While using the computer, your feet and legs are typically idle. Such a set-up is pretty wasteful, since your legs are your larger appendages and, as discussed before, it’s better to use larger appendages to do more of the work. In order to use your legs and feet to assist in your computing, you can use a foot pedal, foot switch, or foot mouse. Foot pedals come in a variety of “flavors” and usually have 1-4 programmable buttons. Typically, people program these buttons to perform left and right mouse-clicks or to press common keys like Shift and Control. By pressing Control and/or Shift with your foot, you can avoid pronating your hand and increase your productivity. For example, to press “A,” you can press Shift with your foot and the “a” key with your hand. In the keyboard section, we discussed how to avoid pronating your hand by shifting your hand position and pressing Shift with your third and fourth fingers. However, by using an alternate input device, you can avoid this hand movement and potential productivity loss entirely.

Foot pedals are commonly used in flight simulator games or when gamers want to increase their speed. Whatever the reason, purchasing a foot pedal can be a great investment. A foot mouse typically has one foot for cursor control and another foot for mouse clicking. Learning to use a foot pedal or foot mouse may take several days to get used to. However, the benefit makes it worth the effort.

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