Multistream input: An experimental study of document scrolling methods

Navigating through on-line documents has become an increasingly common task in human-computer interaction. This paper investigates alternative methods to improve user performance for browsing World Wide Web and other documents. In a task that involved both scrolling and pointing, we compared three input methods against the status quo. The results showed that a mouse with a finger wheel did not improve user's performance; two other methods, namely a mouse with an isometric rate-control joystick operated by the same hand and a two-handed system that put a mouse in the dominant hand and a joystick in the other, both significantly improved users' performance. A human factors analysis of each of the three input methods is presented.