Ergonomics is the science of better engineering of the interface between people and machinery. Here is a quick course to improve your connection with your computer. This will help you write email faster, take on-line courses for efficiently, operate your web browser, get more work done with less fatigue and more accuracy.

• Bigger is better, easier to read, but not so big you have to move your head to read- only your eyes. Adjust window size so your eyes can easily scan page of text.
• Keep it clean. A dusty or dirty screen makes it harder for your eyes to see- causing fatigue of the three or four visual systems that have to move your eyes, focus, and read.
• Top of screen should be level or below your eyes. You should not have to tilt head up to see screen. You would never hold a book or newspaper that high to read. Ideally screen is where you would normally like to hold a book- usually lower than your computer table will allow.
• Screen should be tilted so top and bottom are equal distance from your eyes, so you do not have to re-focus for reading top and bottom.
• Brightness of screen should be close to the brightness of area around you. Otherwise you are fatiguing the iris and retinal brightness adaptors every time you look away from the screen. Screen brightness should match anything else you are looking at- keyboard, data entry material, etc. Bright may be easier to read- it’s a common trick when reading books. But try to solve that with good font type and size if possible.
• I jot down accounts and passwords etc, on the frame around my screen in pencil. I also sometimes put the account and password (or a reminder like Barboy for KenDoll) in the name of a web page in my Favorites. Like “Key Bank MTwain832 Kendoll”
• Distance from your eyes to the screen should be the same distance you hold a book or newspaper.

• Keyboards are cheap- you should try several out with several minutes of typing. Notice whether keys are concave- which tends to pull your fingers to center of key. Notice whether keys click a bit- most studies find this improves typing speed. Notice whether home keys (F and J) have a nib to feel for touch typing (see G)
• Black looks neat- but in my book if you have to look at keyboard, its brightness should match screen, i.e. light color. Hey-OK- better to touch type. See G. The keyboard should be well lit, unless you are a great touch typist.
• Keyboard should be at height which allows typing with lower arms horizontal. This is related to chair height, etc. below. Most keyboard are too high. Most monitors are too high.
  Usually this means a computer desk with a lower shelf for the keyboard. If you have a desk you love, consider replacing the center drawer with a keyboard shelf. Ah hem, with a stable keyboard shelf- not three sponges and some duct tape- however that would be a great way to see what height stays above your knees, but gets the keyboard low enough, and tilted, with mouse pad next to it, not up on desk.
• A keyboard with lots of extra keys may be nifty, but a simpler keyboard makes for less searching.
• If you have more than one computer- home and work, desk and laptop- try to get keyboards that match or are similar.
• The keyboard layout called QWERTY because those are the letters in the upper left was designed for mechanical typewriters in order to SLOW YOU DOWN. The mechanical typewriter did not have the speed of key return to keep up with most typists. A Dvorak keyboard has the letter placed so that the most common letters are in the home position under your stronger fingers. Lots of operating systems support the Dvorak key layout, which provides typically 10-20 percent faster typing . Over the course of your life, that’s a lot of productivity. Some keyboards allow you to swap the key tops, and then you tell the operating system you wan to type Dvorak instead of QWERTY. Or you can shop for a Dvorak keyboard.
• Spend $20 and buy Mavis Beacon’s keyboarding software. It will teach you to touch-type, and it will give you more practice with whatever keys are your weakest. Again- you are in for a lifetime of keyboarding- it really pays to improve this basic basic basic skill. LEARN TO TOUCH TYPE. BRUSH UP YOUR TYPING SKILLS OFTEN. Let the software occasionally show you some of your common mistakes and fix them. Keep track of your typing speed with the software. If it slows down, check you keyboard, your seat and posture, your mental health, etc.You MUST have a place to rest your palms when you are not typing- reading, thinking, waiting for download etc. Your arms and fingers are like your heart- they do their resting in the intervals between bursts of activity. Your need to be able to just go limp, so the shoulders, upper arms, lower arms, and fingers can all just take a break without moving to your lap, etc.
• Your keyboarding may improve if you tilt the keyboard. The idea is for the fingers to travel the same distance and angle whether reaching up to the Qwerty row, or down to the zxcv row, without stretching your wrists. This depends on your typing style, I say go back to A. and try out lots of keyboards.
• Get a better keyboard. Sure- a keyboard came with your computer. It is easily worth $100 to buy a keyboard that improves your typing speed and accuracy, or prevents rotator cuff injury, tendonitis etc. This applies especially if you have a tiny keyboard on your laptop- that’s why they have a keyboard connector on the laptop, and a monitor output too. Sure it seems silly to buy a keyboard and screen for your laptop, but if you are using that machine a lot at a desk, then it is really worth it to improve the ergonomics. Try the curved keyboards- they work great for some people. But be sure to type for several minutes at least. They try to sell you on looks, and you should be buying for function. If it sucks when you take it home, take it back.
• Color code your keys. If you have some keys you find yourself looking for- get some color Sharpie markers, and mark those keys. F keys on the top row, volume up/down, Escape. Highlight anything that is slowing you down. Change with fingernail polish remover /acetone. Put marks where they can be seen sometimes above or below key rather than on its top or side.
• If you are having trouble hitting the Caps Lock sometimes when you hit the left hand shift key (typical on small lap tops keyboards), you can ask Windows to give you a tone every time caps lock goes on or off. It won’t stop you from doing it, but at least you will know. Easy way is to hold down NumLock for five seconds. Or, Go to Control Panel, select Accessibility Options, select Keyboard, click box to turn on Toggle keys. Now when you hit any of the Lock keys, you will be beeped.

