Why its vital to learn Ergonomics being a product & UIUX designer

Whether you are a physical product designer or a digital product designer, you need to understand ergonomics. What is human factors? What does it do when it comes to creating a whole product user experience for your customer? Right. We are going to discuss both the physical product and digital products and how this designer needs to understand human factors, which is ergonomics in a detailed way. Okay, let's jump into this podcast. So having said that, we'll have to understand what is ergonomics first. Okay, so it is actually a study of people's efficiency in their working environment. Lot of standards, metrications, legal laws and dimensions with respect to human physiology has been derived so far. How it is very relevant to design, let me tell you guys. Dealing with physical products, additional interfaces, understanding human ergonomics is always fundamental because we are having designing, we are designing products for people. We are not designing for any animal or any non living objects. You need to get that there are three important aspect. One is we are enhancing user experience which is giving them an intuitive user experience and people are more pleased and comfort to work. Second is it increases your productivity. See guys, ergonomic design can lead to increased productivity both in physical and digital tasks. Let's come to physical parts. Let's say if you are designing a very poor mop which is not having a height sufficient to that particular human. Okay, I'm designing it very short mop. Do you think cleaning the house will be easy? Typically a housewife takes let's say 30 to 45 minutes to clean a like let's say a house. If I'm deliberately designing it without considering the average anthropometric height, how difficult will it be? So productivity is largely increased. Same goes for office environments, Same goes for industrial safety. Same goes for lot more things, guys. Okay, see I can quote hundreds and hundreds of examples but you will have to understand. See there are three 80,000 plus work days lost annually due to ergonomic related injuries. It's a report by Ahnet National University. That means if you're not designing the chair properly for human comfort, if your spinal cord is not rested, if your legs are not properly rested, if your sitting angle is not properly rested, if your neck is not properly aligned, nobody really works for a longer hours of time, your office productivity will go down and the office has to bear the medical charges, right? Of course medical bill is being burned by office only. So starting from chair, starting from table, the comfort, whatever we are, we are having while driving your car, while taking your comb and combing your hair, while just looking at the mirror in Your toilet. Everything is based on ergonomics guys. See for an Indian there are too much short people. To put you in a very small example I'm giving you, there are too much large people will not consider these extremes. There is a median big population. What is the Indian anthropometric standard has. Okay, you can go and type India Indian anthropometric standard. It was written by, it was written by Debashri Mohanti. Okay, Debashri, I'm not sure about it. He's. He's a great author who formulated that. He's from West Bengal. I'm not exactly knowing his name but yeah, Deb Shri Mohanty or something. Right. So he has written the anthropometric standard and don't worry, I'll paste you the description as well. Okay, so you can read in that particular anthropometry chart what is a typical standard for Indian male which is having a 40 to 45 years, 50 to 60 years. What is a women age when it comes to what are the women's dimensions of a finger with respect to this age, with respect to this rural population, with respect to this physiology, with respect to this much height. So everything what we are designing based on that. Guys, if nobody is considering that, let me tell you what disaster will happen. You cannot wear the helmet, whatever you're buying in the shop. You cannot wear the glass whatever you're buying in the shop. You cannot go and see the mirror in the toilet properly. If you go to Netherland, being an Indian. Okay, I'm just giving you an example. You can't reach the mirror guys, it's too tall. Because the anthropometric average of a Netherlandian is very, very high. Even a woman, men, both if you go for the Japan, on the contrary, the anthropometric average height of a Japanese is very short. So you will have to bend down yourself to look at the mirror. So now you understand what is mean by ergonomics? I believe so. The economic impact of this musculoskeletal disorders caused by poor design is billions of dollars annually. So the demand for this accessibility design and inclusive design is very, very high. Guys, you need to understand that. So anthropometry and its importance is very vital to understand body dimensions. See, you don't have to work on dimensions and all it's already written in standards. You will have to understand. Let's say if you're designing a product for your finger. Okay, let's say now people are wearing watches, right? So soon, let's say people will Wear finger watches, let's say. So you have to design that interface for