PRODUCT
DESIGN RELATED
TO ERGONOMICS
ISSUES
Norashiken Othman
Ergonomic Design Definition
"Ergonomics (or human factors) is  the scientific
discipline concerned with the understanding of
interactions among humans and other elements of
a system, and the profession that applies theory,
principles, data and methods to design in order to
optimize human well-being and overall system
performance.

~"(According to the International Ergonomics

Association )
OVERVIEW OF ERGONOMICS
 Physical Ergonomics
• Physical Ergonomics are concerned with
the interaction of the body with the
equipment and the tools, starting right
from the chair to the computer. It also
studies its effect on the body, for example,
repetitive disorder, workplace safety,
health and layout, musculoskeletal disorder
and posture.
 Cognitive Ergonomics
• Cognitive ergonomic emphasizes the ways
of information processing by the mind and
its presentation. It is related to the motor
function, workload, decision-making and
memory-usage. This helps in
understanding the interaction and relation
of the human mind with the data
presentation.
6
 Organizational Ergonomics
• Organizational ergonomic works on
complete optimization of the workplace,
right from quality management to
teamwork. It includes managing everything
in the organization to make it a better
place to work.
Ergonomics

Ergonomics == Human Factors

Focus:
Interaction of humans with “devices”

Objective:

To understand, evaluate, and thereby, to improve

the interface between the human and the device
Outline

1. Examples of product design related to ergonomics issues

2. Case Study: digital images and JPEG

3. Methodology and tools useful for HF

Example 1. Office desk and Chair

Question: How do we decide the height of the desk?

Depends on:

(a) the height of the chair

(b) the size of the person who will use them

…
 Example 1. Chair ergonomics..

(iv) The arm rests height  elbow height at rest

(v) Backrest lumbar support
~15-25 cm above seat level

(i) Seat pan length

calf clearance (> 5cm) to 95% women

LUMBAR SUPPORT CALF CLEARANCE

(iii) The seat pan angle: ± 6

CHAIR HEIGHT SEAT PAN

FOOT REST

(ii) The chair height

contact lower thigh with both feet on floor
 Example 1. Chair ergonomics...

(i) Seat pan length: calf clearance (> 5cm) to 95% women

(ii) The chair height: contact lower thigh with both feet on floor
LUMBAR SUPPORT CALF CLEARANCE

CHAIR HEIGHT SEAT PAN

FOOT REST

IMPLICATIONS
1. Need for adjustability

2. Design of a “good” chair depends on the statistics of the users

Example 1. Chair ergonomics – user statistics

Design of a “good” chair depends on the statistics of the users

USA Germany Japan Netherlands

LUMBAR SUPPORT CALF CLEARANCE

Males 175.5 174.5 165.5 182.5

Females 162.5 163.5 153.0 169.6 CHAIR HEIGHT SEAT PAN

FOOT REST

Problem 1. What statistics are sufficient?

Problem 2. How to collect such statistics?

Problem 3. Statistics are time dependent:

e.g. height of urban Chinese males: increased by 6 cm over the last 20 yrs
Example 2. Keyboard design

Extended periods of use of a computer in the wrong posture

 repetitive stress injury (RSI)

Example 2. Keyboards: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

why
compression of the median nerve as it enters the hand.
symptoms
numbness of thumb and fingers,
pain along the median nerve including hand, wrist, elbow,
weakness of thumb.
treatment
rest, surgery
main cause
flexed or extended wrists when keying!
Example 3. How to turn on the shower
Non-intuitive design  wasted time/user-discomfort

tub-faucet

Pull down this ring to turn shower on

Example 4. Toilet flush (airport)
Non-intuitive design  discomfort (for next user?!)
Example 5. Is the water too hot? Too cold?
Ergonomics

(i) Understanding of human physiology

(ii) Understanding of human psychology

(iii) Statistical data about populations

Goal:

-- Improve design (more efficient)

-- Improve design (safety, comfort)

Ergonomics Case Study: Improve design

Digital Image Files

Digital Cameras (digicams)  pictures in a digital “memory”

What is the data composed of ? The “RGB-pixel model”

Digital image files: pixels

An image of a lion fish

What is the image made of ?

Digital image files: pixels

4x

4x

pixel
PICture ELements
 Digital image files: The RGB model

What is a color?

 Store the wavelength, intensity at each pixel

Problem ? (Technical: how to display?)

The primary color theory: any color  combination of primary colors (R, G, B)

 at each pixel, decompose into primary color values, store R, G, B.

Digital image files: The RGB model

R = Red level: 8 bit number = 1 byte

G = Green level: 8 bit number = 1 byte
B = Blue level: 8 bit number = 1 byte

Original lionfish file: 1920x2560 = 4,915,200 pixels ( 5 Megapixel digicam)

1 Byte per color per pixel  4,915,200 x 3 x 1= 14,745,600 ~= 15 Mbytes

PROBLEMS:
1. Large memory requirement  need for COMPRESSION

2. Slow transfer speed

Digital Image Files: compression

Strategy 1. Compress data without losing any information

Example: run-length-encoding

raster model: each pixel: 0 or 1

run-length-encoding: 0203,1403…,

203x191 pixels

LOSSLESS compression  No need to understand human vision

Digital Image Files: compression

Strategy 2. Compress data by throwing away parts that we cannot see

 Needs a good understanding of human vision

How we compress image files depends on how we “see” images

 Understanding of human vision

 more efficient compression technique

Digital Image Files: compression

Uncompressed: BMP (bitmap) 14 MByte

Lossless compression: PNG 7.9 MByte

“Lossy” compression: JPG (JPEG)

High quality 3.67 MByte

0.8 quality 0.83 MByte
0.6 quality 0.5 MByte
0.2 quality 0.2 MByte

http://iesu5.ieem.ust.hk/dfaculty/ajay/courses/ieem101/lecs/hf/lionfish.html
JPG: How do we “see”

Do you believe what you see?

