3 ms·

As a long time typist, everything changed when I started floating my hands. A keyboard that optimizes for less wrist flicker helped too. Important keys in the m

by Swizec 6y ago

As a long time typist, everything changed when I started floating my hands. A keyboard that optimizes for less wrist flicker helped too. Important keys in the middle instead of the side. Another big one: Use the mouse from your shoulder/elbow, not your wrist. Keep the wrist stabilized. Same with pencils, pens, and other drawing utensils. Drawing and writing from your elbow makes all the difference and suddenly you can keep going forever. And your lines look cleaner.

JauntyHatAngle 6y ago
Not directly related, and hardly scientific , but the general consensus technique for high level FPS video games is to use arm rather than wrist, with an extremely low sensitivity, as this is more precise and consistent than flicking around with your wrist. It's also generally accepted that people who "aim" with their wrist tend to need to warm up and take breaks more as it is more straining than using the arm. It seems to concur with the conventional wisdom on art, piano and typing.
vladvasiliu 6y ago
This is interesting to me, especially since I've reached more or less the same conclusion by myself (don't play any instrument nor draw, though). But, I'm curious: how do you place your mouse on the desk? To me, there's one big difference between the paper and the mouse: The former sits in front of you, while the latter sits to the side. I find it uncomfortable to move the mouse too much to the side, even though I use a fairly compact keyboard (MS Sculpt). I've spent some time a few months ago trying to optimise my mouse situation. In the end, I went with a "gaming" mouse [0] for the high resolution and (relatively) low weight so that I can move it around with just my fingers. However, I'm not a very heavy mouse user, so maybe this helps rest the fingers. I've also tried a vertical mouse, but the issue with moving the arm too much to the side was present, too. What also worked well for me is a thumb operated trackball (I use a Logitech MX Ergo). --- [0] For the curious it's a Logitech G703. It was the best compromise I've found looking for a wide and lightweight mouse. Wireless is a nice bonus, it was barely more expensive than the G403 which is otherwise identical.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  I am an artist and my drawing tablet is on the right side of my keyboard, where most people would put a mouse. And yes I do generally draw from the shoulder, not the wrist - that got drilled into me by the elder artists at my first real animation job. I don’t have any problem moving my stylus side to side. When I’m working at my desk sometimes I end up shoving both keyboard and tablet to the left a bit, so the tablet is more in front of me. It’s not right in the middle like a piece of paper would be if I was hunching over a drawing board, though, it’s still distinctly to one side. When I’m out and about with the laptop I tend to align myself more with the screen, so the tablet is distinctly off to the side. Never been a problem.
  - vladvasiliu 6y ago
    Do you move your hand often back and forth between the tablet and keyboard? I could see positioning myself such that moving the mouse from the shoulder would be OK, but then the keyboard would end up in an awkward position for my right arm. In my case, I use the keyboard much more than the mouse.
    - egypturnash 6y ago
      The right hand pretty much stays on the tablet when I'm drawing. Left hovers over the keyboard hitting shortcuts, except for ones waaaaay over on the right side. If I try to go back and forth a lot then I'm gonna either be constantly putting the stylus in and out of the holder, or typing with it between the fingers of my right hand, neither of which is much fun.
  - klondike_klive 6y ago
    My first brush with RSI was drawing with my tablet too far to the right hand side, and pressing too hard. Nowadays it's just improper placement and having to crane over the tablet (with my left hand) to the keyboard shortcuts. Out of interest, and assuming you use a tablet with extra buttons, how do you use them? Or do you disable them like virtually every other tablet user I've ever met :)
steve_adams_86 6y ago
I learned this while learning drawing techniques as a kid. Drawing a circle from the shoulder and elbow, for example, will look much smoother and be much easier to accomplish with just a little practice. Any sweeping motions will appear more sweeping. Practicing shoulder and elbow mobility is a great asset to hand control for all kinds of things. It isn’t always intuitive, perhaps because we learn to write, type, and draw on such small surfaces and tools.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
> Drawing and writing from your elbow makes all the difference and suddenly you can keep going forever. And your lines look cleaner. Does this truly work? I remember stumbling on a page that advocated using shoulder and elbow movements to control drawing utensils, for the reasons you describe. I recall it looking pretty sketchy, "one weird trick" type, but I figured what the hell, it's cheap to try and my handwriting sucks. So I tried and tried, for many hours (EDIT: [0]), and observed that it's not only much more tiring than "normal" way of drawing/writing, it's also extremely imprecise. Sure, I can sort of draw a straighter line this way, but I can't control where it goes or stops with enough precision. And everything has to be bigger, because again, precision for normal-scale letter writing just isn't there. Or maybe my body is just broken? (Also tried this with a mouse, with the same results - everything takes too long, and keeping the arm unsupported is tiring.) -- [0] - I dug out my old notes; it was exactly 8.5 hours of focused, deliberate practice of drawing letters using arm and forearm for control, over the span of a month, on top of any writing activity I'd otherwise be doing. I may also have spent additional 1.5 hours on the aforementioned practice, but the notes aren't sure if that really happened (I tracked it in two systems, there was an entry missing in one).
- dooom 6y ago
  8.5 hours is not many hours for what is essentially a major technique change. It could be that you were just rushing to a conclusion.
- blindluke 6y ago
  > it was exactly 8.5 hours of focused, deliberate practice As already pointed out, that's a very low amount of practice to change the technique. For piano, when learning forearm rotation, the point when it became much, much more comfortable to me than my previous way of playing was after roughly two months of practice, 10-12 hours a week. That's just my experience, but when I asked my teacher about not feeling improvements around the one month mark (40 hours in), he said that everything is progressing at an expected rate.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
> Another big one: Use the mouse from your shoulder/elbow, not your wrist. Keep the wrist stabilized. I had a mouse once that was shaped like a joystick, so your hand was 'side-on' instead of face down. It FORCES you to use your whole arm, basically.

