Sensitive chair

Abstract

Motivation -The paper presents an alternative prevention system for Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) in visual display terminal (VDT) workers. The system integrates an ergonomically adjustable chair with a computer program that provides multimodal real-time feedback through an agent. Research approach -A user study was conducted to test the use of the sensitive chair in a natural work environment. Data regarding user satisfaction, awareness provided by the system, and actions taken in response to system were gathered. Findings/Design -Findings of the user study show that the participants were positive about the sensitive chair and that they became much more aware of their sitting posture. Take away message -The use of sensors and an agent to give real-time feedback about an adequate sitting posture was positively evaluated and has a strong effect on the awareness of sitting posture in VDT workers.

Exploring the Potential of Physical Visualizations

“…The sensordriven sculpture uses data from a people's chair to suggest when it is time to take a break by encoding it into its shape and movement (see Figure 4.18-center). Similar projects used physical avatars in form of a puppet [Daian et al, 2007], a flower [Haller et al, 2011;Hong et al, 2015] or encoded data into the transparency of a lamp shape [Cha et al, 2016]. The first project that looked into the role of physically dynamic data representations for the exploration and analysis of datasets was EMERGE [Taher et al, 2015]: an interactive bar chart, equipped with plastic rods, RGB Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs), a Microsoft Kinect® and a projector supported fundamental data representation tasks such as filtering or sorting (see Figure 4.18-right).…”

PostureCare – Towards a novel system for posture monitoring and guidance

“…For most people it is however, difficult to check their sitting behavior and posture while working concentrated on a task and people usually are not aware of the time they spend on work activities while sitting statically [Daian et al, 2007]. In order to improve the sitting behavior of office workers an intelligent office chair was developed, which allows classifying the sitting posture and the corresponding time the person sits statically in any position (Figure 1 depicts common sitting postures which appear during an office working day).…”