Drag-and-drop errors in young children's use of the mouse

The main argument against the use of drag-and-drop in software for young children is that it may be too difficult for them to maintain pressure on the mouse button during movement. The present research findings refuted this argument by showing that most errors made by children from Kindergarten 2 and Grade 1 and university students occur at the beginning and end of a move and not in between. The results also show that the number of errors are affected by receptor size and movement direction, but not by movement distance. Based on these results, design guidelines are formulated.