perfit Mouse in a shootout with the Microsoft Ergonomic Mouse.
These researchers determined that, "Although there were no significant performance differences between the two mice, significantly less muscle effort and postural deviation from neutral occurred with the Contour mouse. In addition, the Contour mouse was significantly more positively rated for ease of use, comfort, and design."
At the end of the test, participants in the study were asked to rate, on a seven point scale, 27 usability, comfort, and design features of each mouse. The Contour Perfit Mouse came out on top in 21 of the 27 categories and was rated "significantly better" in six categories. In nine comparative features ratings evaluated, the Contour Perfit Mouse was rated best in eight, "significantly better" in four, and the last category was a dead heat.
The researchers summarized that: "In this study, the Contour mouse resulted in significantly less overall muscle effort than the Microsoft mouse for most of the test tasks. Finger abduction and ulnar deviation resulted in the highest muscle effort -- almost twice that for hand extension and arm pronation. The average muscle effort for finger abduction, ulnar deviation, and arm pronation during Contour mouse use was significantly less than muscle load during Microsoft mouse use.
"In conclusion, this study appears to demonstrate that the Contour mouse met its design objectives of reducing biomechanical load and discomfort compared to the most commonly used ergonomic mouse without sacrificing user performance."
The second study was conducted by an independent research agency at "a major semiconductor manufacturer. "This study compared ten different input devices, including seven mice, two trackballs, and a trackpad. Among five specific categories rated by the program participants, the Contour Perfit Mouse finished in first place in four of them, and fifth in terms of drag and click capability. In the overall rating the Contour mouse finished first overall among people with medium and large sized hands, and a very close second among people with small hands, but you should be noted that the unit used for the test but all participants was a medium-size Contour Perfit Mouse. If proper sized mice had been used by everyone, it is very likely that the Contour mouse would have swept the field.
Yet another study entitled "A Joint Labor/Management Comparative Study of Various Non-Keyboard Input Devices in a Call Center Environment," by US West's Corporate Ergonomist, Jim Stewart and the Communication Workers of America's occupational safety and health director, David LeGrande, was presented at the 3rd Annual Applied Ergonomics Conference held in Los Angeles, California. http://www.iienet.org/conted/ergoconf.htm
The ergonomic benefits of the Contour Perfit Mouse, Cirque Touchpad, and Logitech Mouseman were evaluated in this 6 week study conducted at the Albuquerque US West site. "A total of 66 subjects entered the study, and 61 completed all four phases of the study."
According to Stewart's research, "The Contour mouse groups responded most positively during the study period, including a positive assessment of smoothness of general effort required, accuracy and ease of use." Also, the Contour Perfit Mouse had the best ratings in "Comfort", "Ease of Use", "Accuracy", "Feel" and "Ease of Position" categories examined.
Some of the findings showed a 48% reduction in pain after 3 weeks of using the Contour Perfit Mouse compared to the original "Control" device, which was the Logitech Mouseman. The Contour Perfit Mouse users post-study results showed an increase in pain of 37% after taking the Contour Mouse away and giving the users back the "Control" device for a 4 week period.
You can read more about these studies and several others here:
http://www.contourdesign.com/perfit_why.htm
Contour's Perfit Mouse was also voted "The Best Ergonomic Product" at an exhibition of ergonomics products at the 13th Triennial Congress of the International Ergonomics Association in Tampere, Finland, where top ergonomists from all over the world came together to share their knowledge and experiences.
As noted, the Perfit Mouse has three main buttons, which are Programmable using Contour Design's downloadable OverDrive software that enables customization of the Perfit Mouse and allows the user to have a "user definable" mouse Control Panel interface as well as application specific mouse settings, auto-scrolling (the ability to scroll applications with a mouse button), smooth scrolling (line by line), user-definable keystrokes using the mouse, double-click, option-click, control-click, and a other button options.
In summary, I like the Contour Perfit Mouse Optical. It would be great to have a left-handed Perfit Mouse in addition to the right handed one, as I have also been cultivating pointing device ambidexterity as another means of spreading the stress around.
My only real criticism of the Contour Perfit Mouse is that it is just a tad expensive, but it appears to be very high quality, My older Perfit mice have proved durable and trouble-free, and there is nothing else quite like it on the market. The scientific research indicates that it can be an ideal choice for people who have mousing pain. I can comfortably recommended it without reservation.
System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems:
* Mac OS 9.x and earlier
* Mac OS X
* Windows 98, 98SE, Me, 2000 and XP
Perfit Mouse Optical MSRP $109.95.
For more information, visit:
http://www.contourdesign.com/pmo
http://www.contourdesign.com
http://www.contourdesign.com/awards.htm
http://www.siggraph.org/s2007/
(*)Winner of the "Best Ergonomic Product" award at the International Ergonomics Association Expo
Appendix
Perfit Mouse Optical Key Features
• 800dpi Precision Optical Tracking
Twice the tracking precision of many other optical mice. No performance degregation due to dirt buildup like "ball" style mechanisms.
• Multiple Sizes for both left and right hands
The Perfit Optical Mouse is available in Small, Medium, Large, and Extra-Large for the right hand and Small, Medium and Large for the left hand.
• Sculpted Elevated Buttons
This enables the hand to remain open with the fingers extended in a ready position for quick button activation. Buttons are elevated and shaped to reduce excessive load on the fingertips.
• Thumb Support with Integrated Scroll Wheel & Two position rocker switch (Perfit Mouse Classic Plus models do not have Scroll Wheel)
This gives you the user added Support, Control and Comfort. Allows you to move the mouse with reduced Pinch Force which is known to increase the risk of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The Scroll Wheel provides scrolling and the textured, rubber coated light touch two position rocker switch provides access to additional repetitive commands.
• Elevated Wrist Support
Reduces pressure on the wrist by keeping it off the desk top. Maintains a straighter wrist alignment and minimizes Lateral Deviation. Balances the hand in a neutral, tilted posture. Prevents static grip by allowing the hand to rock freely.
• Multiple Platforms
The Perfit Optical Mouse support both PS2 and USB connections, providing support for the majority of todays and older computer systems.
• Programmable Software
Using Contour's driver software enables you to customize the Perfit Mouse Optical and accomplish tasks faster and easier. Set the buttons individually:
http://www.contourdesign.com/pmo/pmo_drivers.htm
Charles W. Moore
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