Influence of door handles design in effort perception: accessibility and usability

The application of ergonomics in product design is essential to its accessibility and usability. The development of manual devices should be based on ergonomic principles. Effort perception analysis is an essential approach to understand the physical and subjective aspects of the interface. The objective of the present study was to analyze the effort perception during a simulated task with different door handles by Portuguese subjects of both genders and different ages. This transversal study agreed with ethical aspects. 180 subjects of both genders pertaining to three age groups have participated. Five door handles with different shapes were evaluated. A subjective numeric rating scale of 5 levels was used to evaluate the effort. For statistical analysis it was applied the Friedman non-parametric test. The results have showed no significant differences of effort perception in door handles "A" and "B"; "A" and "D"; and "D" and "C". Door handle "E" presented the lowest values of all. In general, there's an inverse relationship between the results of biomechanical studies and the effort perception of the same task activity. This shows that door handles design influence directly these two variables and can interfere in the accessibility and usability of these kinds of products.

Usability of car stereo

Automotive sound systems vary widely in terms of functions and way of use between different brands and models what can bring difficulties and lack of consistency to the user. This study aimed to analyze the usability of car stereo commonly found in the market. Four products were analyzed by task analysis and after use reports and the results indicate serious usability issues with respect to the form of operation, organization, clarity and quality of information, visibility and readability, among others.

Usabilidade de site e tecnologia wiki aplicadas ao jogo de xadrez no ambiente virtual =: Usability of site and wiki technology applied to the chess set in virtual environment

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Openability of soft drinks PET packagings

Studies on packaging accessibility are still incipient in Brazil. Many of these packagings can represent a challenge to users, whether due to non-informative labels, tricky tabs or seals, or even those that need strength to open. This paper brings a simple test to determine the necessary torque force to open PET bottles, and to predict the amount of users that could not open it. The findings suggest that a considerable amount of users could not open it or would have some difficulties to exert the necessary force.

Assessment of the ergonomic design of diagnostic ultrasound transducers through wrist movements and subjective evaluation

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Perceptual aspects of the use of faucets (taps)

This paper presents an assessment with simulated activities with the aim of analyzing the perception of ease/difficulty of the use of faucets (taps) handles by 180 Brazilian adults. Five different handles faucets were activated for subsequent collection of perceptual data. The procedures were based on main recommendations for biomedical ethics and human research. The results indicate that handles with levers are significantly (p <= 0.05) easier to use. The most difficult are characterized by not having support points for the rotation (levers) or more points of pressure concentration in the hand.

Use of herbicides on turfgrass

Nas culturas agrícolas as plantas daninhas devem ser controladas de modo a não afetar negativamente o rendimento e a qualidade do produto colhido. Deste modo, quantidades pequenas de plantas daninhas em um campo, na maioria dos casos, não é um problema, exceto na produção de sementes. Ressalta-se que em gramados não existe um componente de produção a se colhido. O valor do gramado é a sua qualidade inerente a estética e usabilidade. Qualidade estética é a beleza e o valor que acrescenta ao gramado em uma paisagem gerenciada. Usabilidade pode ser a durabilidade de um campo de esporte ou a redução na perda de solo pela erosão da água ou do vento. A presença de qualquer planta daninha em gramados pode diminuir a qualidade estética e usabilidade do gramado. Enquanto for possível reduzir a população de plantas daninhas utilizando práticas culturais ou mecânicas, não se poderá eliminá-las completamente. A utilização de herbicidas é a única maneira de controlar completamente as plantas daninhas em áreas de gramados. Esta revisão irá rever os principais herbicidas utilizados em gramados nos Estados Unidos com relação a seus modos de ação, a família de herbicidas e uso primário no gramado.

Interface of drug use

Packaging and labeling play a crucial role awhile protecting medicaments and transmitting a range of crucial information to the users. Taking into account the scarcity of specific studies in this area, it was considered great the need for a comprehensive survey about customers' satisfaction when handling these containers.

Project and Development of ErgoCoIn Version 2.0

Usability evaluation (UE) methods may have several purposes: identify and diagnose usability problems; evaluate the implementation, comparing the one under evaluation with other systems, and also perform acceptance test. These methods are usually expensive, time-consuming and complex. In this context, the ErgoCoIn 1.0 has being used as an accessible system that can be used by several people all over the world, even if they are not usability experts or evaluators. This paper aims to present a new version of this environment considering that its basic objective is to propose a higher quality for the questions. Additionally, a new presentation questionnaire window small enough to be used both in web browsers and mobile devices is proposed.

