- Design of chair
- Height of desk
- Position of screen in relation to the window or other light source.
Office furniture
The two important elements of the computerised work stations which are the chairs and the desks. An old desk, which was not designed for computers or other equipment, is likely not to be suitable. The desk should have space for a pen and paper as well as the computer and other equipment. The keyboard on the table should be about 0.7 meters maximum above the floor if it is going to help people of various heights. Clearance is needed between the knee and the underneath of your desk.
The height of the chair should be adjustable, the seat should be about 0.4 meters from the floor. A stable base for the chair, with castors is preferable. Sometimes you have to make movements from one side of the desk to the other this is why the castor makes fewer problems. The back of the chair should be adjustable to give a comfortable position, back problems have been common for people working all day on computers.
Armrests are not a good idea because they tend to encourage a poor sitting position.
Office environment
The temperature and atmosphere in the office must be suitable for both people and computer equipment. The noise from the computer can be really irritating. The main culprit here has been the dot matrix impact printer in the past. While their printers are being superseded by quiet machines such as the ink-jet and laser printers. There are plenty of older printers in offices and out mode ones are still being bought due to their low price. In a situation where there are going to be more than one or two printers, it is essential that the noise problem be dealt with.
Even the fan inside the CPU box of the ordinary PC can be annoying, and a devise can be fitted to cut out the operation of the fan when it is not needed, on reduce noise from it.
Leads and sockets
Every piece of computing equipment needs its own mains head. If the office is not properly designed and equipped with main truncking and sockets at various positions around the room, then one tends to find a mess in the workstation. This is both very dangerous and messy. Each socket should only contain one plug and not adapters with several plugs added in.
Trailing leads are dangerous and you can easily trip over them, the new sockets are very cheap to install or relocate once power is in the room.
Computer software
As well as the equipment used in computer system, the software also makes a difference to the comfort or discomfort experienced by users. Computer software should be designed with the user in mind as well as the actual task to be performed.
Users forum
One possible answer to these design and target problems is for the managers who take decisions on equipment and layout to be aware of the requirements, and to be clear that some of these are legal requirements.
A second solution which should be adapted, and which does exists in many larger organisations, is the computer users group.
They meet regularly to discuss problems and find solutions to them in retaliation computer systems. Issues of health and safety.
Jahangir Ali