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Ergonomics ensures a good fit between people and the things they interact with. This includes both, the environment they spend time in, and the objects they use. Every product, system, or environment should take ergonomics into consideration when designing and it should be done early on during the design process. If you fail to consider ergonomics, your product could be a failure because you haven’t considered the requirements and needs of the user.
The Importance of Ergonomics
Ergonomics plays a huge role in the product development process. It works on increasing the comfort, safety, and overall performance of an environment, like an office or a product, even something as simple as a chair.
Anthropometrical data is used in ergonomics to determine the optimum size, form, and shape of a product, aiming to make it easier for users. Ergonomists help identify the user characteristics that should be considered while creating a design. This might seem insignificant but it is important as people vary in many ways:
- Body Size
- Strength
- Body Shape
- Mobility
- Mental Ability
- Sensory Activity
- Training
- Experience
- Culture
- Emotions
Ergonomics applied early on in the design process helps identify areas that could use some innovation.
Categories of Ergonomics
There are three categories of ergonomics:
Physical Ergonomics
This focuses on how anthropometric, physiological, biochemical, and human anatomical characters come into play when physical activity is involved. This includes manual handling, repetitive movements, working postures, workplace layout and environment as well as musculoskeletal disorders.
Psychological Ergonomics
This studied the mental processes, for instance, memory, reasoning, emotion, cognition, and perception, and how people interact with systems, the environment, and different products. This includes the decision-making, mental workload, human reliability, human-computer interaction, stress, attitudes, pleasure, motivation, and cultural differences.
Organizational Ergonomics
This is all about an optimized organizational structure, policy, and the process of the socio-technical system. This includes the work design, communication, staff resource management, working time patterns, quality management, cooperative work, and the organizational culture.
Keeping your end users’ needs a priority should be your focus, and for that ergonomists should be an important part of your design development team.
Benefits of Ergonomics
A strong workplace ergonomics process has a number of benefits:
By lowering ergonomics risk factors, you can avoid costly MSDs. In compensation costs, around
out of every $3 is related to MSDs. This could be a major avenue for cost-saving; the indirect costs involved from such an injury could be twenty times more than the direct costs.
When ergonomic solutions are implemented accurately, productivity is bound to increase. A job designed well ensured good posture, fewer motions, less exertion, and better heights and reaches. This makes the workstation more efficient.
If the workers are fatigued and frustrated, they wouldn’t do their best and good ergonomics can combat that. If a job is too physically demanding of the worker, they might not be able to execute it as trained.
Virtual Home Office Evaluations in the East Bay Area
If you are in the East Bay Area and are on the lookout for virtual home office evaluations during this pandemic, reach out to Ergobility in Emeryville, CA.