• With a good pointer or mouse, you should be able to go anywhere on the screen in one movement, and place the cursor just where you want it without wiggling into place. Not four swipes on the finger, not jiggle jiggle jiggle until the cursor is right where it needs to be.
• Do not live with lousy pointer. Buy a mouse to use in place of a pointer pad that is slow. If you have a pointer pad, try a mouse, even a cheap mouse. It is almost always faster with a mouse. The pointer pads just do not have the reliability. If you still love your pointer pad after trying a mouse, OK, give the mouse to the Humane Society. Or maybe the mouse stays home with your better keyboard and big screen, while your laptop goes out on dates with you.
• If your mouse cord is slowing you down, try a wireless mouse. This would be if you have a cramped desk. Otherwise, lay out that cord so you never notice it.
• Bigger mouse pad if you have room for it. Every time you can point anywhere on page with one move instead of two you are faster, more efficient, less tired. You can adjust how far mouse moves on page for each inch on the pad. Mess around with different settings until you find the one that is most accurate and fast. Control Panel, Mouse, Pointer Options, Motion. Try to set it as fast as possible while still maintaining ease of positioning between letters to insert or delete, or click boxes. See A above again.
• Mice come in many sizes and shapes. So does your hand. They are cheap, you can try them out at the store or in the computer lab or around the office. Do not buy a mouse because it looks sharp or cute or techy or rad. Buy one that screams on your screen. Best to use three or four and keep the best one.
• While many people swear that the optical mouse is the way to go, I have had very good work done with regular old rolling ball mice. In both cases, you have to keep your mouse pad clean. With rolling ball mice, you may have to disassemble and clean (or replace) now and then. It is nice to have the same keyboards AND mice if you work at multiple computers.

• You need to sit comfortably for your derriere, and your back. Your feet should be comfortably on the floor. You should have back support when you want it.
• Arm rests are great for when you are not typing. But, if they interfere with your typing, that’s not good.
• If you sit too long, aside from fatigue, you may cause clots in your legs. This is true for sitting on airplanes and in cars as well. Good rule of thumb is never sit for more than one hour at a time. Clots can cause strokes, the second leading cause of death world-wide.
• Angle of seat should be such that you rest on whole derriere, without pinching bottom of thighs on front of seat.

