ERGONOMICS DESIGN OF COMPUTER KEYBOARD LAYOUT

Asikhia, O.K ¹ and Ehondor, S.E.²

¹Department of Mechanical Engineering, Edo State Institute of Technology and Management, Usen, Nigeria

² Department of Computer Science, Edo State Institute of Technology and Management, Usen, Nigeria

E-mail:¹askess2002@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

For the past six decades there has been tremendous development in computer technology. The computer keyboard basically is the main input device of a computer and the way we communicate with the computer has not changed. The “QWERTY” keyboard is considered to be the standard, even though the constraints that heavily influence the adoption have changed. From the ergonomics perspective, it has been proven that it inhibit speed and difficult to learn. It is the aim of this paper to design an optimum layout that maximise speed, improve comfort, minimize error and easy to learn using heuristic of ergonomics principles.

Keywords: Ergonomics, computer keyboard, QWERTY, Heuristic, speed