Industrial Engineering faculty member featured in Fast Company

Dr. Justin Young, faculty member in the Department of Industrial Engineering, was featured in a story on Fast Company's Co.Exist site. The story, entitled "Meet the man who's figuring out the ergonomics of the office of the future," examines work Young and his team are doing in Kettering University's Ergonomics Lab. From the story:

These days, Young is concerned about something that every business with desk-bound workers could one day be considering: What happens when touchless gesture control devices—gadgets that let you control what's happening on a screen without any physical contact—invade the office.

Gesture control probably won't become mainstream for years, which is exactly why Young thinks it's important to study it now.

"If we all switch to that kind of interface before we start to evaluate it, then we can run into a situation like in the late '80s and early '90s when everyone had carpal tunnel syndrome because keyboards were designed in such a way that they required a lot of force to press down on the keys," he says. "Once you teach someone a new interaction modality like pinch to zoom—once you learn that, it’s hard to switch. It's at the development stage of new interfaces that we want to make sure people are learning something that will be easy to use, productive, but also not create problems with tendonitis, carpal tunnel, or injuries."

Read the full story.