我的手指就像我要握手一样接近鼠标。暂时有一个奇怪的感觉：鼠标将57度转向垂直度，站在我的桌子上，充满自信的倾斜度，有望减少手腕压力。但是随后，我的拇指码头上有橡胶饰面。我感觉到我的索引和中指下方的左右按钮熟悉。是的，仅在几秒钟内使用是很自然的。
这是MX Vertical, a new, $100 ergonomic mouse fromLogitech. Developed over 18 months, it is not the world’s first ergonomic mouse, nor is it the first mouse to position itself perpendicular to your desk. But it does hit a compelling sweet spot, balancing comfort, intuitiveness, and a sculptural design that makes the prospect of using a healthier mouse a compelling one.
Ergonomic designs are often bulbous and blobby because they’re designed to complement our bodies like negative space, which are anything but flat aluminum and glass. For a user in pain, that’s okay. But for a user considering making the leap to an ergonomic design, it’s a major hurdle. The less attractive products actually look more intimidating as a result.
After interviewing dozens of ergonomic mouse users to get this data, the company enlisted its own employees to use ergonomic mice from several manufacturers, all while hooked up to sensors that measure muscle activity and skeletal stress. “We did a bunch of benchmarks on the mainstays in the space to find what it was about those devices that had a beneficial effect,” says Jinkinson. “And that allowed us to unlock some of the combinations where we could improve.”
Jinkinson并没有将这些组合分解为令人难以置信的细节，但他确实概述了MX的一般方法。在设计符合人体工程学设备时，您会考虑身体在水中如何自然漂浮。考虑一下您的手臂 - 它们不会在您的两侧掌握，而是用腕部轻微旋转，旋转与桌子不相似，也不垂直于桌子，而是在介于两者之间的某个地方。
Then his team began sculpting models out of a resin that you can carve and finish, much like wood. One of the team’s first models actually got extremely close to the final design. Dubbed T2, it stood for “tower.” “The visual reference was cooling towers–very architectural,” says Jinkinson. “This captured somehow the DNA of what we went with, and very early in the process.”
But the T2 was too vertical, and too monolithic for the hand. With no real indentations, “the weight of the hand was pulling down and slipping, and it would put pressure on the pinky,” says Jinkinson. “And the thumb had no landing pad.”
So the team carved a slot for the thumb to rest–and found just the right angle (57 degrees) for the rest of the hand. With each iteration, Logitech employees were hooked up again to sensors, running a battery of mousing tests on PCs to quantify the results.
这些测试是挑战自己先入为主的观念的关键。例如，一个版本的MX为Thumb提供了真正的休息，这是一个将其远离桌子的小平台，而不是最终设计中的级联凹痕。该平台听起来非常适合支撑您的手的重量，但它带来了成本。Jinkinson说：“准确性倾向于受苦，因为他们无法用手指稳定鼠标。”“他们不得不做一个完整的棕榈握力，然后将鼠标完全从手腕上驱动。”最终的MX允许手腕运动和手指压力，感觉很像是袜子木偶。
总而言之，由于缺乏更好的术语，鼠标感觉非常自然。但是Logitech希望它的雕塑工业设计类似于上面的蜗牛外壳，它本身将很有吸引力。
“It would be awesome if it was adopted by people who are in the market for a vertical mouse already, but also people who aren’t–who see something that is just a beautiful object, and they learn about the health benefits afterwards, and still feel motivated to buy it,” says Jinkinson.