Ergonomics

What is Ergonomics? ERGONOMICS... The term “ergonomics” is derived from two Greek words: “ergon”, meaning work and “nomoi”, meaning natural laws. Ergonomics is the study human body in its working environment

'Ergonomics is designing to suit people 'Ergonomics is designing to suit people. If the designer fails to take account of ergonomics the resulting product or system will be unsuitable for human operation or use and is likely to lead to a greater risk of human error and injury. In complex systems the resulting human errors can lead to catastrophic loss of life as in recent railway accidents and aircraft ones over a long period. In more mundane jobs the failure can lead to a lifetime of upper limb disorders or back pain.' Reg Sell, Past President and External Relations Officer, The Ergonomics Society, 2002

Ergonomics is a broad subject area and can be split into 3 areas 1 Physical ergonomics: Concerned with human anatomical characteristics as they relate to physical activity. The relevant topics include controls and displays, working postures, manual handling, repetitive movements, work-related musculoskeletal disorders, workplace layout, safety and health, lighting, and the thermal and acoustic environment. 2 Psychological ergonomics: Concerned with mental processes, such as perception, cognition, memory, reasoning and emotion. The relevant topics include mental workload, decision-making, skilled performance, human-computer interaction, human reliability, work stress, training and motivation. 3 Organisational ergonomics: Concerned with the organisation of the workplace, including their policies, and processes. The relevant topics include communication, staff resource management, work design, design of working times, teamwork, organisational culture, and quality management.

Bad Ergonomics Thrusters Emergency Stop This pictures was taken on the bridge of a Danish vessel. Notice the position of the emergency stop buttons (covered by with small cups usually used for liquid medicine) The reason for this is the following: The black buttons work the thrusters in the harbour alongside a quay, the captain is usually standing in a position where he has his back turned to the control panel and his front to the window looking out of it. The only difference between the two buttons with quite a different functionality is their colour. And it is very difficult to see the colour if you have your back turned towards the buttons. It has happened that the officer on watch pressed the wrong button causing a full emergency stop at a very critical moment while actually he needed the power from the thrusters. To prevent this from happening, the crew have placed these cups over the emergency stop buttons. Thrusters Emergency Stop

Good Ergonomics The keyboard above has been designed to take account of a users posture.

Bad Ergonomics This picture was taken on a ferry. There's an emergency exit in this image.... effectively masked by arts.

Ergonomic Text In the example above a poor choice of font has been. It may look good but it is entirely inappropriate for the job This is another example of bad ergonomics as it could lead to the sign being misinterpreted This is much better as the text is clear

Ergonomic Colours The drawings on this page show two colour schemes for a doctors surgery Which one has taken ergonomics into consideration? The colour scheme above uses bright, hot colours perhaps not the first thing you would want to see if you were feeling ill. The second design is far better as it uses cool natural colours

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