Ergonomics (Week 9)

 When talking about ergonomics, the mind often conjures images of those old ugly ball-point pens that gave you CTS or chairs that gave you scoliosis. But really it's just a science of how humans interact with their tools and how to make it less painful.

The difficulty of speaking about ergonomics stems from the fact that one only thinks about ergonomics when something has gone terribly wrong.



But in all seriousness, if we are to speak of an example of good ergonomics that prevented a disaster, then the first place has to go to emergency numbers. Short, easy to remember, easy to dial, saving lives. Also, as far as I can remember, every cell phone has had the ability to dial an emergency number even while locked. Even those old brick phones.

As for bad examples, there are possibly too many to count (including the pictures above). But I would like to leave the reader with this video by the satirical news network The Onion:


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