As a designer, you likely know how keyboard shortcuts can save you time. Adding a couple of commonly used shortcuts by remapping buttons on your mouse means you can keep your hand on the mouse longer to speed up your process.
Many manufacturers are including software for their mice and keyboards that allow customization of the buttons. With some Logitech products for instance, a user will be able to customize their device for specific programs. Also, check out Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center as a possible solution if your mouse has assignable buttons but you haven't found software that can remap the buttons, there's a growing list of supported devices.
One example is to customize mouse buttons to change levels in BC Framer® software. These steps use the proprietary software from Logitech I/O devices, but other vendors may offer similar tools.
Logitech's program, Options makes it easy to customize buttons for All Applications or for specific programs. Click Add application to add a program to the list, as shown with BC Framer below:
In this example, we'll set the 'forward' thumb button to be Level Up and the 'back' thumb button to be Level Down.
Click on the button to be customized, select Keystroke assignment and enter the keystroke to be assigned. Ctrl + Page Up is the default keyboard shortcut for changing levels upward.
Repeat the steps for the 'back' thumb button, using the Keystroke assignment Ctrl + Page Down, for Level Down.
We hope this inspires you to make changes to improve your own workflow!