Ergonomic Advice (from someone who had major back and wrist pain)
Posted by Peter Armstrong Sun, 11 Jun 2006 00:38:00 GMT
This is an expanded version of a comment I posted on Robby Russel's blog.
Once upon a time I had major back and wrist pain. The back pain was because I was rear-ended in an auto accident; the wrist pain was because I was spending way too much time at the keyboard.
While a chiropractor helped my back to a large extent, fixing my wrist pain was done entirely by switching to Dvorak layout, a better keyboard and a keyboard arm that offered a negative slope.
Legal: This is NOT medical advice; this is just my experience in case it is helpful to anyone...
Dvorak Layout
Lots of people argue about whether you can type faster or slower with Dvorak. My answer is: WHO CARES!? If you want to type faster, don't switch to Dvorak: the slight speedup you may get is not worth it. You may type faster, but your standard keyboard shortcuts won't be in the same spot. (Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V won't be beside each other, etc.) If you're a gamer, even a casual gamer, you'll end up switching back to QWERTY for games. (This is what I do to play Civ 4.) So, if all you care about is typing speed, stick with QWERTY. (Note: on Mac and Windows, it's a 1-second thing to switch between Dvorak and QWERTY. On Mac you use the international thing, on Windows you use the language bar.)
However, if you have RSI in your wrists or just pain in your hands, you should (imho, I'm not a doctor) seriously give Dvorak layout a try. Switching to Dvorak from QWERTY is the single best thing I did to cure my RSI. The fact that all the vowels are on one side means your hands take turns typing a lot more. Furthermore, the fact that the most commonly typed keys are on the home row mean you move your hands less. I know I type aoeuidhtns [Dvorak] WAAAAY more than I type asdfghjkl; [QWERTY]. With Dvorak, you can type the without moving your hands--your fingers are sitting on t,h and e in their home position. Seriously, take 2 weeks when you don't have life-or-death deadlines and try Dvorak.
To learn Dvorak, I used the following tutorial. I highly recommend it.
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.
I used to be a big advocate of the Kinesis contoured keyboard. It works great with Dvorak layout: you can toggle between Dvorak and QWERTY with one key, and it also works great with Emacs since you can assign big keys to ctrl and escape. However, I found that extensive use of it led to really bad pain in my right thumb. This was probably my fault for lazy hand positioning, but it happened. As such, I had to look to somewhat less thumb-intensive (i.e. more normal) keyboards.
Currently, the best one on the market is the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. Their hardware is much better than their software!
It has a wonderful split layout, really nice wrist rest and works great on a Mac. Ironically, it is actually more configurable on a Mac than it is on Windows. On the Mac, you can remap the right application key so that you have two command keys and two option keys, one on each side. Finally, it has a nice detachable molded-plastic thing which gives you a negative slope if you’re stuck on a flat desk. A negative slope is essential for happy wrists.
(I have two of these keyboards, one on my Windows PC I use for work and one on my Mac I use for fun. It is such a good keyboard that I bought a second, since I couldn't stand to use any of the spare keyboards I had lying around after using it on my Windows PC, and I got tired of unhooking it and moving it twice a day.)
Humanscale keyboard arm.
This gives you a negative slope for your keyboard and mouse, as well as a nice mouse stand that you can pivot to exactly where you want.
Humanscale Freedom chair.
This puts the Aeron and Steelcase chairs to shame. If the Steelcase chair is a Linux box (good, highly configurable, etc.) this one is a Mac: it knows what's best for you and automatically adjusts accordingly. Get the headrest: it actually moves forward to meet your neck as you lean back. Pure seating bliss.
(Note: Humanscale now has a mesh chair called Liberty which I’ve never tried. Anyone try both for an extended period of time?)