The Koffka ring

JPG: How do we “see”..

Do you believe what you see?

JPG: How do we “see”…

Do you believe what you see?

JPG: How do we “see” -- the eye

RODS: scotopic vision (in dark)

only ‘on’ in darkness

only distinguish “lightness”

CONES: photopic vision

JPG: How do we “see” -- the eye..

Trichromacy theory:
different intensities of R- G- B- cones allows brain to “estimate”
frequency of the spectral light striking a zone
JPG: How do we “see” -- the eye...

Hue discrimination:
ability to distinguish between two different wavelength’s of light

Lightness discrimination:
ability to distinguish between two different levels of “lightness”

Lightness ~~ grey level

Lightness discrimination is MUCH more sensitive than Hue discrimination

Reasons:
(a) lightness is estimated by (R+G) response of cones, and also from RODS
(b) many more rods than cones
JPG: How do we “see” -- the eye….

Weber’s law:
Our ability to discriminate “levels of lightness” depends n the ratio of lightness

Shades that are in geometric series “look” equally spaced in lightness.

arithmetic geometric
 JPG: How do we “see” -- the eye…..
Hue discrimination vs Lightness discrimination

n cycles

eye
n cycles

both patterns are n/ cycles per degree

JPG: How to eliminate what we cannot see?

1. Intensity changes are much more significant than hue changes

2. Intensity change steps are logarithmic

PROBLEM: Technically, it is easier to handle R- G- B- shades

Why ?

(a) Recording instruments (digicams) sensors can sense “colors”

(b) Display instruments can handle RGB values better

JPG: How to eliminate what we cannot see..

must be invertible mapping

Converting RGB  Y Cb Cr

Luminance Chrominance
(lightness) (chroma) components

Y 0.299 0.587 0.114 R

Cb = -0.169 -0.331 0.5 G
Cr 0.5 -0.419 -0.0813 B
 JPG: How to eliminate what we cannot see…

Y 0.299 0.587 0.114 R

Cb = -0.169 -0.331 0.5 G
Cr 0.5 -0.419 -0.0813 B

JPEG compression:

Step 1. Convert RGB data into YCbCr data file-size reduction

Step 2. Sub-sample and quantize Cb and Cr data
Step 3. Compress resulting stream (run-length encoding)

Higher compression: Step 2  sub-sample more, sub-sample Y also

JPG: Details -- How to Sample, Sub-sample?

Break the image into “tiles” of NxN pixels.

Store data of each tile

Example:

10 6 7 7

4 8 7 7

2x2 tile: 4 values  average = 7  combine tiles into ‘block’ with value 7.
JPG: Details -- How to Sample, Sub-sample..

Sub-sampling and quantization basics

How Fourier analysis works for 1-D functions

4
y1=2
3
y2=cos(x)

2 y3=.5cos(2x)
y4=.25cos(4x)
1 y5=.125cos(8x)
T=y1+..+y5
0
0 2 4 6 8 T2=y1+..+y4
-1

-2
JPG: Details -- The Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT)

columns: 0 1 … 7
rows

0
1 8x8 pixel blocks
…

DCT function:

n 1 n 1
 p   q 
f ( p, q )  
i 0 j 0
4 A(i , j ) cos
 n
(i  1 / 2) 

cos
 n
( j  1 / 2) 

JPG: Details -- Quantization and encoding

DCT Quantization
(Larger lookup)

run-length-encoding
DCT (lossless compression)
Quantization
(Sub-sampled)
JPEG

DCT
Quantization
(Sub-sampled)
 JPG: Conclusions

1. Understanding of human sensory system is important for

better product designs

2. Levels of adjustability useful for variations among users

-- older person with poor sight might prefer higher compression

NOTE:
You don’t need to know details of DCT, and the exact mathematics
of the transformation

Important ideas:
sub-sampling: ignore some data, or replace multiple values by the average
quantization: instead of storing exact value, round up/down to nearest step
 Methods and tools in Ergonomics

Product design must consider: ease of use, comfort and safety in use

Optimization for ergonomics  understanding how human body works

Design parameters = f( physical measurement)

LUMBAR SUPPORT CALF CLEARANCE

e.g. Chair seat height

CHAIR HEIGHT SEAT PAN

FOOT REST

The study of measurement of human body is called anthropometry.

Human size variations  need to know the statistics of anthropometric

data
Ergonomics: methodology

1. Optimal product is designed based on anthropometric measurements;

2. Statistical variations of expected users are estimated;

3a. Design is modified to allow critical parameters to be adjusted by user

so as to ‘fit’ the individual need
or
3b. Size variations are provided to cover estimated market (e.g. shoe sizes)