Today, each of us spends considerable amounts of time in meeting rooms and work-spaces that are enabled by AV technology and allow us to present our ideas or communicate with people for work. But despite the best AV technology available to us, poor ergonomic design can undermine our goals and leave participants feeling strained and tired because they are forced into awkward positions.
A poorly considered design could mean a a display that’s too small or placed in an awkward position, that bothers participants and detracts from the presenter’s message.
Good ergonomic design can contribute considerably to user experience and helps achieve the goals of enhancing effectiveness and efficiency, boosting productivity, increasing comfort and acceptance, and other similar goals. This can be achieved by a few simple design adjustments to the AV system, such as equipment placement, or more complex calculations, such as viewing distances and angles.
In this article, Infocomm International provides a look at some basic ergonomic considerations in AV design. This includes a specific focus on the need to design for various human dimensions and the importance of sightline studies, aspects that are often overlooked.
A few interesting tips that are shared here:
“Design a visual system in a way that the image falls easily within this range for audience members.
“People can recognize words, fine details, and color information until about 10 to 20 degrees from the standard line of sight.”
“The limits of color discrimination are between 30 and 60 degrees in each direction, depending on the specific color.”
“To verify an optimum view of a display or object, you should conduct a sightline study. This would determine the most appropriate seating layout for the room.”
“…if you’ve already placed your audience, you can use sight lines to determine the maximum image height by drawing a sight line from the eye of the closest viewer at a 30-degree angle. The point at which that line intersects the wall will be your maximum image height.”
The complete article can be
viewed here.
(content credits – www.infocomm.org)