KEY POINTS:
With ACC paying out $28 million on occupational overuse syndrome (OOS) injuries each year, there's a market ripe for Microsoft's new Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000 which was introduced here last November.
Marketing for the product is only just beginning in earnest now, with the minds of potential customers focused on another year of work ahead and the strains and sprains in the hands, wrists and forearms starting to rear their ugly little heads again.
See, we twist our hands into unnatural positions when we use our keyboards. Then we do these key commands to perform certain functions and we twist them some more. We keep them turned palm down to use our mouse. The fancy word for it is ulna deviation. And, all the while, we are busily tinkering away on the keyboard, working the tiny muscles in the forearm. Sometimes, our shoulders cramp up, restricting the bloodflow to the forearms and hands. The metabolic wastes - the lactic acid and so forth - build up and eventually the muscles start to burn out and develop an inflammation. Suddenly, it's the weekend and our arms get a break. But then we are back into it, torturing our poor limbs as we spend ever longer hours at the computer. It's long, it's slow and it's insidious. And we are dropping like flies because of it.
Enter the Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000 - apparently 20 years in the making. It's a split keyboard, with 12 degrees of variation between the two sets of keys. This straightens the hands. Rather than sloping upward toward your screen, this keyboard is flattish (but not really - more about that later) and even comes with an attachment that lifts the front seven degrees to slope down towards the screen.#This means you can lie a ruler along the back of your wrist and the back of your hand and not see any daylight. From the split, the keys slope away towards the ends of the keyboard to meet the natural pronation of your hands. The combined effect is to leave your hands in as close to a natural resting posture as possible.
The keys themselves are varying sizes designed to minimise the stretch by the user.
A competent touch typist will be all at sea to begin with due to the changes in position of the keys but promotional materials promise all will be back to normal within a week. In truth, it takes longer than that and the disadvantage is that on the occasions where you may not be working on your machine you are all awry again.
The F keys have also had a makeover. One prod and you open the internet, another and you open your email. The same for closing documents, replying and sending emails, spellchecking, saving and printing.
Also featured are five generic buttons which can be programmed to perform your most popular functions. Especially snazzy is the inclusion of forward and back buttons on the keyboard for internet surfing.
The mouse on the 7000 has been sold on its own in New Zealand for a while and has proven to be a popular product. Tall and long rather than broad, it is much like resting your hand on the arm of a chair.
Your forefinger rests along an apical ridge, while the rest of your fingers naturally fall down the side. Your thumbs nestle comfortably into a hollowed-out groove on the other side. The hand is, therefore, not lying palm down but more, but not quite, karate-chop style - a natural angle with the palm facing towards the keyboard. Unfortunately, Microsoft has marginalised the lefties on this one, for they do not manufacture a left-handed mouse. Either change hands or stick with an ambidextrous product.
The mouse buttons have the usual click functions, with a scroll wheel which serves as another button.
Two more programmable buttons are in easy reach of your forefinger - it's all about keeping you away from using the keyboard in the traditional manner and making functions easy, one-click operations. The figures on this one speak for themselves: it is the highest selling ergonomic mouse in the world.
The system has the blessing of Janelle Aitken, from Auckland-based consultancy Ergodesign, who sees more than her fair share of injuries, and believes this system is the best yet. "It just isn't acceptable to put yourself at risk anymore."
