Ergonomics     

Everyone has heard of ergonomics - after all, the word is widely used in advertisements for toys, kitchens, computers and many other everyday objects. But to think if ergonomics simply as a way of designing things that are more comfortable to use misses the point somewhat - there is much more to it than that.

So what exactly is ergonomics its a big word that means 'fit', the fit between people and the things they use. It is sometimes called human factors. In our case the 'fit' between children and their toys.

If children are comfortable using, handling, sorting, watching or sitting on something, for example, they will tend to like it more and use it more safely.

The idea of ergonomics is to design things to fit people. This means taking account of differences such as size, strength and ability to handle information for a wide range of users. Then the tasks, the play places and toys are designed around these differences. The benefits are improved child satisfaction in our case.

Children are smaller, they need to be considered carefully when designing toys for example, so that they are able to handle them, lift them and above all be safe when using them

Remember that work related sickness in the UK costs around £11 billion every year - much of this due to back injury.

Even the simplest of products can be a nightmare to use if poorly designed. Our ancestors didn't have this problem. They could simply make things to suit themselves. These days, the designers of products are often far removed from the end users, which makes it vital to adopt an ergonomic, user-centred approach to design, including studying playing with toys, talking to them and asking them to test things.