• You need place for your stuff- your books, papers, food and drink.
• Have book shelves with course books, notes, references. Files. Nearby is smart.
• Have a dictionary handy, just like a normal study desk. If you have a fast on-line dictionary, fine. Put it where you can click it within a couple seconds on your desktop or toolbar, and USE IT. You want it for meaning, not just spell checking.
• Many people slap up a document holder where they can see something that needs typing. Entering your pencil edits, typing in quotes , etc. Sometimes a place next to the monitor with a stand or easel for book etc. works well.

• I arrange my icons in circles or other simple geometric shapes. I can find icons much faster this way. I group them by most commonly used, less used, and seldom used but hard to find in the Program File list. Find a better way for yourself. I keep my most common ones together, near the bottom of the screen, where my eyes go more easily from the keyboard than the top.
• Set up a desktop calendar. One comes with xP, but you have to put a shortcut on the desktop. Or you can download one.
• Set up a calculator on your desktop. There’s always something you needs to do some arithmetic on. Have it handy. If I could put a stapler and tape on my computer desktop, I would. And paper clips. And make sure your desktop clock is set and in a format you like to read.
• Clear the clutter. Delete shortcuts on the desk top which you do not use often and which are not important.
• There are lots of desktop wallpapers out there- find one that you like, but also make it easy to see icons. I use black-and-white photos, or color ones with big splotches of solid color where I put my circles of icons.
• Learn how the task bar at the bottom works, and decide whether you need icons up on the desktop if you have them on the task bar. Right clicking the task bar is a good starting place.

• Make folders and use them. This important file should be a bunch of file folders, not a bunch of individual files. File for school, file for each course you are taking now, file for letters home, etc. For best efficiency, the file folders should not overflow one screen. If you have enough file folders to need to page down, consider consolidating folders. One folder for all school stuff, then files in that for current classes, old classes, letters, drafts, soccer schedules etc. Take time now and then to re-organize your files.
• Windows will alphabetize you folders. If you use a few folders all the time, give them their own desktop icon (right click), or simply re-label them with a triple aaa in front of the name, like aaaHuman Development SJC, which will put them at the top of your list.
• Develop some personal standard abbreviations, like F06 for Fall semester 2006, or 100906 for October 9th, D1 for draft number 1 to keep your file names shorter No harm in re-labeling and moving files to make them easier to find.
• Date it. Include date (or at least the year) in folder or file name, or at least in the file itself. . Like Intro Socio 05. Helps find things later. Be careful not to rely on software dating your document. Many applications change the date on a file record when you edit or access it.
• Be sure you know how to “Save As” so you can leave an older draft for history and safety, and modify a new edition. When I pull up a paper to edit, say Draft4, I first “save as” with its new name, Draft5, so when I am done editing I do not accidentally save it under the old name. Text takes almost no room on a hard drive. Save your drafts.
• Even if you do not back up your computer like you should (grrrrr.), at least burn a CD copy of the My Documents file every now and then. Also burn a CD of you photos in case your hard drive crashes or your computer gets stolen.
• How stupid does it sound? Keep copies of what you send. This applies especially to papers sent for coursework. Until you get a course grade, assume the professor’s dog will delete your files. And that would be YOUR problem.

• Some people get through life in wheelchairs and with amputated limbs. Few prefer it. If you do not know how to cut and paste with Control A, Control C, and Control V, in EVERY program and application, then swallow your pride and have someone show you. I have shown doctors, lawyers, PhDs.
• Back-ups. When your hard drive crashes or some steals your computer, you will be crippled. If you have two CDs with your Documents and Photos burned, you will survive scared, but barely scarred. Your CD burner should be a commonly used icon on your desk top. But at least 50 blank CDs, and a Sharpie marker. Paper CD envelops take us less room and they do not break compared to plastic jewel cases.
• If you are going to deal with photos, learn how to edit them. Learn how to crop. Learn to change the image size, and adjust brightness and contrast, and save under a new name in a common file format like JPG. Your computer may have come with a simple version of this software. The web is taking us into a world of images, not just text. Get it. While you are at it, in your spare time learn to manipulate audio and video files.
• YOU are responsible for your spelling, not your spell checker. Period. If you use the wrong word, spelled correctly, you are still a dummy. Happens to me, could happen to you. Dictionary.
• Be careful not to enter misspelled words into your dictionary with the “Add word” feature. Students frequently turn in paper with the word “hte” included. Their spell checker did not catch the mistake because previously the student had hit “add word” when the spell checker found this misspelling. Darn. Can’t usually get those wrong words out of the spell checker once added!!
• Turn on the firewalls. Click on Control Panel, Windows Firewall, and turn it on with a click. That’s a start. Use anti virus software more than you go to church. Viruses comes from anywhere. Same with data miners and other spyware. But you are much more likely to get them from going to lousy places. If your virus software (which you DO HAVE DON”T YOU?) finds viruses after you have been doing something on-line- sports betting, sex, shopping for shoes, a foreign site, religious sites, alternative news, etc., then try to stay away from that neighborhood. If you have to go there, get some serious protection. There is lots of great anti virus software out there. I will just mention that AVG Free Edition at Grisoft.com is ONE of the good truly free ones. I would also like to mention that AOL, which is now free, checks most stuff for you as it comes in, in stark contrast to Internet Explorer. Ask your internet provider how much monitoring they do.

• Buy the fastest computer you can. Next year it will be slow. Grrr. There will be faster computers, and yours will slow down as you ask it to do more things simultaneously- even things of which you are not aware. Grrr. People who manipulate graphics and play games need fast computers. If you have a program you use often, and it runs slow, then perhaps you need a faster computer. Adding RAM will speed up computers running complex programs or multiple programs. De-fragmenting your hard drive can speed things up. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del in Windows xP, then click the tabs and you can see which programs are running ,and which are taking up what percentage of CPU time and memory.
• You can live without DSL. You may have to, due to your location or your budget. Using dial-up at 50K can be fine. But compared to DSL, it add up a lot of time waiting for searches to download- depends on how much time you spend searching and downloading. Perhaps you can do your searching and downloading someplace that has DSL, and do you email and writing from your home dial up.
• As fast as wireless is, a hard-wired Ethernet to the router or modem is faster. So if you need speed, then you might want to snake a cable over to your favorite computing spot. Just remember, no matter how faster your computer and modem, you are still at the mercy of the speed at which internet sites respond to requests, and the speed at which the web handles your packets. At some point, a faster computer and faster modem do not improve speed.
• Windows xP, MAC, and other operating systems are often doing stuff you cannot see, and your computer slows down temporarily. This is especially true on start-up. The computer tries to make you believe it is ready to work for you, when it is still waking up, checking stuff, performing updates, cleaning viruses, etc.

• Read Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson, a great Sci-Fi novel about who you are on the web, your virtual personality.
• Your curiosity may have be squashed as a child, let it shine now. This week I looked up copper pot tinning, bread glazes, DNA structure, books titles, radio play lists, Lionel train prices, where to buy pear drops, the time for my rehearsal, the location of a funeral wake, an aerial photo of my sister’s new condo, film clips of volcanoes, photos and prices for whips, my daughter’s school newsletter, and lots more. Try out Google.com, Dogpatch.com, and Ask.com at least.
• Wikipedia.com. Use it, understand it. Warnings aside, it is amazing.
• Watch your spelling, if you misspell it like other people do, you may thinking you found it, but you found the same ten percent misspelled sites as the rest of the mis-spellers. I saved about $200 on Bay buying a model train that was misspelled, so most people did not find it to bid on.
• Have an expert searcher show you their tricks for trying again and again with different keywords. This will have to be a whole course.
• Games can suck up your whole life. Whether high speed thrillers on-screen, or role-playing, they can suck you in. Do this. Keep track on paper or with a chess clock of the time you spend playing computer games. After a week or a month, ask yourself about your grades ,your life, your weight, your family, your sleep. It is your life, or lives. I’d like to tell you to get real. But you are not listening. So just a warning, lots of lovely people get sucked into their virtual life instead of using computers to enhance their REAL life. Help them, help yourself.

By Rick Rayfield
Psychology and Liberal Studies
St Joseph College