Keyboard and Mouse Considerations

Finding a keyboard and mouse may not get much thought, however, these devices are integral for use with your system and really deserve more attention than they typically get. These devices need to fit well in your work space, and help you get your work done effectively.

The most important factor is whether or not you can connect the device to your system. After all, the "best" peripheral in the world will be of no use to you unless you can connect it to your system. Most modern keyboard and mouse options will provide USB connections, as USB ports are fairly ubiquitous on systems these days. However, is it possible that you may find a keyboard or mouse with a PS/2 connection instead. These are the small round connectors, where PS/2 keyboard connections would be purple, and PS/2 mouse connections would be green. If your system does not have PS/2 ports, it may be possible to find PS/2 to USB adapters, but it is always best to avoid adapters when feasible to prevent any potential issues that may arise from the use of adapters.

Keyboards can be make of different key types. The most commonly found are membrane keyboards. Membrane keyboards do not have separate switches for keys, but rather are made up of a substrate material that activate when the materials are pressed together in certain sections to indicate which key has been pressed. An example of this is pictured to the right. Typically, a rubber mat is placed on top of that substrate to accept pressure from the depressed key and activate the membrane in that given location.

In general, the benefit of a membrane keyboard tends to be a lower cost, and while there are some exceptions, they tend to have quieter keystrokes as well.

Mechanical keyboards on the other hand, use individual switches per key to detect when a key is struck. There are different types of mechanical keys that could possibly be in a mechanical keyboard. Some of the most common mechanical switches used are by a company named Cherry, with their MX Series of mechanical switches. The Cherry MX switches are available with different characteristics, and these characteristics are differentiated by color. Some quick examples are as follows:

Black switch: Without pressure point, linear easy actuation. Switching function with a defined force of approximately 60 centinewton (cN) without contact feedback.

Grey switch: Without pressure point, linear firm actuation. Switching function with a defined force of approximately 80 cN without contact feedback.

Blue switch: Click pressure point, a key stroke with tactile and audible contact feedback.

Brown switch: Soft pressure point, a key stroke with soft tactile contact feedback.

There are many more colors and styles, but this is just a quick over view of some of the differences in mechanical switches.

There are various keyboard options available for one to choose to use with their system. There are too many options to list them all, in fact. However here are a few of the more common options to get the broad strokes of what is out there.

For starters, there are "basic" keyboards that contain the minimal main keyboard keys and top row numbers. The benefit of this type of keyboard layout is that it uses up less desktop space.

Adding arrow keys and a 10-key number layout to a "basic" keyboard results in a "full size" keyboard. Most "full size" keyboards add the arrow keys and 10-key layout to the right, however some place these to the left of the basic keyboard layout. Typically added to these "full size" keyboards are separate Insert, Delete, Page Up, Page Down, Home, End, Print Screen, and Scroll Lock keys.

Backlit keyboards became available to the marketplace, which added LED backlighting to the keys of a "full size" keyboard. While these types of keyboards may not be necessary for most people, the benefit of such a keyboard would be the ability to see the keys in dimly-lit environments. This would seem to be more of a feature useful to people who utilize their system at night. Additionally, if you have the need in a specific work environment, the LED backlit keyboards can be helpful for finding the right key.

After LED backlit keyboards became available, the ability to change the color of those LED backlit keys came soon after. RGB LED backlit keyboards became available to allow you to choose the color of LED backlighting as you see fit, and allowing you to change the backlighting as often as you like. You can even choose different colors for different sections of your keyboard if you wish. This may be helpful for some, or simply a design preference for others.

There are curved keyboards as displayed in the image at the top of this page, designed to be more ergonomic for how ones wrists are angled towards keyboard to avoid strain. In a move to alleviate this strain even further, concaved keyboards and vertical keyboards have been manufactured. These types of keyboards may take a little longer to get used to if you have started on a "standard" keyboard, but can be well worth it to avoid wrist strain.

Similar to how there are different keyboard styles and options, there looks to be just as many mouse style options to choose from, each with their own specific features and benefits.

We will begin, of course, with the "basic" mouse. Like the "basic" keyboard, the approach is minimalistic offering just the main components for navigating on your system. This mouse is simple, without the many gadgets that many people do not need.

There are mouse offerings that add more feature buttons, and have macros that allow you to assign functions to each button. These can range from one or two extra mouse buttons to several additional buttons. It can seem that some of these mouse options can have enough buttons to be a small keyboard!

For those wanting an alternative way to use a mouse, there are trackball mouse options. These may take some time getting used to if you have previously only used the typical mouse offerings. However a nice benefit of the trackball is that you don't have to move the mouse around on your desk. Instead of sliding a mouse around all over your desk, you simply move the trackball, and the trackball mouse stays stationary on your desk. This can be a benefit for those with little desk space for moving a mouse around.

Along with the ergonomic keyboards, there are also ergonomic mouse options. This type of mouse is tilted to the side, so instead of placing your hand directly on top of the mouse and moving it around, your hand is said to be at a more natural vertical position, as your wrist naturally lays by your side when standing. This avoids twisting your arm or wrist when utilizing the mouse.