The One Less Traveled By

Either a hotkey or a control panel setting would visualize all the traffic of the mouse across the computer screen as darkened ruts, like those created by the wheels of carts on dirt roads. The mouse would slip into the ruts more easily, or move more quickly on them.

The mouse starts in the center of the screen when the computer boots. If from there you always go to Start or some program, then you'd see a nasty-looking channel created there. Either you'd take the rut and get there faster or you could take the path less traveled by--either way makes little or difference, just like in Frost's poem.

The trail or pathway left by the mouse could take on any visualization. I'm thinking bread crumbs, garbage, scuff marks, and the scrawled curse words that teenagers would eventually write there if they passed by enough times. What, you prefer flowers?

The whole thing could be a game where traffic determines the road networks that connect cities that are completely automated. The cities would be an optional layer. Or there could be warring cities: the Start Bar faction vs. the evil Close Window camp.

When you're trying to get something done, you could just switch it off. Or better yet, a given program would kill the bloody thing for you.