Smartfish technologies have announced a new product range, ErgoMotion. It’s an interesting concept and mostly well executed.

An ergonomic setup with all devices set in the same position everyday is not a good ergonomic setup. Change is good. They have taken this idea, and come up with an interesting idea, products that slowly change position/angles automatically. See the video below. Or on their own site.

They say they collaborated with top professionals in the field but they seem to have made the classic keyboard mistake of including a numberpad, which for people with RSI is much more of a disadvantage. See first section in my keyboards post. It’s a wee bit worrying that the quotes in the video are from the engineer and the designer. How about use case comments from rsi sufferers? Great that it looks nice but that’s the last of my worries. Not sure I’m the target market.

Seems like a really good effort at doing something new for ergonomics but I’d like to see a compact, version without the keypad.

Their mouse is interesting too, and I might check it out at some stage, but again they seem to have approached it from a classic mouse perspective, and added motion. But the base position presents the same problems as a classic mouse, that requires you to twist your wrist slightly, rather than the more natural handshake position of a vertical mouse. So I might hold off and see do they do a version where the base position is more vertical. But because it is so flexible, it might just make up for it. Flexibility is RSI’s worst enemy, so I’ll be keeping an eye on Ergomotion.

An easy mistake to make when you first start investigating how to cure your RSI, is to search for the perfect setup. There is no such thing. Or to put it another way, the perfect setup is actually one that is an always changing flexible setup.

Over the years you’ll find yourself gathering all kinds of input devices, to try and find the right one, specially pointing devices, (ie mice / alternative mice). Don’t get rid of them. Get a usb hub and plug them all in. Then whenever you feel pain in your hands; switch things around. Stop using your vertical mouse, and go back to your basic mouse, or use your graphic pad for a few days. None of them are perfect, none of them should be used for 8 hours a day, so give your hands a rest from that exact position and switch around.

It’s a very powerful technique. So powerful, that I think people can very easily assume their latest input device is their saviour; when it probably has a lot more to do with the old switcheroo. Let that be your motto for the next month;

“If it makes you go OOH, try the old switcheroo!”

I’ve used almost every kind of mouse, or alternative mouse out there. I’ve used a large touchpad, a trackball, a joystick, a graphical tablet. I have a finger mouse, and a thumb ball. I may expand on these items in another post but the only ones I have used for any length of time are the touchpad (Cirque easy cat) and a Wacom graphics tablet. I never use the Cirque touchpad anymore.  It feels horrible to use now because I overused it for months. I still use the graphics tablet on and off quite often. Not just for graphical work but as a mouse. It’s good to swap around as much as possible.  Holding a pen for eight hours a day is no more natural than holding a mouse. So I swap around input devices as much as possible to get my hand out of the same position. And obviously the graphcis tablet is more suited to certain work.

At the moment my main mouse is an Evoluent vertical mouse. I’ve wanted a vertical mouse for a while now. It makes perfect sense. A handshake position is a much more neutral position for your arm/hand to be in.  Look at your arm in a handshake position, then twist it into the position for holding a regular mouse and watch all your nerves and muscles twist across your arm near the elbow. Doing that for a whole day is not good.  I originally  wanted a zero tension mouse but had major trouble buying one from Ireland (like many ergonomic products) and eventually gave up on it.

I don’t actually find the vertical mouse that odd; it’s just like a regular mouse on its side. I had a sigh of relief when I first started using it. It does feel more natural. Of course there are quirks to get used to, as with most alternative mice. You can’t pick it up and move it as easily as a regular mouse which isn’t a big deal, but more importantly, you have to be very careful that you get the angle of your arm right by adjusting your chair height (or desk). Otherwise you force your wrist into an unnatural angle. Other than that it’s exactly like a regular mouse. I highly recommend one. Along with everything else I’ve been doing lately, the horrible pains have mostly gone from my biceps. I still have stiffness and aches and pains but the agonising muscle pains have subsided.

The Evoluent Vertical mouse also has a third button pre-programmed to double-click which is invaluable. I really miss it when I’m using another mouse/computer. I know a third button is not unique to this device but it’s still worth mentioning.

• I bought mine from PC world business for €90.00
• Keytools.co.uk are doing a pack which includes the goldtouch split keyboard,  the Evoluent mouse and other bits and pieces for £275 (€343)
• Amazon are doing a similar bundle with goldtouch keyboard and evoluent mouse for £174.00 (€217) but don’t deliver hardware to Ireland

I only discovered this keyboard while writing my general keyboards post. I always thought a split keyboard without a numerical pad would be fairly ideal, so you have much less distance to reach to one side for your mouse.  And I also think adjust-ability is our best friend. The Goldtouch has both of these covered. It can be flattened right down to a flat keyboard or split and tented up to the degree that suits you. You can just open the lever type lock adjust the height and angle and re-lock it. This is great because I find that a different setup suits different activities better. If I’m using Photoshop, I’d be mousing with my right hand and hitting lots of shortcuts with my left.  A flat keyboard feels much better for this. Whereas if I’m doing lots of writing, I want it pitched right up like a tent.

The keys are also nice and light. I still can’t believe how loud and heavy the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard is. I have that at home now (though I try not to use the computer at home too much these days).

Cons

It’s not perfect.  Somethings gotta give when making a compact keyboard. The hardest difference to adapt to that I found was that the delete key was moved to the left.  Doing Ctrl alt and delete is an awkward move, as is regular deleting just because your right hand automatically veers to the right. And shift and enter and keys like that aren’t as easy to find. with your fingers. But I’ve been getting very used to all that after a few weeks.