ARISupport - Interaction support for augmented reality systems

The communication between user and software is a basic stage in any Interaction System project. In interactive systems, this communication is established by the means of a graphical interface, whose objective is to supply a visual representation of the main entities and functions present in the Virtual Environment. New ways of interacting in computational systems have been minimizing the gap in the relationship between man and computer, and therefore enhancing its usability. The objective of this paper, therefore, is to present a proposal for a non-conventional user interface library called ARISupport, which supplies ARToolKit applications developers with an opportunity to create simple GUI interfaces, and provides some of the functionality used in Augmented Reality systems. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.

Proposal of convergence of e-Learning systems for t-Learning

This article presents considerations about viability on reutilize existing web based e-Learning systems on Interactive Digital TV environment according to Digital TV standard adopted in Brazil. Considering the popularity of Moodle system in academic and corporative area, such system was chosen as a foundation for a survey into its properties to create a specification of an Application Programming Interface (API) for convergence to t-Learning characteristics that demands efforts in interface design area due the fact that computer and TV concepts are totally different. This work aims to present studies concerning user interface design during two stages: survey and detail of functionalities from an e-Learning system and how to adapt them for the Interactive TV regarding usability context and Information Architecture concepts.

Comparative analysis of human and bovine teeth: Radiographic density

Since bovine teeth have been used as substitutes for human teeth in in vitro dental studies, the aim of this study was to compare the radiographic density of bovine teeth with that of human teeth to evaluate their usability for radiographic studies. Thirty bovine and twenty human teeth were cut transversally in 1 millimeter-thick slices. The slices were X-rayed using a digital radiographic system and an intraoral X-ray machine at 65 kVp and 7 mA. The exposure time (0.08 s) and the target-sensor distance (40 cm) were standardized for all the radiographs. The radiographic densities of the enamel, coronal dentin and radicular dentin of each slice were obtained separately using the histogram tool of Adobe Photoshop 7.0 software. The mean radiographic densities of the enamel, coronal dentin and radicular dentin were calculated by the arithmetic mean of the slices of each tooth. One-way ANOVA demonstrated statistically significant differences for the densities of bovine and human enamel (p < 0.05) and for bovine and human coronal dentin (p < 0.05). No statistically significant differences were found for the bovine and human radicular dentin (p > 0.05). Based on the results, the authors concluded that: a) the radiographic density of bovine enamel is significantly higher than that of human enamel; b) the radiodensity of bovine coronal dentin is statistically lower than the radiodensity of human coronal dentin; bovine radicular dentin is also less radiodense than human radicular dentin, although this difference was not statistically significant; c) bovine teeth should be used with care in radiographic in vitro studies.

Avaliação da capacidade de uso da terra da bacia do córrego do cavalheiro - Analândia, SP

Environmental factors are important in agriculture and need to be considered for getting good degree of development and reasonable efficiency, by reducing their operating costs. To this end, land use shall be appropriated to the conditions offered by the physical elements of the landscape. By facing such questions, this paper aims is to present of mapping the ability of land use of the hydrographic basins Cavalheiro Stream basin (in the city of Analândia - São Paulo State - Brazil) which presents serious erosion problems. Besides it aims to assess if the current land use in this area is consistent with the identified land use ability. For this we have made a cartographic document that spatializes the various classes of usability and its main restrictions. The correlative analysis between that document and land use data showed that Cavalheiro Stream's current use is predominantly inappropriate with the usability of land, which was identified from the physical attributes of the studied area, except for a few sites that are used for forestry and pasture placed in Western, Eastern and Central-South.

Evaluation of reusable cardboard box designs: Biomechanical and perceptual aspects

Reusable cardboard boxes can be ergonomically designed for internal transportation of dry products in industrial settings. In this study we compared the effects of handling a regular commercial box and two cardboard prototypes on upper limb postures through the evaluation of movements, myoelectrical activity, perceived grip acceptability and capacity for reuse. The ergonomic designs provided a more acceptable grip, safer wrist and elbow movements and lower wrist extensors and biceps activity. Biomechanical disadvantages were observed only for one of the prototypes when handling to high surface. The prototypes were durable and suitable for extensive reuse (more than 2000 handlings) in internal industrial transportation. Despite being slightly more expensive than regular cardboard, the prototypes showed good cost-benefit considering their high durability. Relevance to industry: Cardboard boxes can be efficiently redesigned for allowing safer upper limb movements and lower muscle workload in manual materials handling. New designs can also be extensively reused for internal industrial transportation with good cost-benefit. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

Evaluating interaction with websites: Case study of a government website of the Brazilian Ministry of labor and employment

This paper presents a usability evaluation of the MTE (Ministry of Labor e Employment) website in order to measure the effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction regarding the website. The participants were 12 users (07 users were female and 05 male). The results indicate that although the education level of all participants and computing experience, many of them have had difficulty in finding information and do not recommend the site. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.