Anthropometry

Ergonomics?
• It is the science of work : people, who do it and the way it is done
• Tools and equipment they use
• Place they work in
• Psychosocial aspects

• ERGOS + NOMOS - work and natural law

Anthropometry
• Human body and process of measurement
• Engineering, Medicine, Human Science
• Efficiency of the fighting man
• WORK – what we do – ACTIVITY and CONTEXT
• TOOLS – objects used to perform a task or activity
User Centered Design
• PRODUCT :: USER match

• Successful match?

i. Functional Efficiency
ii. Ease of use
iii. Comfort
iv. Health and Safety
v. Quality of work life
Anthropometry
• Body Measurements : size, shape, strength, and
working capacity
• Match physical form and dimension of user and
object to perform work

• HUMAN PROPORTIONS: designed to human

scale
• Proportion and sense of Rightness and Harmony

‘canons of human proportions’ – artists and

sculptors
Canon and Beauty
The Canon is a theoretical work that discusses ideal mathematical
proportions for the parts of the human body and proposes for
sculpture of the human figure a dynamic counterbalance—between
the relaxed and tensed body parts and between the directions in which
the parts move.

Beauty consists in the proportions, not of the elements, but of the

parts, that is to say, of finger to finger, and of all the fingers to the palm
and the wrist, and of these to the forearm, and of the forearm to the
upper arm, and of all the other parts to each other.
Human Proportions
• Standard range
• Ideal standard
• Cubit
 Vitruvian Man
The measurements of man are in nature distributed in
this manner: that is a palm is four fingers, a foot is four
palms, a cubit is six palms, four cubits make a man,
a pace is four cubits, a man is 24 palms and these
measurements are in his buildings.
If you open your legs enough that your head is lowered
by one-fourteenth of your height and raise your hands
enough that your extended fingers touch the line of the
top of your head, know that the centre of the extended
limbs will be the navel, and the space between the legs
will be an equilateral triangle.
Modular
A system of quantity
based on male figure and
the golden mean used to
determine
measurements in
architecture

Fibonacci
Golden Ratio 1.61
Human form at the center of design
Ratio of the total height of
the figure to the height to the
figure's navel is 1.61.
Modular Man and Furniture
Form follows funtion
• Function is enough for determining Form
Ornamentation is useless

• Functional objects are pleasing

• Style, look not first priority, Function

• Themes: Measure and translate creatively
• Diversity of users
• Design is good for me
• Design is satisfactory for average person
• Variability is fast, cannot be designed
• Ergonomics is expensive
• Common sense but not studies
User and Task Analysis
• Define what the user is actually going to do with
product/system/environment

• ASSIGNMENT
• ACTIVITY – SEVERAL STEPS – PHOTOGRAPH – TRACE IT