Bye bye keypad

I also miss my keypad (not as much as I am glad it is gone however). I used with Mousekeys a lot. Mostly for hitting the number 5 when I needed to click the mouse in multiple succession. (If you don’t know about Mousekeys, see my post on Windows Accessibility options). However I plan to buy a separate keypad to make up for this. The main point is that having an unmovable keypad takes up extra desk space making you stretch over to one side for your mouse. Whereas you can put a seperate keypad whereever you want.

Summary

I’m very happy with it. And I’ve experimented with a lot of keyboards. I think it’s probably the best one out there for us folk. I can’t stress how important adjust-ability is for beating RSI. And I’ve definitely started getting better recently. But I also have a new vertical mouse (review to come). And I’ve been very diligent with my daily routine and everything else, so it’s a combination of many things.

• I got my Goldtouch keyboard at PC World business for €172.58
• More reviews at amazon
• Manufacturer site www.keyovation.com
• Buy from Amazon

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.

Real estate

Your keyboard is one of the most important tools in your working day. There are many factors to consider. I think the most overlooked attribute is keyboard selfishness. I’ve had a few keyboards in my time and one thing I have trouble with is that the more ergonomic their design, the more selfish they tend to be with regards to desk space. Ergonomic keyboards tend to be pretty big which is fine if all you use is a keyboard but you also have to fit a mouse (or equivalent) on your desk, and this makes a lot of ergonomic keyboards very unergonomic. It hurts to constantly reach to the side that little bit more to use my mouse. If I was designing a keyboard I’d make the numerical keypad detachable, so you could put it where-ever you wanted. Or no keypad at all (you can buy them seperately). At the moment my keyboard is slightly off to the left and at a slight angle and my wrists keep ending up at slighlty bent angles. This completely defeats the purpose. So consider the ergonomic qualitys of a compact “unergonomic” keyboard.

Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard 4000

I currently have a Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard 4000. I needed a split keyboard* and just wanted something quick and relatively cheap (I sometimes think if I was rich I wouldn’t have RSI). There was a lot of thought put into the design and it will do me for now but the keys are surprisingly loud and once again it’s just too big, full reviews on everythingusb.com and cnet.

Kinesis Evolution

The best keyboard I’ve owned was a Kinesis Evolution. It was completely split so you could put each side at whatever angle and width apart suited you. It might look weird but was very natural to type on. I didn’t get the version with the touchpad but I stuck a Cirque touchpad on with blu tac. This was a great setup because all my input devices were directly in front of me without needing to stretch to either side. Unfortunately over time I developed an adversity to the abrasion of my fingertips using the touchpad (not to mention having fingers in an exact position for long periods). This developed into another painful complaint over time. To this day I can’t bear to use touchpads, not for any great lenght of time anyway. I’d strongly advise to avoid overuse of touchpads (and laptops are the work of satan).

Macros

Another great feature of the Kinesis Evolution keyboard was that it could record macros, so for example, I could log on every morning with one keystroke. And other repetitive keyboard actions could be recorded and recalled with a key combination. This extra funtionality is invaluable but this model don’t seem to be on the Kinesis site at present and the site also looks suspiciously dated – but there are other split keyboards there.

Amongst this setup, I also had a foot pedal which I used to click my mouse – but the wicked project manager wouldn’t let me take any of these with me when I left that job to go to college, even though I know for a fact they’re still in a box under her desk.

Height

Height is such an important factor to setup, not only of your keyboard but for your workstation in general. I will be doing a separate post but I’ll touch on it briefly here; a lot of ergonomic keyboards can also be fairly high unfortunately. As most of us don’t have the luxury of adjustable desks, this can cause a lot of problems. Always make sure your wrists are slightly below your elbows and are never bent up or down when typing. Adjustable keyboard trays are a good option, more to come on that. The other option is to get your seat up as high as possible, then compliment by using a footrest and adjusting monitor height.

Ideal setup?

Until hardware designers take a more holistic approach and come up with an all-in solution, I think one a good option is to think modular. Get one compact split keyboard and numerical keypad with extra functionality.

Summary

• Ergonomic split keyboard: Good but width and height important
• Separate numeric keypad: Good, gives flexibity
• Extra functionality: Hot keys are invaluable but watch out for real estate
• Flexible setup: Always good

*I’ll be making assumptions from time to time, at this stage everyone know why split keyboards are better right? Let me know if not.

UPDATE: I’ve since bought a Goldtouch Evolution Keyboard, that I’m very happy with.

A Lumbar roll is good for supporting your lower back, while keeping your spine in a natural position. Although it directly improves your posture it also acts as a gentle reminder to sit properly. I use the classic McKenzie Original Roll. The four inch one. It’s not very expensive and very worthwhile. You can get one at www.physiosupplies.ie or http://www.backshop.co.uk. Or have a look at some other lumbar rolls at the backcare warehouse.

Don’t forget everything in your body is connected. The position of your head and neck will effect the rest of your body. Therefore monitor height is very important. Most people have their monitors way too low causing your neck to be at a slight angle all day. The top of your screen (not top of monitor) should be level with your eyes, while you are sitting up straight. One sign that your monitor is set up properly is when people start commenting that “your monitor is at a weird height, that can’t be good for you!”. I am blessed and cursed with a biomechanical feedback system (I mean because I have severe RSI)… so if my monitor is at the wrong height, the pain in my neck will inform me very quickly.

Luckily, modern monitors have adjustable stands. But monitor stands and drawers aren’t that expensive. And old telephone books are free. You can see in my (dodgy cameraphone) photo that I use a drawer and the box that it came in.

A really good exercise for neck pain is the nodding dog.