Industrial Design
Ergonomic Mouse Design
I developed a vertical mouse around the hand’s natural resting posture, using research and physical prototypes to resolve comfort before refining the form in CAD.
What if the object met the hand where it naturally wants to rest?
A flat mouse asks the forearm to rotate and hold that position for long periods. I began with the hand instead of the product category: its resting angle, the natural curl of the fingers, and the support the thumb needs.
The design supports a more neutral wrist position, a relaxed palm angle, and a grip shaped around natural finger placement. Research established the posture, clay prototypes refined the contact points, and CAD resolved the final form.
Sketches created possibilities. Prototypes made the decisions.
Drawings helped me explore silhouette and direction, but clay revealed what the page could not: where the thumb needed support, how the fingers landed, and which surfaces felt stable without becoming bulky.
The strongest silhouette created the worst grip.
My favorite sketch produced a sharp, sculptural render—and an uncomfortable prototype. In clay, the form pressed into the base of the thumb and forced the exact grip I was trying to avoid. I let the more dramatic silhouette go. The version that felt right was rounder, quieter, and less photogenic, but it was the better design. Choosing the hand over the render was the point of the project.
The final concept follows a simple principle: good ergonomics begin with the body at rest. The object should adapt to the hand—not ask the hand to adapt to the object.