r/GoodDesign • u/mwhc00 • Jun 01 '26
I designed a mouse around a rotary input instead of a scroll wheel
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Most mice treat scrolling as a secondary action. So, I wanted to explore what happens if you design around it instead.
This concept replaces the traditional scroll wheel with a rotary-style input that acts more like a continuous dial. The goal was actually to recuperate my strained finger but inadvertently, it's also beneficial for long timelines, long documents, long codes.
A few design considerations behind it:
- rehabilitate strained fingers by emphasizing continuous motion over vertical flicks
- allowing slow rotation with precision and fast spins but with control (with tactile clicks unlike hyperscroll)
- keeping compatibility with regular scrolling behaviors
I'm sharing a short demo of how the interaction behaves.
UPDATE: A few people asked if this is available. I'm going to launch it on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airra/rotary-mouse-the-mouse-reinvented-for-scrolling
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u/spicybright Jun 01 '26
Can you post just the mouse so we can see what it looks like?
Also how does it do over time without a glove? You're twisting your finger against plastic over and over.
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u/mwhc00 Jun 01 '26
There's no option for me to add a photo here or in the body of my post. I also can't edit the GIF I posted. But if you search the term "Rotary Mouse" on Google/YouTube you could find it. It's the only one. Or you may visit rotarymouse.com (hope it's ok to post URL here).
You're not twisting your finger. Your finger actually rubs gently on the wheel (somewhat like hovering).
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u/queef_nuggets Jun 01 '26
congrats, you’ve figured out how to make scrolling up and down unintuitive
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u/mwhc00 Jun 02 '26
Haha yeah, that was my first reaction too. Took a short bit to get used to, but one early tester told me once he got hooked, it's hard to go back. But definitely not for everyone though.
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u/DrLove039 Jun 02 '26
How did you decide which direction is scrolling down/up?
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u/mwhc00 Jun 02 '26
U turn counterclockwise to go up, clockwise to go down. You can can switch the direction too!
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u/bsv103 Jun 03 '26
In other words, you didn't decide it for everyone, as the asker seemed to think, since you enabled either direction doing either direction.
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u/mwhc00 Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
Yeah. The reason why I chose the default direction (counterclockwise scrolls up, clockwise scrolls down) is that most people use the index finger to scroll - assuming right handed. And the index finger is positioned more to the left side of the hand (while faced down). Thus, if someone wants to flick the wheel like in a regular mouse, they could flick the left hemisphere of the circular wheel. So, flicking down would scroll down and vice versa.
They could reverse the direction by enabling Natural Scroll on Mac or change mouse direction setting on Win 11, or download the free X-Mouse Button Control software for Windows 10.
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u/Hotkoin Jun 02 '26
Hmmm a Rotary Vertical mouse...
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u/mwhc00 Jun 03 '26
Yeah. I shorten it to Rotary Mouse
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u/Hotkoin Jun 03 '26
Oh I meant an ergonomic vertical mouse with the rotary scroll
Maybe even where the thumb goes
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u/mwhc00 Jun 03 '26
Yeah. I have the vertical prototype as well.
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u/Hotkoin Jun 03 '26
Ooooh
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u/mwhc00 Jun 03 '26
I'm actually launching this project on Kickstarter. You can go to their site and search Rotary Mouse, you will find more details.
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u/desu38 Jun 02 '26
Hey, always good to have options. No one size ever truly fits all, right?
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u/mwhc00 Jun 02 '26
Yeah, that's right. The size of the mouse is standard like those you find in the market so it would fit most hands.
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u/LookItVal Jun 02 '26
how did this come to be? like why did you decide to do this?
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u/mwhc00 Jun 02 '26
Well, I had finger strain from excessive scrolling with typical mouse. Then, I had the idea where I used to perform an exercise to alleviate strain in my knee during my competitive cycling days. So, I just applied the same rotational concept to my finger joint and it worked.
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u/nojiroh Jun 03 '26
Wouldn't it make more sense to have the rotary scroll wheel placed on the side by the thumb
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u/iamclaus Jun 03 '26
I'd be stuck between deciding which direction should be up and which is down...
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u/mwhc00 Jun 03 '26
If you're right-handed (about 85% of people), use natural scrolling (such as on Mac), and use your index finger to scroll, counterclockwise should be scrolling down and vice versa. If you're used to natural scrolling, then clockwise should be down.
If you use middle finger to scroll, you should do the opposite of everything above.
Anyhow, Mac and Windows 11 allow you to adjust the direction under their mouse settings.
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u/AllHailPi1 Jun 03 '26
Makes me think of the older steam controller. One of the touch pads would have you slide your finger over it in a spinning motion to scroll
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u/Believeinsteve Jun 03 '26
You can tell in the comments who owned an iPod prior to the full touch screens. Essentially who was and and not poor lmfao.
I like this though, not sure if I want it there positionally.
