Forum Discussion
Accessibility for authors - protecting our health
I'm writing this after a long day working in storyline for the majority of the time. Like most people, I do have my frustrations with storyline, but lately my main problems have been related to the physical effects of using the software itself.
I have a nerve condition that is similar in its symptomology to repetitive strain injury, and is exacerbated by similar kinds of repetitive motions. I also have mild arthritis in my fingers. At the moment, after a large session of simple objects style changes, in which I had to do the same action over a hundred times with around six clicks per time, my entire lower right arm is tingling and I have small shooting pains in my fingers and wrist. This could have been made much easier with the ability to use the copy style tool between states of different objects, which doesn't appear to work. Or a restructure of the toolbars to make buttons like line width more accessible in the interface.
My point is, storyline is one of the most mouse intensive pieces of software I use, with the smallest number of keyboard shortcuts available. It would be much appreciated if some thought could be put into making the interface more accessible for authors, as well as thinking about the output for learners. I'm currently typing this using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, because my wrist has frankly given up for the day.
At 42, I have a reasonable amount of my working life left. I'm already at the point where I'm having to reduce the amount of time I spend using storyline – I don't want to reach a point where I have to stop using entirely.
Short of any future improvements to SL, I'd be interested to know of any tips anyone has to reduce mouse use in Storyline, or mouse alternatives people have used. I found a footrudder the other day while looking around online, but it's no longer made. I'm considering a programmable foot pedal at the moment, but that's more for shortcuts/maybe scrolling.
Thanks
Nic
For most of my 30+ years, I have used a Kensington Expert Mouse Wired Trackball. The detachable wrist rest means my wrist is at a neutral angle, the large ball is easy to roll around with my fingers, the scroll ring allows me to scroll large documents much easier than click-hold-drag, let go, click-hold-drag, let go, lather, rinse, repeat. Cursor speed and the 4 buttons are customizable (I use "chorded" buttons a lot for paste and navigation operations).
Considering how many little apps with questionable usefulness Micro$oft drops on the current versions of Windows, it's unfortunate one isn't a utility equivalent to the old MacroMaker for Macintosh from the late 80s-early 90s. I got a LOT of use out of that little utility, with programs which had few or no keyboard equivalents (kinda like the situation we're in now). It had a considerable amount of horsepower, and was aware of which program you were running at the time. Being able to assign keyboard equivalents to specific sequences on the ribbon would seem to be a no-brainer, yet, here we are.
Hi Joseph :) Thanks for the suggestion. My biggest problem seems to be the buttons rather than just the mouse itself. It's the clicking that does the most harm. Does the trackball have features that would reduce that?
I've tried a vertical mouse before with no success...I've had a pen tablet for years as well, but I don't find it so useful outside of graphics applications these days. It's more of a faff than the mouse so I find myself using that more.
I have set up shortcuts with Dragon so I can speak them, but as you say it's limited by the software. It has Macro functions but I find they work too unpredictably to be worth much.
While you would still be using buttons for actions which require a click, the number of clicks would be reduced overall.
- The "primary," aka left-click, button would be under your thumb, right-click would fall under the pinkie/ring finger.
- Click-and-hold could be "chorded" to a pair of buttons so that you click the buttons simultaneously, let go, perform your action using the ball, and then click again to release.
- Scrolling a window vertically would no longer involve clicking and holding the up/down buttons or clicking, holding, and dragging the scroll thumb at all; the scroll ring would take over that functionality.
