The development of an electronic tool for diagnosing risk factors in computer operation

Many complaints of arms, neck and shoulder among computer users have been reported in the literatures. In order to prevent these musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), to understand work related risk factors more is necessary. OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration in America) has developed a computer workstation checklist. This checklist is divided into six parts, including working postures, seat, keyboard/mouse, monitor, work area, and accessories. It can be used to check the risk factors in computer operation. But there are some drawbacks of the OSHA's checklist, such as lack of interactive feedback, many paper works, and a lot of difficult description. The developed electronic tool in this study was based on the OSHA's checklist and was tried to eliminate the above-mentioned drawbacks. We added actual pictures to enhance readability. Besides, text modifications were made for fitting the culture in Taiwan. Finally, specific recommendations were designed to be automatically provided by interactive interface after finishing the diagnosing. This electronic tool not only helps people to check their computer work settings by themselves but also assists in improvement of the computer-related risk factors while using a computer.