Abrupt but slow rather than fluid and fast - that's how a computer mouse is typically moved around when the user is angry. At least that's what researchers at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany have discovered. They've now developed a programme to analyse the state of mind of computer users based on mouse movements.
The software is intended to help improve the design of websites and online forms. Online retailers could use it to figure out at what point in a process the potential buyer become frustrated - for example, is it due to the way the site operates or is it because the wished-for product can't be found?
Of course on data privacy grounds users will first have to agree to let their mouse movements be tracked before the software can function.
To find out if a mouse could be a good barometer of mood, the researchers first asked a group of test users to take an intelligence test on a computer while under time pressure.
The objective was to frustrate them. The tasks were barely solvable, the webpages loaded extremely slowly and to add to the intentional aggravation, the test certified the users as being of below average intelligence. After that, further tasks had to be solved.
The scientists were able to observe, using their programme, how irritated, angered or frustrated the users were becoming compared to a control group who weren't faced with the same frustrations - and all by analysing mouse movements.
The researchers found that the movements were awkward, abrupt and overall slower than those of the control group when solving tasks. The aggravated users also moved the mouse in straighter lines or in lines with slight curves more than did the control group users.
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