A pointing device is an input interface (specifically a human interface device

Human interface device

A human interface device or HID is a type of computer device that interacts directly with, and most often takes input from, humans and may deliver output to humans. The term "HID" most commonly refers to the USB-HID specification. The term was coined by Mike Van Flandern of Microsoft when he...

) that allows a user to input spatial (i.e., continuous and multi-dimensional) data to a computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

. CAD

Computer-aided design

Computer-aided design , also known as computer-aided design and drafting , is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer...

 systems and graphical user interface

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

s (GUI) allow the user to control and provide data to the computer using physical gestures

Mouse gesture

In computing, a pointing device gesture or mouse gesture is a way of combining pointing device movements and clicks which the software recognizes as a specific command. Pointing device gestures can provide quick access to common functions of a program. They can also be useful for people who have...

 — point, click, and drag — for example, by moving a hand-held mouse

Mouse (computing)

In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...

 across the surface of the physical desktop and activating switches on the mouse. Movements of the pointing device are echoed on the screen by movements of the pointer (or cursor

Cursor (computers)

In computing, a cursor is an indicator used to show the position on a computer monitor or other display device that will respond to input from a text input or pointing device. The flashing text cursor may be referred to as a caret in some cases...

) and other visual changes.

While the most common pointing device by far is the mouse, many more devices have been developed. A "rodent" is a technical term referring to a device which generates mouse-like input. However, the term "mouse" is commonly used as a metaphor for devices that move the cursor.

For most pointing devices, Paul Fitts

Paul Fitts

Paul M. Fitts was a psychologist at Ohio State University . He developed a model of human movement, Fitts's law, based on rapid, aimed movement, which went on to become one of the most highly successful and well studied mathematical models of human motion...

's law can be used to predict the speed with which users can point at a given target position.

Mouse

A mouse

Mouse (computing)

In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...

 is a small handheld device pushed over a horizontal surface.

A mouse moves the graphical pointer by being slid across a smooth surface. The conventional roller-ball mouse uses a ball to create this action: the ball is in contact with two small shafts that are set at right angles to each other. As the ball moves these shafts rotate, and the rotation is measured by sensors within the mouse. The distance and direction information from the sensors is then transmitted to the computer, and the computer moves the graphical pointer on the screen by following the movements of the mouse. Another common mouse is the optical mouse. This device is very similar to the conventional mouse but uses visible or infrared light instead of a roller-ball to detect the changes in position.

Mini-mouse

A Mini-mouse is a small egg-sized mouse for use with laptop computers; usually small enough for use on a free area of the laptop body itself, it is typically optical, includes a retractable cord and uses a USB port to save battery life.

Trackball

A trackball

Trackball

A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down mouse with an exposed protruding ball. The user rolls the ball with the thumb, fingers, or the palm of the hand to move a cursor...

 is a pointing device consisting of a ball housed in a socket containing sensors to detect rotation of the ball about two axes, similar to an upside-down mouse: as the user rolls the ball with a thumb, fingers, or palm the mouse cursor on the screen will also move. Tracker balls are commonly used on CAD workstations for ease of use, where there may be no desk space on which to use a mouse. Some are able to clip onto the side of the keyboard and have buttons with the same functionality as mouse buttons. There are also wireless trackballs which offer a wider range of ergonomic positions to the user.

Joystick

• Isotonic joysticks are handle sticks where the user can freely change the position of the stick, with more or less constant force.
  • Joystick
    Joystick
    A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Joysticks, also known as 'control columns', are the principal control in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a center stick or...
    
    
  • Analog stick
    Analog stick
    An analog stick, sometimes called a control stick or thumbstick, is an input device for a controller that is used for two-dimensional input. An analog stick is a variation of a joystick, consisting of a protrusion from the controller; input is based on the position of this protrusion in relation...
    
    
• Isometric joysticks – where the user controls the stick by varying the amount of force they push with, and the position of the stick remains more or less constant.

its also kind of hard for some people to use it.

Pointing stick

A pointing stick

Pointing stick

The pointing stick is an isometric joystick used as a pointing device . It was invented by research scientist Ted Selker...

 is a pressure sensitive small nub used like a joystick. It is usually found on laptops embedded between the 'G', 'H', and 'B' keys. It operates by sensing the force applied by the user. The corresponding "mouse" buttons are commonly placed just below the spacebar

Space bar

thumb|250px|A [[computer keyboard]], Space Bar is on the bottom center of the keyboardThe space bar, spacebar, or space key, is a key on an alphanumeric keyboard in the form of a horizontal bar in the lowermost row, significantly wider than other keys. Its main purpose is to conveniently enter the...

