An Ergonomic Evaluation Of The Kinesis Computer Keyboard :: essays research papers

An Ergonomic Evaluation of the Kinesis Computer Keyboard1. IntroductionIn this information-technology age, e trulyday tasks are more and more cogitate to computer. That ranges from basic jobs such as providing food recipesfor housewives to complicated ones such as analyzing laboratory experimentaldata for scientists and engineers. This popularity of computer means that thetime one has to pass on with computer would be a lot more than in the past. Untilnow, the computers and computer peripherals in the market have been madeaccording to the same design as the ones invented decades ago when computers areused only in large-scale scientific projects or big corporations. That meansfor most people the ergonomic value of these products seemingly was not takeninto account when designing them. Fortunately, at the moment, more companiesare trying to change the way people work with computer by trade a number ofergonomic products most notably keyboard, mouse and monitor. There areergonomic ke yboards, mice and monitors being released all the time. The reasonwhy the focus is on these products is that they are the parts of computer oneinterfaces with the most while working with computer. The subject of whetherthese ergonomic keyboards, mice, monitors and other products really workattracts a lot of uninterrupted computer users. Thus, studies dedicated to it havebeen done. This report is based on one of the studies about an ergonomickeyboard from a manufacturer called Kinesis. This study looks not only on theeffect of the keyboard on the users body by mean of electromyographic activitybut also on the learning rate of the users changing to this new style ofkeyboard. This is very useful since slow learning rate would lead to thedecrease in effectiveness of work. Introduced in 1868 by Christopher Sholes,computer keyboard is still the primary data debut mode for most computer users.With the increase of computer, hence keyboard, usage at the moment, theseproblems of the keyboar d users known as operator stress problems have developed.This is a kind of additive trauma disorders which is mainly caused by workingexcessively or repetitively with the same thing, keyboard, in this case, in thesame position for a long boundary of time. This kind of disorder is considered tobe the most expensive and severe one occurring in office environment. This leadsto an amount of alternative designs introduced in the market with the main object of reducing muscular stress required for typing. The reason why thesedesigns have not yet replaced the old one is because of the familiarity of the