I was browsing through Maplins at the weekend and saw a very cheap  mini keyboard that I decided to experiment with. (€16 / 10UKP)

I’ve already mentioned on my keyboards post that I want a keyboard with no keypad so this was a cheap and easy option. It’s actually being marketed as a Mini Desk-Saver Keyboard and the only reason I bought it was to save desk space, or to be more precise have a keyboard and mouse that I don’t need to reach to the side for. It seemed good at first (though I knew it couldn’t be long term) as I didn’t have to reach to either side for anything and I could actually fit a graphics tablet, keyboard and mouse comfortably in front of me.

But the size of the keyboard forced my hands really close together which put my wrists into a very unnatural angle. I didn’t realise just how much this would happen. This is called Ulnar Deviation and it’s precisely what split keyboards are designed to avoid. That’s why laptop keyboards and mini keyboards like this are terribly unergonomic. I thought I might end up with sore wrists but it was much more far-reaching than that. I was in bits for the whole evening yesterday, specially in the upper-back and shoulders and I had an ice pack on my muscles, well a bag of frozen spinach. So experiment over – avoid mini keyboards!

Other negatives

To save space, they also grouped several keys with other keys that could be accessed with the Fn key. But this was done with two keys that I use a lot; Home and End. And other keys were moved slightly; it just seems wrong to have Page Up and Page Down side-by-side rather than over-and-under.

Also, like a lot of keyboards, you can tilt the keyboard up towards you by putting little feet up at the back. This is wrong. Badly researched design that’s copied from one product to the other. So many manufacturers do this. The keyboard should tilt back away from you. Otherwise its forcing your wrist up at an angle.

I dread to think what mini laptops are going to do to a generation. I just had a quick look at the website for the Eee PC and even the image they are using is screaming No No No. If that kid keeps up that hunched posture and bent wrists he’ll be a cripple before he has acne.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Ergonomics, Hardware, Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.