Posts Tagged ‘Office Desks’

Applications of office furniture ergonomics outside of chairs

Friday, August 28th, 2009

One might think that obviously chairs can easily be designed and built with ergonomics in mind. But what of office desks? How does one make a desk more comfortable? An office desk is just as viable a candidate for ergonomic design as a chair or bed. A great deal of ergonomic design centers on positioning for reach. These design features are created by the use of planned heights and widths. For example, an ergonomic office desk is built with a computer work station and keyboard set at a 45° angle to the writing area and abstraction and writing area may be a desk extension and a 90° angle ending in a small circular table. Ergonomic office desks such as this allow an operator to swivel his or her chair from study of paper reports and files to reference on the computer. Shared information might be placed on the round extension table where a coworker has equal access. Yes features such as rounded corners and edges are part of ergonomics, but the main attribute to ergonomic office furniture design is placement and positioning for quick access with less stressful movement. Excellent examples of this are simple items such as ergonomic mice and coccyx cushions. An inexpensive ergonomic mouse might be just enough of a stress relief tool so as to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome.