Blackmoor Vituperative

For the benefit of any potential employers out there, I want to remind you how important workspace ergonomics are. Employee injuries cost money: they reduce productivity and they increase your health care costs. It may strike you as nifty to have your entire development team using laptops full time (full time and then some — how many developers do you know who work a mere 40 hours per week?), but “nifty” is not a replacement for usability and efficiency. Even if the laptops you select have monitors with adequate contrast (unlike the Apple Powerbook) and keyboards with full-size keys, intelligently arranged (unlike the Apple Powerbook), the physical reality of a laptop computer means that it is not appropriate for long-term use.

So if you are one of those people who would place your own sense of niftiness above concerns like productivity and efficiency, and who would give an employee grief when they request a real keyboard (much less a real computer), do some research.

Here’s a start:

• Office Ergonomics – University Of Wisconsin
• Tips For Using A Laptop Computer – Cornell University Ergonomics Web
• Computer Workstation Ergonomics – Centers For Disease Control
• Survey Of Physical Implications Of Laptop Computer Use By School Children – Curtin University Of Technology, Australia
• The Ergonomics Of Laptops – Lapvantage Dome