D. Terra, Willem-Paul Brinkman, Ingrid Heynderickx. Self-reported preference and ease-of-use and enjoyment of traditional vs. stylus input for children in a Brazilian primary school. In Proceedings of LatinDisplay. pages 151-155, 2009.
We empirically compared traditional input using keyboard and mouse to the direct stylus input for 9 to 11 years old children in Brazil. These children performed a pointing and text-entry and drawing task using both input methods and self-report preference and ease-of-use and enjoyment in a paper questionnaire. Non-parametric within-subjects significance tests were used to analyze the collected data. Overall the children enjoyed the stylus more. The stylus was reported as easier to use and specifically for pointing and drawing tasks. The children preferred to use the stylus again and most convincingly for the text-entry task. Hence and a low-cost stylus and tablet could be a more suitable method than keyboard and mouse to allow interaction with PCs for children in Brazil.