Drag-and-drop versus point-and-click mouse interaction styles for children
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)
Young children's ability to use a computer mouse
Computers & Education
Drag-and-drop errors in young children's use of the mouse
Interacting with Computers
Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Interaction design and children
Interaction Design and Children
Foundations and Trends in Human-Computer Interaction
Educational software for children: analysis of interaction techniques for direct manipulation
Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Association Francophone d'Interaction Homme-Machine
Exploring verbalization and collaboration of constructive interaction with children
INTERACT'05 Proceedings of the 2005 IFIP TC13 international conference on Human-Computer Interaction
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In this paper we present evidence from a pilot study that children may have started to expect the drag-and-drop interaction style. This is in contrast with probably the most cited paper on this topic from 2001, stating that point-and-click is the most appropriate interaction style for children between 6 and 12 years old. Instead of providing children with information on the interaction style expected we developed two point-and-click interfaces and let children explore those interfaces themselves. Children consistently tried to apply the drag-and-drop interaction style both initially and after having discovered the point-and-click style, resulting in problems in interacting with the interfaces. This was especially clear for the type of action having a natural mapping to holding down the mouse-button, such as cutting or drawing lines. In summary, it appears that children have begun to expect the drag-and-drop interaction style and that deviating from this standard may result in serious usability problems.