Designers don't hurt people; designs do

How many people do you know who have physical problems they attribute to computer use? (I wear wrist braces at night myself, so that my mild carpal-tunnel syndrome doesn't bother me much during the day.) Many of us seem to have the impression that such problems arise mainly from poor hardware design... or perhaps from an overindulgence in gaming, with its incessant, repetitive arm/wrist/hand/finger movements. But is it that simple? In this Whiteboard column, Doug Anderson points out how interaction design and usability efforts can overlook such problems, and urges us to pay more attention to them. I would add one more suggestion to his list of ideas: Even when longitudinal usability testing is not feasible, we can monitor our applications and systems in long-term use and note any physical problems that tend to appear among our users. --Elizabeth Buie