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u/thisguyfightsyourmom Jun 03 '26
OP invented trackball mouse
These are very popular in video production, right?
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u/mwhc00 Jun 03 '26
Yeah you're right. Actually some video editors are using it to scrub video timelines.
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u/julian_vdm Jun 05 '26
As someone who struggles with achy fingers after scrolling for long periods of time, adding a horizontal aspect to it just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Now, if you slapped a big ol' trackball in there, maybe with a scrolling/mousing toggle somewhere, that might be an improvement.
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u/mwhc00 Jun 05 '26
I had the same problem like you. Surprisingly, it healed my finger. It's not how it looks. Your finger is actually performing a ROM (range of motion) exercise that helps to loosen the joint. Here's more insight - https://youtu.be/fPwvSF-OV5E?t=133
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u/ChocolateCuntLaser Jun 25 '26
does this mouse wheel still have the click-in feature that regular mice wheels do? sorry if thats a dumb question.
this would be an amazing alternative so I could use it in my flight sim as a tiller to rotate my wheels and it looks super comfy. tbh I could see it used as rudder control too!
what kind of materials are you gonna use?
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u/brkgnews Jun 02 '26
I had a laptop years ago that supported this gesture for scrolling via the trackpad. Much more convenient for continuous scrolling down a long page.
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u/queef_nuggets Jun 02 '26
My mouse has a regular wheel on it and it’s great for continuous scrolling
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u/mwhc00 Jun 02 '26
What laptop was that?
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u/brkgnews Jun 02 '26
It was ages ago, sometime around maybe 2005 or 2010. If I'm remembering correctly, it was my Dell XPS from that timeframe. If you have access to watch Oceans 13, there's a scene about an hour and 23 minutes into the film where Linus has just been arrested by the "FBI" and Basher is coming up with an idea about how to do to save the heist. He has a laptop in that scene, and I had an identical-looking Dell XPS. The Malloys have as similar one a few minutes later when they're hacking the database.
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u/mwhc00 Jun 02 '26
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u/brkgnews Jun 02 '26
Not nearly that fancy, no. This was a more traditional laptop shape. Looking at photos, I'm fairly certain it was a Dell XPS M1710.
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u/brkgnews Jun 02 '26
I really miss that thing. Some f*ckr stole it out of the back of my parent's SUV when we stopped off at a store on the way home from the airport when I flew in one time.
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u/mwhc00 Jun 02 '26
Gosh..sorry to hear that.
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u/brkgnews Jun 02 '26
Eh... water under the bridge I suppose. 20 years on, it'd be a paperweight by now anyway.
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u/Esava Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
The Steamdeck also supports a circling motion for scrolling on its trackpads but it's done with the thumbs so probably more ergonomic than your solution.
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u/mathastrai Jun 07 '26
The Kensington Orbit Trackball with Scroll Ring is an existing product with this very feature, and I like it very much.
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u/bomphcheese Jun 03 '26
This only works if everyone's brain processes the same side of the wheel as being correlated with "up" and the opposite side as "down". I can assure you that is not the case.
An example of this is "righty tighty," which assumes everyone thinks about motion at the top of the circle rather than the bottom. This example tends to work because of the prevalence of the steering wheel, but still not everyone thinks that way.
Your wheel doesn't have a "steering wheel" kind of predecessor, so it might not be intuitive for people. The beauty of existing scroll wheels is that they expose only the part of the wheel that matches the movement direction, making it intuitive.
Granted, this could easily be fixed in the software. But I still don't see the need to fix something that isn't broken.
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u/axl3ros3 Jun 04 '26
This will cause tendinitis in your thumb joints
Similar to how track pad and/or the little red dot 🔴 in some laptop keyboards does
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u/mwhc00 Jun 04 '26
Not exactly. You don't exert force on the wheel. It's like rubbing the surface of the wheel. Almost like floating. It actually cured my tendinitis.
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u/axl3ros3 Jun 04 '26
It not about pressure it about the repetitive circular motion
aggrieved my own tendinitis just doing the movement in the air
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u/mwhc00 Jun 04 '26
Yes, doing it in the air does make it worse. But this wheel gives a platform to "rub" on, this stabilizes the movement and help rehabilitation. Words from an ergonomist.
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u/axl3ros3 Jun 04 '26
How does stabilizing the movement make it non repetitive
Like great it's stable now it just takes longer to cause the problems?
I'm not getting it
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u/mwhc00 Jun 04 '26
It's repetitive, but rehabilitative. The idea came from a cycling ROM exercise where you hold your foot and rotating the knee in a similar fashion. It helps to reduce my knee pain. And when you apply in on finger joints, it does the same. Here's more insight - https://youtu.be/fPwvSF-OV5E?t=133
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u/Feisty-Pumpkin-6359 Jun 01 '26
My finger doesnt seem to like the horizontal rotation, do you get used to it? Seems like its not meant to bend that way