Exploring the potential of programmable button mouse in improving programmers efficiency

Programmable button mouse (PBM) is an input device, which can be generally programmed to do specific tasks. PBM is widely used in the gaming arena because a number of tasks or actions in gaming that usually require the use of a number of keyboard keys can be accomplished by a single click with PBM. However, its use in programming has never been explored as far as our literature review is concerned. During programming, it is likely that the programmer will be bound to use the same instruction keys repeatedly to perform common tasks. Due to the limitation of traditional mouse, keyboard shortcuts are used for faster execution of the tasks. With PBM, these shortcuts can be programmed to be executed with just a click of its buttons, enabling even faster execution of the tasks. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to explore the potential of PBM in improving programmers efficiency. It first identifies the common tasks that programmers perform during programming. Then, it discusses on how keyboard shortcuts can be programmed to save time and reduce number of keystrokes and mouse clicks by combining keyboard shortcuts into a single click of a PBM. Result shows that all common tasks identified can be programmed into the PBM and that PBM can potentially improve programmers efficiency up to 64.7%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that explores the potential of using PBM in improving programmers efficiency.