by Swizec 6y ago

JauntyHatAngle 6y ago

Not directly related, and hardly scientific , but the general consensus technique for high level FPS video games is to use arm rather than wrist, with an extremely low sensitivity, as this is more precise and consistent than flicking around with your wrist. It's also generally accepted that people who "aim" with their wrist tend to need to warm up and take breaks more as it is more straining than using the arm. It seems to concur with the conventional wisdom on art, piano and typing.

vladvasiliu 6y ago

This is interesting to me, especially since I've reached more or less the same conclusion by myself (don't play any instrument nor draw, though). But, I'm curious: how do you place your mouse on the desk? To me, there's one big difference between the paper and the mouse: The former sits in front of you, while the latter sits to the side. I find it uncomfortable to move the mouse too much to the side, even though I use a fairly compact keyboard (MS Sculpt). I've spent some time a few months ago trying to optimise my mouse situation. In the end, I went with a "gaming" mouse [0] for the high resolution and (relatively) low weight so that I can move it around with just my fingers. However, I'm not a very heavy mouse user, so maybe this helps rest the fingers. I've also tried a vertical mouse, but the issue with moving the arm too much to the side was present, too. What also worked well for me is a thumb operated trackball (I use a Logitech MX Ergo). --- [0] For the curious it's a Logitech G703. It was the best compromise I've found looking for a wide and lightweight mouse. Wireless is a nice bonus, it was barely more expensive than the G403 which is otherwise identical.

egypturnash 6y ago
I am an artist and my drawing tablet is on the right side of my keyboard, where most people would put a mouse. And yes I do generally draw from the shoulder, not the wrist - that got drilled into me by the elder artists at my first real animation job. I don’t have any problem moving my stylus side to side. When I’m working at my desk sometimes I end up shoving both keyboard and tablet to the left a bit, so the tablet is more in front of me. It’s not right in the middle like a piece of paper would be if I was hunching over a drawing board, though, it’s still distinctly to one side. When I’m out and about with the laptop I tend to align myself more with the screen, so the tablet is distinctly off to the side. Never been a problem.
- vladvasiliu 6y ago
  Do you move your hand often back and forth between the tablet and keyboard? I could see positioning myself such that moving the mouse from the shoulder would be OK, but then the keyboard would end up in an awkward position for my right arm. In my case, I use the keyboard much more than the mouse.
  - egypturnash 6y ago
    The right hand pretty much stays on the tablet when I'm drawing. Left hovers over the keyboard hitting shortcuts, except for ones waaaaay over on the right side. If I try to go back and forth a lot then I'm gonna either be constantly putting the stylus in and out of the holder, or typing with it between the fingers of my right hand, neither of which is much fun.
- klondike_klive 6y ago
  My first brush with RSI was drawing with my tablet too far to the right hand side, and pressing too hard. Nowadays it's just improper placement and having to crane over the tablet (with my left hand) to the keyboard shortcuts. Out of interest, and assuming you use a tablet with extra buttons, how do you use them? Or do you disable them like virtually every other tablet user I've ever met :)

steve_adams_86 6y ago

I learned this while learning drawing techniques as a kid. Drawing a circle from the shoulder and elbow, for example, will look much smoother and be much easier to accomplish with just a little practice. Any sweeping motions will appear more sweeping. Practicing shoulder and elbow mobility is a great asset to hand control for all kinds of things. It isn’t always intuitive, perhaps because we learn to write, type, and draw on such small surfaces and tools.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

> Drawing and writing from your elbow makes all the difference and suddenly you can keep going forever. And your lines look cleaner. Does this truly work? I remember stumbling on a page that advocated using shoulder and elbow movements to control drawing utensils, for the reasons you describe. I recall it looking pretty sketchy, "one weird trick" type, but I figured what the hell, it's cheap to try and my handwriting sucks. So I tried and tried, for many hours (EDIT: [0]), and observed that it's not only much more tiring than "normal" way of drawing/writing, it's also extremely imprecise. Sure, I can sort of draw a straighter line this way, but I can't control where it goes or stops with enough precision. And everything has to be bigger, because again, precision for normal-scale letter writing just isn't there. Or maybe my body is just broken? (Also tried this with a mouse, with the same results - everything takes too long, and keeping the arm unsupported is tiring.) -- [0] - I dug out my old notes; it was exactly 8.5 hours of focused, deliberate practice of drawing letters using arm and forearm for control, over the span of a month, on top of any writing activity I'd otherwise be doing. I may also have spent additional 1.5 hours on the aforementioned practice, but the notes aren't sure if that really happened (I tracked it in two systems, there was an entry missing in one).

dooom 6y ago
8.5 hours is not many hours for what is essentially a major technique change. It could be that you were just rushing to a conclusion.
blindluke 6y ago
> it was exactly 8.5 hours of focused, deliberate practice As already pointed out, that's a very low amount of practice to change the technique. For piano, when learning forearm rotation, the point when it became much, much more comfortable to me than my previous way of playing was after roughly two months of practice, 10-12 hours a week. That's just my experience, but when I asked my teacher about not feeling improvements around the one month mark (40 hours in), he said that everything is progressing at an expected rate.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

> Another big one: Use the mouse from your shoulder/elbow, not your wrist. Keep the wrist stabilized. I had a mouse once that was shaped like a joystick, so your hand was 'side-on' instead of face down. It FORCES you to use your whole arm, basically.