This useful videotape is intended to provide a step-by-step guide to setting up the work area around a personal computer or video display terminal. The video reviews several causes of physical stress and outlines proper adjustment of work area parameters. Topics covered include keyboard placement, screen and chair adjustment, and ways to ease neck and eye strains. An accompanying printed guide contains a short checklist and a series of stretching exercises that can be performed while seated at a workstation. The presentation is professional throughout.

A group of human factors specialists to whom I showed the videotape were generally favorable, with some concerns about the content. Since the chair is correctly identified in the video as the single most important element, the specialists would like to have seen it treated first: it seemed a bit awkward to talk about adjusting the keyboard relative to the arms and only then talk about adjusting chair height for knee and leg position. The tape also says little about the seat other than that it should be “comfortable.” Some of the specialists noted that many of the views of the workstation show the keyboard and screen positioned with little vertical distance between them, a position suitable only for shorter users (the segments specifically addressing keyboard and screen position do show more appropriate placements).

As might be expected in a brief overview, many issues are somewhat simplified, with related issues omitted. Screen tilt is mentioned as a factor in reducing glare, but not related to potential neck strain. Mention is made of eyestrain from refocusing on the screen and paper copy at different distances, but not from different luminance (such as bright white paper versus a dark screen background). No mention is made of the relation between distance from the screen and the possible dangers of extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields. (A good source in this area--cautious but not alarmist--are the guidelines on VDT use prepared by the Labor Occupational Health Program, University of California at Berkeley, 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA 94720.)

I also showed the videotape to a group of office workers who periodically use personal computers for two-hour sessions. They found the videotape enlightening, helping them to understand a number of physical stresses that they had experienced. The office workers promptly persuaded their manager to invest in better chairs for their workstation pool, and began to schedule work breaks to change position and relieve fatigue. These people, the intended audience for the tape, stated unanimously that they should have received such instruction in some form much earlier, as part of their overall introduction to the technology.