. It is also found on mice and some desktop keyboards.

Graphics tablet

A graphics tablet

Graphics tablet

A graphics tablet is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images and graphics, similar to the way a person draws images with a pencil and paper. These tablets may also be used to capture data or handwritten signatures...

or digitizing tablet is a special tablet similar to a touchpad, but controlled with a pen or stylus that is held and used like a normal pen or pencil. The thumb usually controls the clicking via a two-way button on the top of the pen, or by tapping on the tablet's surface.

A cursor (also called a puck) is similar to a mouse, except that it has a window with cross hairs for pinpoint placement, and it can have as many as 16 buttons. A pen (also called a stylus) looks like a simple ballpoint pen but uses an electronic head instead of ink. The tablet contains electronics that enable it to detect movement of the cursor or pen and translate the movements into digital signals that it sends to the computer." This is different from a mouse because each point on the tablet represents a point on the screen.

Stylus

A stylus is a small pen-shaped instrument that is used to input commands to a computer screen, mobile device or graphics tablet

Graphics tablet

A graphics tablet is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images and graphics, similar to the way a person draws images with a pencil and paper. These tablets may also be used to capture data or handwritten signatures...

.

The stylus is the primary input device for personal digital assistant

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

s and smartphone

Smartphone

A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...

s that require accurate input, although devices featuring multi-touch

Multi-touch

In computing, multi-touch refers to a touch sensing surface's ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface...

 finger-input with capacitive touchscreens are becoming more popular than stylus-driven devices in the smartphone market.

Touchpad

A touchpad

Touchpad

A touchpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on screen. Touch pads are a common feature of laptop computers, and they are also used as a substitute for a mouse where desk...

 or trackpad is a flat surface that can detect finger contact. It's a stationary pointing device, commonly used on laptop computers

Laptop

A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...

. At least one physical button normally comes with the touchpad, but the user can also generate a mouse click by tapping on the pad. Advanced features include pressure sensitivity and special gestures such as scrolling by moving one's finger along an edge.

It uses a two-layer grid of electrode

Electrode

An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit...

s to measure finger movement: one layer has vertical electrode strips that handle vertical movement, and the other layer has horizontal electrode strips to handle horizontal movements.

Touchscreen

A touchscreen

Touchscreen

A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...

is a device embedded into the screen of the TV monitor, or system LCD monitor screens of laptop

Laptop

A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...

 computers. Users interact with the device by physically pressing items shown on the screen, either with their fingers or some helping tool.

Several technologies can be used to detect touch. Resistive and capacitive touchscreens have conductive materials embedded in the glass and detect the position of the touch by measuring changes in electric current. Infrared

Infrared

Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...

 controllers project a grid of infrared beams inserted into the frame surrounding the monitor screen itself, and detect where an object intercepts the beams.

Modern touchscreens could be used in conjunction with stylus

Stylus

A stylus is a writing utensil, or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example in pottery. The word is also used for a computer accessory . It usually refers to a narrow elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styli are heavily curved to be held more easily...

 pointing devices, while those powered by infrared do not require physical touch, but just recognize the movement of hand and fingers in some minimum range distance from the real screen.

Touchscreens are becoming popular with the introduction of palmtop computers like those sold by the Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc., was a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that was responsible for products such as the Pre and Pixi as well as the Treo and Centro smartphones. Previous product lines include the PalmPilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older...

 hardware manufacturer, some high range classes of laptop computers, mobile smartphones like HTC or the Apple Inc. iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

, and the availability of standard touchscreen device drivers into the Symbian

Symbian

Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...

, Palm OS

Palm OS

Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...

, Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, Windows XP

Windows XP

Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...

 and Windows Vista

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

 operating systems.

Other devices

• A lightpen
  Light pen
  A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's CRT TV set or monitor. It allows the user to point to displayed objects, or draw on the screen, in a similar way to a touch screen but with greater positional accuracy...
  
   is a device similar to a touch screen, but uses a special light sensitive pen instead of the finger, which allows for more accurate screen input. As the tip of the light pen makes contact with the screen, it sends a signal back to the computer containing the coordinates of the pixel
  Pixel
  In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
  
  s at that point. It can be used to draw on the computer screen or make menu selections, and does not require a special touch screen because it can work with any CRT-based monitor
  Cathode ray tube
  The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
  
  .
• light gun
  Light gun
  A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games.Modern screen-based light guns work by building a sensor into the gun itself, and the on-screen target emit light rather than the gun...
  
