Aesthetics and Ergonomics

Prof.A.B.PATEL

Aesthetic Aspects

Aesthetic can be defined as art and science of appearance of a product or physical entity. After defining the functional scope, dependability and durbility basic structure of a product gets almost fixed. The next step is to give final shape to the product around the basic structure. Moulding of a shape may be limited in scope. This may be termed as functional shape. A study of changes in the shape of various products in past few decades reveals that there has been increasing role of aesthetic in design. Functional shape is a concept in its own right amongst designers. Compatibility of function with shape is logical and should be accomplished during the course of design. In some cases aesthetics is a governing factor and completely dominates the design. It is used to create demand of the product by the consumers.

Aesthetic Aspects (continued) Following techniques enhances the aesthetic appeal in

product design. Use of special materials either for the parts of the housing or as additional decoration. Viz. use of chromium strips, plastics, wood, glass and fabrics. Use of color either natural color of the material or color provided by paints, plating, sprayings, or even lighting. Composition and contrast are of great importance. Texture supplements colors, either by appropriate treatment of the given surface or coatings. Surface finish and requirement of brightness as determined by styling may in turn decide the production processes in the finishing stages. Matt finish, mirror finish and mottled finish are examples of surface finish varieties. Shape denoted by outer contours and similarity to familiar objects. The shape can be exploited to accomplice particular features, to create a sense of spaciousness or illusions of size, richness and dependability.

Aesthetic Aspects (continued)

5. 6. Use of line to break the form. It is also used for the purpose of emphasizing parts of it, or to give a sense of continuity, graciousness and attainability. Scaling the product either to a blown up size or to a small size. This creates novelty and a sense of completeness. The process of styling of some of the popular small automobiles in Europe may be partly to the designers talent in creating a feeling of stillness having the full size version with all its features. Packaging especially of small items, novelty and attractiveness of packaging are often transferred in the mind of the consumer. In extreme cases packaging may assume an appreciable portion of the total cost and may become the centre point of the design project. Great variety can be achieved by selection of material , color, texture and line. The basic product may remain same and variety is created by finishing processes alone at relatively low cost. Modern production control techniques allow the vast number of combination of color and texture to be offered with relatively low cost.

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ERGONOMICS
Ergonomics or human factors engineering is the science of fitting tasks to man. The word ergonomics is derived from Greek word ergon and nomos meaning work and natural laws respectively. Ergonomics and human factors engineering are synonymous and cover a very wide field. Human factors engineering brings two groups of specialists one who know about machines and processes and the other who know about human capabilities. It is a link between engineering sciences and social sciences.

ERGONOMICS (continued)
The role of human factors in product and equipment design assumes importance in three aspects. Man as occupant of space i.e. to operate the machine, the human operator must have sufficient space as dictated by human body dimension or anthropometry. Man as reader of display from the machine . That is based on display data, man processes data and takes action. Man as one who takes action through operating controls which form a part of machine Thus man acts as applicator of force and controls the machine. Thus human factors in design is study of application of force, display and controls by human.

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Anthropometry

Human being as applicator of force

Energy is converted into useful work by the human motor system. The body can be regarded as set of rigid members; the part of limbs between joints, the main part of the trunk and head. All these parts are heavy in relation to available forces. The available forces may be wasted in moving the parts of the body. Two consequences follow from this. First action will not be efficient if the direction of force is such that the limb or any other part of the body is moving against the force of gravity. Second the most efficient way of generating forces is to use the muscles and joints to get the body in a position such that use of body weight is made to overcome forces. For example, in lifting the weight from the ground , if body and head are moving against the gravity as the weight is lifted, then most of the available force will be wasted in the body.

Human being as applicator of force (continued)

Correspondingly if a worker is required to exert a downward force, for instance to fit an object into its surrounding part, then this task will be accomplished more easily, from a standing rather than a sitting position. (i) Momentum The other way in which body masses can be utilized by the provision of forces from momentum. The force exerted is proportional to moving parts, as also to the relative velocity of the limb and the object on which the force is to be exerted. Machine operators are trained to use momentum to operate the hand wheels. (ii) Muscle contraction and energy release Economy and spread of effort occur within muscle. All muscles consist of large number of fibers and bundles of fibers that can be regarded as motor unit. The greater the force or faster the movement, the greater will be the number of motor units involved.

ANTHROPOMETRY
The starting point of design of work spaces must be the dimension of the people who are going to operate within the given space. One of the primary duty of ergonomics is to provide about the body size. This study is known as anthropometry. The variation between individuals are large enough to be important and so the statement of averages is not enough. Since human dimensions are distributed normally in a statistical manner, there are very few individuals who are at either extreme. Most adults are between 1.5 m and 1.85 m tall. However there are exceptions. Anthropometry data are expressed in the form of 5th, 50th,and 95th percentiles. The range from 5th to 95th percentile covers 90% of the population. The data is represented by a scale model of human operator known as manikin. Such scale model is represented in next slide.

Scale model of man

For details refer McCormick E.J. and Sanders W. Human Factors in Engineering McGraw Hill , New York 1993

Design of Controls

A control is a device that enables the operator to enable to change the state of a mechanism. It converts the output of an operator into the input to a machine. Following is the list of some controls: 1. Hand wheel 2.Crank 3. Thumb wheel 4. Knob 5. Slider 6.Toggle switch 7. Joy stick 8.Roller ball 9. Lever 10.Foot pedal 11. Treadle 12.Detent switch 13. Handle

Foot controls are best for continuous forces and hand controls are best for speed and precision.

Design of displays
A display is the part of the environment of the operator that provides him information relevant to the task he is performing. Various types of displays are: i. Pictorial display: It consists of some level of direct representation of actual situation, for example a spot moving across the screen indicating actual position of an object. ii. Qualitative display: It indicates general situation such as red light indicating low level of oil rather than indicating level of oil. iii. Quantitative display: This indicates a number denoting the value of the some variable. There are two types of displaymoving pointer fixed scale display and digital display. There are only three important channels through which operator receives the information, the visuals, the auditory and kinesthetic sensory channels. The task is to allocate the required information between these channels.

Man/machine interface
The man/machine inter face is an imaginary plane across which information is exchanged between the operator and machine. Information is conveyed from the machine to the man by the display elements of the interface and from the man to machine by the control elements of the interface. The machine is fast, accurate, powerful and inflexible. On the other hand man is slow, subject to error, relatively weak and yet highly versatile. The nature of these properties explains why the man machine combination is so useful but only if these fundamentally two different units can be efficiently put to use. The higher the speed of machine the more crucial is to conform to the basic principles of machine design. The area of man/machine interface is still at its nascent stage and there is enough scope for research in this area.

Bibliography
1. Human factors Engineering McCormick E.J. and Sanders W. McGraw Hill New York, 1993 2. Product Design and Manufacturing A.K. Chitale and R.C. Gupta Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi, 1999

THE END