Dynamic characteristics of upper body for applied human factor design

Abstract

This research provides substantial insight for human factor design, in particular upper body, of applying ergonomic principles into design by understanding the underlying motor control, movement mechanism and performance of human activities. The objective is to explore the dynamic characteristics from the joint movements captured into analyzing the data to trace the hints in human motor control that governs the whole body biomechanics of movement. Together with the methods from design research as a whole, a scientific approach has been developed in analyzing the information from a cross-disciplinary manner based on various configuration designed to capture and evaluate human body movement. There are a few approaches of investigation, namely, static posture with internal body balance, static posture with external hint of balance, dynamic posture on activities, effects of wearable design features on activities. From the analysis results, individual human body characteristics on postural control, developmental process, performance evaluation can then be retrieved. The significance of these information is to allow a better understanding on the human factors that can be derived from applied design to wearable on user experience, especially for healthcare and performance indication. The originality of the framework in this study serve as a cross-disciplinary foundation for the design and technical guidelines on how design features can be investigated and developed to capture user characteristics and issues for various potential applications. This study demonstrated the feasibility in a few scopes of design features investigation in provoking to activity performance strategies and product features to facilitate better movement and postures. It encourages further experiments to be carried out in the future to extend the scenarios of investigation, enhance the systematic approach and analysis, and inquire more design issues as aroused from user design research.