Effects of cursor speed on text-editing

Abstract

Nine participants used a full screen computer text-editor (XEDIT) with an IBM 3277 terminal to edit marked-up documents at each of three cursor speeds (3.3, 4.7, and 11.0 cm/sec.). Results show that 9% of editing time was spent controlling and moving the cursor, regardless of cursor speed. The variations in cursor speed studied did not seem to act as a pacing device for the entire editing task.