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

An Ergonomic Evaluation of the Kinesis Computer Keyboard1. knowledgeablenessIn this information-technology age, e trulyday tasks are more and morerelated to computing machine. That ranges from radical jobs such as providing food recipesfor housewives to complicated ones such as analyzing research lab experimental entropy for scientists and engineers. This popularity of computing machine means that thetime one has to f alone 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 devise as the ones invented decades ago when computers areused only in large scientific projects or big corporations. That meansfor or so people the ergonomic value of these products obviously was not takeninto account when designing them. Fortunately, at the moment, more companiesare trying to change the way people playact with computer by marketing a number ofergonomic products most notably keyboard, mo use and monitor. There areergonomic keyboards, 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 different products really workattracts a lot of regular computer users. Thus, studies use 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 the solution 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 entry mode for most computer users.With the increase of computer, hence keyboard, utilization at the moment, theseproblems of the keyboard users known as operator form problems have developed.This is a kind of cumulative trauma disorders which is mainly caused by working also or repetitively with the same thing, keyboard, in this case, in thesame vista for a long period of time. This kind of disorder is considered tobe the most expensive and severe one occurring in office environment. This leadsto an amount of utility(a) designs introduced in the market with the mainintention of reducing muscular stress required for typing. The reason why thesedesigns have not yet replaced the honest-to-goodness one is because of the familiarity of the