Who would ever think a mouse pad wouldn't work? I'm afraid I had inconsistent performance with the Staples "black" mouse pad. For some reason it did not work consistently with my Dell optical mouse. The mouse was an older style but works with all other mouse pads I've had. When I used it with the Staples black mouse pad for some reason it was only about 50% responsive. It was odd sometimes moving the mouse had no effect on the cursor other times it moved but not consistent with my hand movement. When I tried it with a microsoft wireless mouse it worked fairly normally but with the Dell mouse ... bad. Don't know if it had something to do with the black color and optical reflection problems. Anyway I bought it for my Dell mouse and then had to return it. I got a different non-Staples pad and it worked fine. Odd