“Recommended” versus “Preferred” in Design and Use of Computer Workstations

Abstract

Due to the recent development of adjustable office furniture and elements of computer hardware, a new “preferred settings” approach to VDT workstation (VDTW) design has emerged in opposition to the traditional recommended standards. This approach studies the “recommended - preferred” controversy on the population level in terms of means, ranges, and percentiles and sets new dimensions and ranges of adjustment for the design of the VDTW components. While the VDTW's components are designed in a view of population, they are used by individuals. This paper raises the issue of studying the “recommended - preferred” controversy on the individual level in relation to the task of customizing VDTW's for individual users. Preferred individual adjustments of the experimental VDTW made by 23 subjects were compared to the respective, recommended individual adjustments. Although all recommended-preferred differences were statistically significant, almost all preferred values were either very close to the corresponding recommended values or deviated from the recommended optima without exceeding the recommended ranges. The paper discusses implications of this result for the customizing of the VDTW's for individual users.