  

• Palm mouse – held in the palm and operated with only two buttons; the movements across the screen correspond to a feather touch, and pressure increases the speed of movement.
• Footmouse
  Footmouse
  A footmouse is a type of computer mouse that gives the users the ability to move the cursor and click the mousebuttons with their feet.It is primarily used by users with disabilities or with high-back or neck problems...
  
   – sometimes called a mole - a mouse variant for those who do not wish to or cannot use the hands or the head; instead, it provides footclicks.
• Similar to a mouse is a puck, which, rather than tracking the speed of the device, tracks the absolute position of a point on the device (typically a set of crosshairs painted on a transparent plastic tab sticking out from the top of the puck). Pucks are typically used for tracing in CAD/CAM/CAE work, and are often accessories for larger graphics tablets.
• eye tracking
  Eye tracking
  Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movement. Eye trackers are used in research on the visual system, in psychology, in cognitive linguistics and in product...
  
   devices – A mouse controlled by the user's eyeball/retina movements, allowing cursor-manipulation without touch.
• Finger-mouse – An extremely small mouse controlled by two fingers only; the user can hold it in any position
• Gyroscopic mouse - A gyroscope
  Gyroscope
  A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. In essence, a mechanical gyroscope is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation...
  
   senses the movement of the mouse as it moves through the air. Users can operate a gyroscopic mouse when they have no room for a regular mouse or must give commands while standing up. This input device needs no cleaning and can have many extra buttons, in fact, some laptops doubling as TVs come with gyroscopic mice that resemble, and double as, remotes with LCD screens built in.
• steering wheel
  Steering wheel
  A steering wheel is a type of steering control in vehicles and vessels ....
  
   - can be thought of as a 1D pointing device - see also steering wheel section of game controller article
• paddle
  Paddle (game controller)
  A paddle is a game controller with a round wheel and one or more fire buttons, where the wheel is typically used to control movement of the player object along one axis of the video screen...
  
   - another 1D pointing device
• jog dial
  Jog dial
  A jog dial, jog wheel, shuttle dial, or shuttle wheel is a type of knob, ring, wheel, or dial which allows the user to shuttle or jog through audio or video media. It is commonly found on models of CD players which are made for disc jockeys, and on professional video equipment such as video tape...
  
   - another 1D pointing device
• yoke (aircraft)
  Yoke (aircraft)
  A yoke, alternatively known as control column, is a device used for piloting in most fixed-wing aircraft.- Principle :The aviator uses the yoke to control the attitude of the plane, usually in both pitch and roll. Rotating the control wheel controls the ailerons and the roll axis...
  
  
• Some high-degree-of-freedom
  Degrees of freedom (engineering)
  In mechanics, degrees of freedom are the set of independent displacements and/or rotations that specify completely the displaced or deformed position and orientation of the body or system...
  
   input devices
• spaceBall
  Spaceball
  Spaceball may refer to:* SpaceBall , a game featured on LG brand mobile phones* "Spaceball" , an episode of the short lived science fiction series Galactica 1980...
  
   - 6 degrees-of-freedom controller
• discrete pointing devices
• directional pad
  D-pad
  A D-pad is a flat, usually thumb-operated directional control with one button on each point, found on nearly all modern video game console gamepads, game controllers, on the remote control units of some television and DVD players, and smart phones...
  
   - a very simple keyboard
• dance pad
  Dance pad
  A dance pad, also known as a dance mat, dance platform, or jiffer deck is a flat electronic game controller used for input in dance games. Most dance pads are divided into a 3×3 matrix of square panels for the player to stand on, with some or all of the panels corresponding to directions or actions...
  
   - used to point at gross locations in space with feet
• Wii Remote
  Wii Remote
  The , also known as the Wiimote, is the primary controller for Nintendo's Wii console. A main feature of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with and manipulate items on screen via gesture recognition and pointing through the use of accelerometer and...
  
  (/Wiimote) - pointer function with motion sensing controls on Wii
  Wii
  The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
  
  
• soap mouse - a handheld, position-based pointing device based on existing wireless optical mouse technology
• laser pen - can be used in presentations as a pointing device