Help me determine how high to mount a bunch of touch screen computers!
May 25, 2012 10:07 AM Subscribe
Help me determine how high to mount a bunch of touch screen computers!
I'm developing a patient flow / tracking system for my employer and the hardware deployment involves the mounting of 23" 1920x1080 touch screen computers (all in one Dell Vostro 360s). These use standard VESA mounts and we will be using a general contractor to handle it.
These computers will be used throughout the clinic, and in most cases they will be used while standing up.
Naturally we're very interested in getting this "as right as possible" for the average-height person.
And I'm one of those IT guys who knows how important it is to "measure twice, cut once," but isn't really a fan of "cutting" at all, because I'm not very intuitive when it comes to this stuff and find myself cutting more than once despite my best intentions :) I expect my hands will be plenty full dealing with the software piece prior to and after going into production.
Naturally my tendency is to look for a simple formula that takes height of the person and screen into account, with ergonomics in mind. If it helps (duh) the height of the entire screen is 15.3". The viewable screen (excluding the bezel) is offset 1.3" down and is 11.5" in height. The application uses the entire screen, including the area typically used by the Windows task bar. It's a "top-down grid" basically but in real-world use the entire grid will be chock full of data, filling up the entire height of the screen. It's optimized for right-handed people, I guess...it just naturally worked out that the main grid is on the left-hand-side of the screen (which normally eats up all real estate) and once you select an item on the grid, the various controls slide in from the right.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
I'm developing a patient flow / tracking system for my employer and the hardware deployment involves the mounting of 23" 1920x1080 touch screen computers (all in one Dell Vostro 360s). These use standard VESA mounts and we will be using a general contractor to handle it.
These computers will be used throughout the clinic, and in most cases they will be used while standing up.
Naturally we're very interested in getting this "as right as possible" for the average-height person.
And I'm one of those IT guys who knows how important it is to "measure twice, cut once," but isn't really a fan of "cutting" at all, because I'm not very intuitive when it comes to this stuff and find myself cutting more than once despite my best intentions :) I expect my hands will be plenty full dealing with the software piece prior to and after going into production.
Naturally my tendency is to look for a simple formula that takes height of the person and screen into account, with ergonomics in mind. If it helps (duh) the height of the entire screen is 15.3". The viewable screen (excluding the bezel) is offset 1.3" down and is 11.5" in height. The application uses the entire screen, including the area typically used by the Windows task bar. It's a "top-down grid" basically but in real-world use the entire grid will be chock full of data, filling up the entire height of the screen. It's optimized for right-handed people, I guess...it just naturally worked out that the main grid is on the left-hand-side of the screen (which normally eats up all real estate) and once you select an item on the grid, the various controls slide in from the right.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
Use this calculator.
Though as I write this I sigh, because I'm a 6' 4" leftie, so anything ergonomic not adjustable to me is incredibly uncomfortable. Are the mountings adjustable? Can you put the screens in the same room at varying heights?
posted by nickhb at 10:25 AM on May 25, 2012
Though as I write this I sigh, because I'm a 6' 4" leftie, so anything ergonomic not adjustable to me is incredibly uncomfortable. Are the mountings adjustable? Can you put the screens in the same room at varying heights?
posted by nickhb at 10:25 AM on May 25, 2012
Put the VESA mount on a mechanical arm. Let people adjust the screens to the desired height.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:26 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:26 AM on May 25, 2012
Another vote for making them adjustable if at all possible, and also to consider usability requirements for people in wheelchairs.
posted by contraption at 10:30 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by contraption at 10:30 AM on May 25, 2012
and please don't use a calculator designed for view-only monitors to decide how to mount a touch interface.
posted by contraption at 10:32 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by contraption at 10:32 AM on May 25, 2012
Best answer: One thing I've learnt from playing the piano is that your hands will remain much more relaxed and therefore more comfortable if the surface you are using is slightly higher than your elbows. Slightly lower will result in tension in the wrists quickly leading to pain. Based on this I would say you need to figure out how high above the ground the average adult's elbows are.
Extending this idea to account for the height of the screen, if a person reaches forward, their elbows will be marginally higher than at rest position, meaning the far side of the screen should be raised accordingly; a little geometry will tell you how much the arc of an arm movement will raise the elbow.
