Juan Carlos Estupiñán E
Ergonomist with passion! Industrial Designer for conviction!
Ergonomis. Musica. Fast Company. Infographs. Design Thinking. DESIGNhistory. Usable Things. Draw Diagrams Online. Industrial-design. Designing Products and Places For Kids. Ergonomics. The Ergonomics Puzzlement. Posture Research. Is chronic back pain caused by the manner in which we sit? For many people, this could be the case, according to a growing number of experts in the field of ergonomics. Add to this the fact that we are fast becoming an information processing society, in which increasing numbers of workers transact business while sitting for long periods of time, and we begin to see the crucial role that sitting may play.
For modern researchers, many of the ideas proposed two decades ago by Danish surgeon, A.C. Mandal, M.D., regarding the spine began a major paradigm shift in the way we evaluate the seated worker. When standing erect, the spine assumes a posture of natural lordosis, while kyphosis is difficult to avoid in traditional seated postures. Some of the known negative effects of traditional, 90° sitting include: Mandal emphasized a way of sitting where posture approached the spine’s natural resting position. This seemingly radical concept is not new, however. References Mandal, A.C. Peters, H. What Price Ergonomics? Usability. Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object.
The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, or anything a human interacts with. A usability study may be conducted as a primary job function by a usability analyst or as a secondary job function by designers, technical writers, marketing personnel, and others. It is widely used in consumer electronics, communication, and knowledge transfer objects (such as a cookbook, a document or online help) and mechanical objects such as a door handle or a hammer. Usability includes methods of measuring usability, such as needs analysis[1] and the study of the principles behind an object's perceived efficiency or elegance. Introduction[edit] The primary notion of usability is that an object designed with a generalized users' psychology and physiology in mind is, for example: In the user-centered design paradigm, the product is designed with its intended users in mind at all times.
Methods - Card Sorting. Card sorting is a useful tool to determine how users categorize the information that will appear on a website. The name “card sort” comes from the original exercise, which used index cards with a word or phrase written on one side, and in some cases, a definition or additional information on the reverse side.
There are traditionally two types of card sort exercises used: open card sort, and closed card sort. Open Card Sort In an open card sort exercise, participants are given a stack of cards and are asked to group them together as it makes sense to them (no right or wrong answers). Closed Card Sort In a closed card sort exercise, participants are provided group names, and are asked to place each of the cards into one of the pre-established groups. The results of a card sort exercise may be used to develop an application or website’s Information Architecture.