A Checklist for the Ergonomic Evaluation of Nonpowered Hand Tools

Abstract

A checklist was developed to evaluate nonpowered hand tools for basic features related to good ergonomic tool design. The checklist contains 16 items to which a yes/no response is required. The checklist is intended to be used by tradespersons and is written in clear, simple language. This column reports on a study conducted to examine the reliability of the checklist questions in identifying the presence or absence of the basic ergonomic design features that are believed to be important for nonpowered hand tools. Using the checklist, 14 ergonomists and 126 carpenters evaluated 18 typical hand tools. Agreement among the carpenters and ergonomists was high for most of the checklist items. A few checklist questions were associated with relatively low agreement among raters in terms of the presence or absence of a design feature. Lack of agreement between raters indicates that the criterion was not explicit or that users had difficulty identifying whether the tool satisfied the particular criterion. The majority of the 18 hand tools evaluated were deemed to be lacking in multiple highly important ergonomic design features. Additional studies are being conducted to make appropriate revisions to the checklist criteria based on quantitative measures of musculoskeletal loading.