that, let's say a problem statement is coming like that. Now your entire interface is not square. It's not a mobile, it's not a laptop. It's going to be on your fingers. So how do you really create the screens? How do you really create that communication? How do you really create that colors? How do you create that resolution? How do you really communicate that message so that the human can perceive it? So it's not about having a rigid thought process. I'll only design for mobile, I'll only design for physical products. You will have to be flexible. That's the reason I'm recording this podcast. So positive impact of ergonomics on productivity, comfort and user experience. User satisfaction is very high. Guys, you'll have to get this. You can go and read many websites and particularly applications. There are two big buttons available, there are two short buttons available. I mean if you try to press it there, the next button will automatically press deliberately. Have you seen many websites? It's all because human ergonomics is not considered. There is an anthropometric size. What a finger has like let's say 100mm I would say. Okay, so if you're keeping it 50mm as your button, what happens when a human presses that? He mistakesly press the next button. Also imagine what happens in medical healthcare product if you're doing that. When we designed a medical ventilator buttons, we have kept it deliberately as 100 to 105 mm so that we have to tolerate that 5 percentage error as well. So human tendency is like that. Guys, you need to understand the human ergonomics, the mistakes and then you will have to get it. Microsoft ergonomic keyboard is reducing RSI cases. You can understand this very positive outcome. So how ergonomics influences user flow, navigation and overall usability. You need to understand this. Guys, Fitz Law is one of the good example to understand. See, Fitz Law is a predictive model that describes relationship between the speed and accuracy in human movement. It offers you a very good comparison and relativity for it. It's often used in human computer interaction and ergonomics. But you don't have to buy hard that law just keep it in mind. That's enough. But once if you are going deep, you will get a lot of perspective in that you will learn what is mean by Fitz Law. Once you're solving the problem of the people. Understanding his ergonomics, understanding the region, understanding the Persona, understanding the dimension and then designing for him. Okay, See, I can talk about lot of products like let's say furniture, appliances and you can take Dyson's vacuum cleaner, Apple's magic mouse. Have you seen this guys? Apple magic mouse is no way compared to the normal mouse. Dyson's vacuum cleaner is no way compatible. They are like too far ahead because they've understood exactly how ergonomic function really works. How does a finger really slide, how does a scroll really work in using the mouse? How does the button left right click work in Apple mouse? So go and test it out. There is no physical buttons in Apple mouse. But you can feel everything, you can do everything, more than a normal mouse does. Have you seen vacuum cleaner? I'll tell you one thing guys, honestly, okay, I went to a Dyson showroom. So I was thinking every vacuum cleaner, whatever, you know, you can get it for 6,000, 7,000 this, that and all. But these guys know Dyson, they have a vacuum cleaner at 40,000. I was like bitching. I mean, not in the sense. I was like very angry. Why are they deliberately pricing it 10 times? I saw it in the commercials, okay? I saw it in the TV ad when I went to Germany. I mean all these things I've saw. You won't believe the moment when I dropped on to the showroom, like let's say there was an expo happening in the Dyson particular product. The moment when I touched that product and I started using that. Can I tell you something guys? I'll pay 50,000 also for that product. That's the kind of comfort, that's why they are class and that's why they are the number one in the world for vacuum cleaners. The kind of elegance, the kind of comfort, the kind of usability. How they understood if you wanted to really charge a vacuum cleaner, how does the people do lot of car, lot of wire, this, that, they have a wall mounted charger, they have a absolute micro mesh which can clean everything to your dust. Accuracy of 99%. So functionality, usability, aesthetics, three things are perfect hand in hand. That's why guys, if you're not understanding this safety aspect, accessibility aspect, ergonomics aspect, if you're not preventing injuries, if you're not preventing your productivity going down, if you're not preventing lot many things like this, your product will not really go into the market same time you'll have to adhere the guidelines of standards, regulation, medical compliance. Even if you're doing websites, there is something called website accessibility. Website content accessibility guidelines, wcag. You can read about it. Okay, so you'll have to understand what is your human, what is the dimensions, what is the requirement, and then you go and solve it. I hope you would have got the clarity and understanding why a designer needs to understand ergonomics. Let's see you in another podcast. Take care. Bye. Bye. All the best.