Posture, discomfort and performance in a VDT task

Abstract

Improvements in workplace, working posture, and discomfort need to be justified in terms of improvements in performance. Previously, a visual inspection task has been investigated. The objective of the current study was to demonstrate the interactions between workplace, work duration, discomfort, working posture, as well as performance in a 2-h typing task. Three levels of keyboard heights were used to change working posture (e.g. joint angles and postural shifts), and thus presumably discomfort (e.g. rating of perceived discomfort and body part discomfort), and performance (e.g. typing speed, error rate and error correction rate). The results indicated that the hypothesized posture-comfort-performance interrelationships were partially supported. Keyboard height had effects on working posture adopted. As in previous studies, the rate of postural shift was a good indication of discomfort in a VDT task. Discomfort and postural shift rate had adverse effects on performance (e.g. error rate). However, these effects on error rate may not be strong.

Keywords:

• Performance
• Posture
• Discomfort
• Typing