Ergonomics and Anthropometrics

• Design should be human-centered, ensuring products fit users of all sizes and abilities.
• Designers use data and drawings of human measurements to account for variability in the population.
• Anthropometric data significantly impacts clothing size ranges in the fashion industry due to population variations.

Human Factors

• Human Factors combines ergonomics and anthropometrics.
• Aims include reducing stress and fatigue, increasing safety and ease of use, enhancing comfort, and improving system performance.

Ergonomics

• Ergonomics applies scientific information about the relationship between humans and designed objects, systems, and environments.

Physical Ergonomics

• Deals with posture, workstation layout, material handling, repetitive stress, musculoskeletal disorders, and occupational safety/health.
• Focuses on body measurements, strength, and physical capacity.

Cognitive Ergonomics

• Concerned with mental processes like perception, memory, reasoning, and motor response.
• Examines how these processes affect interactions between humans and system elements.

Organizational Ergonomics

• Includes communication, work design, shift management, crew resource management, teamwork, virtual organizations/telework, and quality management.

Anthropometric Data

• Sub-classified as Static and Dynamic Data.

Static Data (Structural Data)

• Measurements taken while the subject is in a fixed position (e.g., height, arm length).
• Easier to gather because people remain still.

Dynamic Data (Functional Data)

• Measurements taken during physical activities (e.g., crawling height, overhead reach).
• More useful but less reliable than static data.

Tools for Collecting Anthropometric Data

• Sliding calipers, cloth tape, sitting height meters, and stadiometers.

Percentiles

• Anthropometry tables use percentiles to indicate where a measurement falls relative to the average.
• Allows for the design of products that are adaptable for different markets or adjustable to cater for most users.
• Focus on the 5th, 50th and 95th percentiles

Clearance

• The minimum distance required for a user group to enter or pass through an area, important for emergency exits.

Reach (Workspace Envelope)

• A 3-dimensional space within which physical work activities are performed at a fixed location.
• Designed for the 5th percentile of users, ensuring 95% can reach everything within the envelope.

Adjustability

• Products may have adjustability to compensate for user's hight.

Range of Sizes vs. Adjustability

• Clothing comes in a range of sizes as it is not economically viable to tailor to every person.
• Children's car seats are adjustable to allow for a range of sizes and a growing child.

Ergonome

• A 2D scaled physical anthropometric model based on specific percentile human forms.
• Used with drawings of the same scale to consider the relationship between the size of an object and people.
• Have advantages and disadvantages

Manikin

• An anatomical 3D model of the human body
• Used by artists, especially to demonstrate the arrangement of drapery
• Useful for assessing the relationship of body parts to spatial arrangements represented by a 3D model, for example, a chair to a desk.
• Full scale manikins are generally more expensive than ergonomes and they give a better representation of the overall ergonomics in the design context (such as crash test dummies).
• Have advantages and disadvantages

Psychological Factors

• Human beings vary psychologically in complex ways
• Analysis of the human information processing system requires a designer to critically analyse a range of causes and effects to identify where a potential breakdown could occur and the effect it may have.

Cognitive psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics

• Concerned with mental processes such as perception, memory, reasoning, and motor response, as they affect interactions among humans and other elements of a system.

Methods for Collecting Psychological Factor Data

• Observation
• Surveys & Interviews
• Standardized Testing
• Case Studies

Nominal Data Scale

• Classifies objects into discrete groups identified by name, without providing measurement.

Ordinal Data Scale

• Arranges items in a hierarchical order using words, letters, symbols, or numbers.

Interval Data Scale

• Organizes data into even divisions with equal intervals, but has no true zero point.

Ratio Data Scale

• Has a true zero point, allowing comparison of differences between numbers.

Examples of Psychological Factors

• Smell: Used in food, perfumes, warning chemicals, among others.
• Light: Illumination levels affect task precision, workplace safety, ambience, and mood.
• Sound: Used to provide information or reassurance, but can also be negative noise.-
• Taste: Important in food, influenced by culture and experience.
• Texture: Improves product usability (e.g., bottle tops, handles, non-slip floors).
• Temperature: Impacts comfort in a work environment, must be controlled regardless of outside climatic factors
• Value: May be perceived as a function of cost, features, prestige, rarity etc. or a combination of these factors. May be perceived as a function of cost, features, prestige, rarity etc. or a combination of these factors.

Human Information-Processing System

• Considers inputs, sensory processes, central processes, motor processes, and outputs

Environmental Factors

• Factors like noise, lighting, temperature, humidity, and vibration may affect hearing, vision, comfort, and health.

Breakdown of Human Information Processing

• Dependent on age, skills, disabilities or frailty.

Maximizing Workplace Performance

• Policies, safety education and centralization.
• Noise, temperature, pollutants.
• Equipment design through controls, visibility, hazards.
• The work through boredom and repetitiveness.

Alertness

• Being aware of the surrounding environment, understanding short and long-term impacts.

Human Error

• Slips result from automatic behavior.
• Mistakes result from conscious deliberations.

Ways of Optimizing Workplace Performance

• Lighting
• Thermal comfort
• Working space
• Noise
• Vibration

Perception Effects

• The human mind considers objects in their entirety before the perception of their individual parts; suggesting the whole is seen rather than the sum of its parts.

Physiological Factors

• Related to bodily tolerances such as comfort and fatigue.

Physical Ergonomics

• Concerned with human anatomy.

Human Values

• Enhance quality of life and improve safety.

Fatigue

• Diminishment of performance that can inform design decisions.
• Can be temporary

Comfort

• Qualitative consideration as it is different between people.

Designing Ergonomically Enhanced Work Environments

• Promotes product designing based on human body structure and requirements
• Reduces strain workers experience due to repetitive use of machines, computers, scanners, industrial apparatus and related instruments
• Less strain equates to reduced instance of occupational illnesses and therefore healthier employees.
• Enhances productivity, which keeps the work momentum going on for longer durations
• Reduces number of sick days reported
• Allows for savings through ergonomic workstations, employers save huge amounts of money otherwise spent in compensation claims, treatments and litigation

Biomechanics

• Research and analysis of human body mechanics.
• Measure the amount of force put on the muscles and joints of people when working in different positions.
• Key criteria: force, repetition, duration and posture

Factors Affecting Muscle Strength

• Gender
• Age
• Pain, Physical training schedule, Immobilization or bed bound