Also - measure twice, cut once yes, but nothing beats a good beta test. Are you able to build and test a prototype on people of varying height before implementing this?
(on preview, a good point about the mounting arms, but I can see that being problematic - any such arm will have a certain amount of flex during use, and if this movement is significant it will start to become very unattractive to users. This is one of the easiest things to forget when you find a beautiful solution to an issue in something you're making)
posted by fearnothing at 10:33 AM on May 25, 2012
Extending this idea to account for the height of the screen, if a person reaches forward, their elbows will be marginally higher than at rest position, meaning the far side of the screen should be raised accordingly; a little geometry will tell you how much the arc of an arm movement will raise the elbow.
Also - measure twice, cut once yes, but nothing beats a good beta test. Are you able to build and test a prototype on people of varying height before implementing this?
(on preview, a good point about the mounting arms, but I can see that being problematic - any such arm will have a certain amount of flex during use, and if this movement is significant it will start to become very unattractive to users. This is one of the easiest things to forget when you find a beautiful solution to an issue in something you're making)
posted by fearnothing at 10:33 AM on May 25, 2012
You don't mount touch screen computers on the wall. They should be much lower, at counter height (and on a platform) and angled up.. Think cash registers, restaurant touch screen kiosks.
posted by wongcorgi at 10:53 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by wongcorgi at 10:53 AM on May 25, 2012
Best answer: I'm no ergonom...icist? etician? but I feel like for me the most comfortable position for a touchscreen would be just below nipple height, at an angle. Which is probably just about what fearnothing is saying, actually. And on preview, exactly what wongcorgi is saying.
posted by mskyle at 10:58 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by mskyle at 10:58 AM on May 25, 2012
Best answer: I work for a company that mounts touch interfaces on walls all the time (because in a residential setting you don't want a cash register in the living room) and they work fine for the way our customers interact with them (for very short periods, mostly navigating simple menus and choosing options from lists.) If that sounds similar to your usage scenario, don't be scared of wall mounting. If there's much text entry going on you're probably going to need to rethink things.
For the adjustable height idea, Ergotron (not a recommendation, never used them) makes VESA-compatible tracks that allow movement in the vertical domain only.
posted by contraption at 11:03 AM on May 25, 2012
For the adjustable height idea, Ergotron (not a recommendation, never used them) makes VESA-compatible tracks that allow movement in the vertical domain only.
posted by contraption at 11:03 AM on May 25, 2012
Response by poster: Thanks for all of the suggestions so far! The usage patterns will be pretty basic...touch on a row on a grid, select a status via a drop-down or "next" arrow, touch a big fat grid to select a room assignment, touch "update." A few touches per update, and on rare occasions, typing a short free-text note with the on-screen keyboard (which will probably be replaced with a pick list / string builder of sorts). Nothing as complex as a POS setup. It's basically replacing a printed list that would otherwise just be stuck on the wall and mangled with highlighters and pens.
I'm intent on making this a truly "touch-enabled" program with big controls, big fonts, etc to use the screen effectively.
posted by aydeejones at 11:34 AM on May 25, 2012
I'm intent on making this a truly "touch-enabled" program with big controls, big fonts, etc to use the screen effectively.
posted by aydeejones at 11:34 AM on May 25, 2012
Also consider the viewing angle of the display. I've encountered LCD touchscreens that degrade better as you go below their optimum viewing angle than they do as you go above it, and found that inverting the display worked better for below-eye-level wall mounting.
posted by contraption at 4:40 PM on May 25, 2012
posted by contraption at 4:40 PM on May 25, 2012
My friendly local HMO conglomerate has no paper charts so they have computers everywhere a nurse or doctor will interact with a patient. Now these are keyboard, mouse, and monitor setups, but I think there is a lesson here. While the setups are mounted on height adjustable wall-mount system s like this StyleView Sit-Stand Combo System. I rarely saw people adjust the height to what would be comfortable for the position they wanted to be in. They usually either changed their position to match the setup of the arm or they used it uncomfortably.
posted by fief at 2:42 PM on May 30, 2012
posted by fief at 2:42 PM on May 30, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by griphus at 10:09 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]