bethposting

beth (defunct)

@bethposting

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ireneista
@ireneista
bethposting
@bethposting

ergonomics tip

if you have big hands and you're using a small-ish mouse a lot and your hands/wrist hurts, i really recommend getting a bigger mouse. it has seriously made a big difference for me

pendell
@pendell

May I Add

I just purhcased a (large) vertical mouse and it has immediately Changed Everything and I can never go back. Wrist pain ABOLISHED.

ireneista
@ireneista

oh yes absolutely

we have a left handed vertical mouse, so as to put the strain on the hand we haven't damaged as much yet

(we also have a right-handed one, but we don't use it, although one friend with RSI did point out that there is no reason we can't have both plugged in at once)

ergonomics is a very individual thing, don't just buy fancy products, think about where your stuff hurts and what position you'd like to be in, and then buy the product that lets you be in that position. learning to feel where the pain comes from is half the challenge

but yeah! vertical mice are great. not using tiny mouse is also great. repetitive stress injury is the characteristic work-related injury for programmers and many other knowledge workers, and as workers we all need to talk about it more. we strongly encourage people to pay attention to it when you're young. we can still feel every bad decision we've ever made about posture, they just... stuck with us.......

bethposting
@bethposting

as someone who used a laptop on her upper torso, with no external keyboard, while lying down, throughout college and then got carpal tunnel, it's never too early to start actually trying to be ergonomic

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in reply to @pendell's post:

gabu
@gabu

i wish someone would make a vertical mouse with Added Gamer Buttons

my G502 has 2 extra buttons on the side of left mouse button (i mapped em to [ and ]) and a big thumb button under back/forward (mapped to G)

these come in handy with games SO much and help pain in my left hand a lot (no need to reach left hand across the keyboard or let go of WASD). for example [ and ] mapped to hotkeys for using abilities or melee attack, mapping G to throwing a grenade, etc.

i just need a vertical mouse with like 3-4 extra buttons that can be mapped to keyboard keys, nothing fancy, and i'd be set forever

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pendell
@pendell

I just bought the MX Vertical, it's pricey ($85) but it has exactly what you're describing. Left click, right click, middle click, and then a button on the top and two buttons on the thumbrest area. By default they're mapped to back-forward and the top button is defaulted to, like, changing between two mouse sensitivity presets? But in LG's software you can not only change those mappings systemwide, you can change them on a per-app basis which is really nifty, though I personally just leave them on back-forward for web browsing and have the middle button mapped to Snip & Sketch so I don't have to remember the dumb shortcut to take a screenshot anymore haha.

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gabu
@gabu

yeah, i've seen it before and that doesn't sound like what i'm describing sadly :(

left/right/middle + back/forward (buttons 4 and 5) on the thumb are standard mouse buttons, so only that "top" button would be an extra one

the g502 has three extra non-standard buttons on top of the standard 5 buttons, and i use all three commonly in games

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in reply to @ireneista's post:

deltavee
@deltavee

Back when I was in the parts department at a Porsche dealer, I did a lot of scrolling spreadsheets and a lot of numerical data entry. Needless to say, my right hand was getting pretty bad RSI. So I taught myself to mouse left-handed, to distribute the load at least.

Anyway, I have a left-handed vertical mouse (and several ambidextrous mice), but for work I honestly prefer the big ambi Kensington trackball.

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Halceon
@Halceon

Yeah, +1 on that "ergonomics is individual" thing.
My hands are big enough that most "normal sized" mice don't feel much different than just having my hand on the table. I've used a big mouse before and while I liked the sense of weight and precision it gave, it was also doing the upward bend the graphic above warns against. I've also used a tiny mouse, and that one hurt my hands because I had to scrunch my entire hand to keep hold of it.

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