Francesca Tosi

Raising the retirement age characterizes the Italian pension policies as long as many other Western countries. The problems associated with the rise of the working-age population occur at the level of the production sector and at the level of the over 50 age workers safety and health risks, who work in the handling and control of industrial machineries. (ILO, 2015) The sector of mechanical engineering is part of the metal industry, and it deals with machineries and facilities production. Today many people work into the metal industry, especially the over 50 workers. By identifying the over 50 workers as a specific category of users, the design needs require the adaptation of the workstation to prevent any risks related to safety and to incapacity to work. The purpose of this ergonomics evaluation is the raising of safety and usability standard conditions. This is the case of OCEM 2 company. It is made up of workers aged between 22 and 54. The project in question aims to an ergonomic evaluation of 6 workstations in the carpentry and assembly departments. The purpose of research project is to improve current workstations through an euristic evaluation of users risks conditions, using the methodological approach of ergonomics for design and its theoretical and operational tools, as Task Analysis, Users observation, Thinking Aloud, questionnaires and interviews. The aim of the results is to provide the basis for developing the design phase and to improve users risk conditions, usability and users comfort.

The main design issues relating to layout, sizing and organisation of the environment, sizing of products and equipment, and organisation of the required activities require joint consideration of aspects relating to physical and cognitive tasks, in addition to emotional aspects relating to each individual's subjective situation. A similar approach applies to the assessment of possible risks that may arise from the partial or total incompatibility between people's physical, sensory or cognitive characteristics and abilities and the levels of performance required (and/or constraints imposed) by the physical, social and organisational context in which they operate.

From an operational point of view, it is necessary to identify: 

- the people targeted by the project (who use the product1 to be evaluated); 

- the main activities for which the product/system to be evaluated and/or designed are or may be used; 

- the physical and mental tasks required; 

- the anthropometric reference parameters (e.g. height, eye height, hand size, etc.) and data relating to the target user group; 

- the physical and mental abilities (movement, physical and cognitive effort) of the target user group and the related acceptability thresholds; 

- the limit users.

The following must also be defined: 

- the limits of the design solution; 

- the acceptability thresholds and related dimensional and functional constraints; 

- the dimensional requirements relating to the accessibility and dimensional usability of environments, products and their components, and in particular to movement spaces and reachability zones; 

- the requirements relating to the characteristics, duration and/or intensity of the postures, movements and efforts required by each physical and mental task envisaged. 

The steps necessary for the correct definition of dimensional constraints and project intervention limits can be further broken down and follow a different sequence from the one just listed.

The specificity and innovative value of the ergonomic approach to design lie in its ability to assess the multitude of variables that define the interaction between people and what they come into contact with (i.e. the characteristics and abilities of users; the characteristics of the product and the activities for which it is, or may be, used; the characteristics of the physical, social and organisational context), their mutual relationships and their possible modification over time, identifying and interpreting, from time to time, the needs and expectations that people express or may express with regard to this interaction. The design intervention is thus based on the ability to understand, interpret – and imagine the different realities and possibilities with which people can, or could, interact with the system, identifying the multiplicity of variables at play and the complexity with which their mutual relationships are determined, defining the system of requirements for the product and the parameters and criteria necessary to evaluate and design the quality of the product. Ergonomic intervention methods make it possible to define and manage these relationships, organise the data collected during the design process, and define the intervention requirements in an integrated manner. In particular, methods for assessing usability and safety of use, as well as methods for assessing user experience, are based on the collection of information relating to the ways in which people interact with the products and systems they come into contact with within a given context of use. They also make it possible to identify and analyse the behaviour of people (or users), their needs (requirements, expectations and desires) and, finally, the type and frequency of errors they may make when performing the required tasks.

This work is a part of a wider research about the inclusion in the Sharing-Based Services conceptual framework. The research presented in this paper was driven from a reflection on the ability of this kind of services to be inclusive. The main objective was discovering design domains for inclusive Sharing-Based Services detecting problems, needs and peculiar cases of online communities engaged in these services. For this reason, the netnography method was adopted to conduct a qualitative research with the aim to gain insights about inclusion and exclusion concepts on selected online forums related to platform in the Sharing-Based Services conceptual framework. The research insights were reported in the paper and they were used as a first reflection to conceptualize five design domains for inclusive services.

The essay focuses on the relationship between research, teaching and design as a founding value and engine of innovation both of the university teaching offer and the design culture within companies. The research activity of the Laboratory of Ergonomics & Design of the University of Florence is also presented. The essay focuses on the relationship between research, teaching and design as a founding value and engine of innovation both of the university teaching offer and the design culture within companies. The research activity of the Laboratory of Ergonomics & Design of the University of Florence is also presented.