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Procrustes
PROCRUSTES
The pattern of headings on business or personal notepaper is one which is common within a country but does not necessarily transfer across national boundaries. Will the Common Market encourage a common style of address? How many of us have hopefully copied the whole of a heading from, say, a Swedish correspondent's office notepaper to learn, later, that we had included the phone number but not the postal code.
each other? The opportunities for making human life so much less stressful by adequate design is so vast, and, let's face it, well within the competence of our technology, that one can only view with trepidation some possible outcomes of Rothschild if government thinking should move towards the partisan.
r~mr~ ~imr~ The postman's lot is not always a happy one and the hazards to him are not confined to the weather and pestiferous dogs. The variety of designs and positions for letter boxes are infinite and most of them do no credit to the designer. You'd think some folks didn't want their post from the struggle it is to get it through their doors. If we are to continue to enjoy such services as postal delivery, meter readings, window cleaning, even house painting, then we should consider some design contribution to job economy and effectiveness. This would be a modest step towards the ergonomics of urban life, and suggests a wide field for the examination of man's living/housing environment. New housing schemes, or the removal of old and dilapidated groups of houses, seem to concentrate on the mechanics of clearing and building with no evidence of serious planning for the effects on the inhabitants. You'd think, mostly, that people weren't the prime purpose of it all, to watch it happening.
Does customer oriented research imply that the directions of research will be more useful for society, or are we to permit our customers to define their objectives with the free-est of free enterprise? Shall we stand any chance, for instance, of getting transport looked at as a whole, for the transfer of people and goods - or are we to merely get more of the same, with road design and development being independent of rail or water. When can we look for the little town car piggy-backing it on the train from the dormitory town, or the bus and train routes complementing
Have you tried to get information about some captain of industry who has left the helm for the Elysian fields? Pope's Essay onMan comes quickly to mind, I can tell you! Why do people drive themselves for a system which scarcely pays them lip service a decade later. More importantly, for Ergonomics, how do we design managerial jobs to avoid the 'industrial diseases' of management which so often 'lead but to the grave'? 1 predict that this is a major growth area for ergonomics and will look forward to seeing the attack mounted on a comprehensive basis. The delineation of the nature and causes of managerial stresses is a matter of major importance for more than managers, as the recent debate on the effects of illness on American Presidential decisions indicates. Whilst the work goes on, though, it might be interesting to look at the motivations behind career ambitions. I predict the former would present a pleasanter sight than the latter!
The dominance of the telephone as a means for interrupting conversation is well known to every go-ahead young executive who cannot get an appointment to see the boss. No matter how busy he may be, it is rare that a ringing telephone goes unanswered. Some defence, we feel, is called for against this intrusive device, perhaps more informative to the caller than just taking the phone oft the hook. Could we not have a button which, when pushed, gives the caller a signal which indicates that the object of his attentions is busy? Perhaps this same button could so disconnect the handset that the attentions of those who try to 'bug' telephones to transmit whilst not in use would also be foiled.
Applied Ergonomics December 1972
237
The pattern of headings on business or personal notepaper is one which is common within a country but does not necessarily transfer across national boundaries. Will the Common Market encourage a common style of address? How many of us have hopefully copied the whole of a heading from, say, a Swedish correspondent's office notepaper to learn, later, that we had included the phone number but not the postal code.
each other? The opportunities for making human life so much less stressful by adequate design is so vast, and, let's face it, well within the competence of our technology, that one can only view with trepidation some possible outcomes of Rothschild if government thinking should move towards the partisan.
r~mr~ ~imr~ The postman's lot is not always a happy one and the hazards to him are not confined to the weather and pestiferous dogs. The variety of designs and positions for letter boxes are infinite and most of them do no credit to the designer. You'd think some folks didn't want their post from the struggle it is to get it through their doors. If we are to continue to enjoy such services as postal delivery, meter readings, window cleaning, even house painting, then we should consider some design contribution to job economy and effectiveness. This would be a modest step towards the ergonomics of urban life, and suggests a wide field for the examination of man's living/housing environment. New housing schemes, or the removal of old and dilapidated groups of houses, seem to concentrate on the mechanics of clearing and building with no evidence of serious planning for the effects on the inhabitants. You'd think, mostly, that people weren't the prime purpose of it all, to watch it happening.
Does customer oriented research imply that the directions of research will be more useful for society, or are we to permit our customers to define their objectives with the free-est of free enterprise? Shall we stand any chance, for instance, of getting transport looked at as a whole, for the transfer of people and goods - or are we to merely get more of the same, with road design and development being independent of rail or water. When can we look for the little town car piggy-backing it on the train from the dormitory town, or the bus and train routes complementing
Have you tried to get information about some captain of industry who has left the helm for the Elysian fields? Pope's Essay onMan comes quickly to mind, I can tell you! Why do people drive themselves for a system which scarcely pays them lip service a decade later. More importantly, for Ergonomics, how do we design managerial jobs to avoid the 'industrial diseases' of management which so often 'lead but to the grave'? 1 predict that this is a major growth area for ergonomics and will look forward to seeing the attack mounted on a comprehensive basis. The delineation of the nature and causes of managerial stresses is a matter of major importance for more than managers, as the recent debate on the effects of illness on American Presidential decisions indicates. Whilst the work goes on, though, it might be interesting to look at the motivations behind career ambitions. I predict the former would present a pleasanter sight than the latter!
The dominance of the telephone as a means for interrupting conversation is well known to every go-ahead young executive who cannot get an appointment to see the boss. No matter how busy he may be, it is rare that a ringing telephone goes unanswered. Some defence, we feel, is called for against this intrusive device, perhaps more informative to the caller than just taking the phone oft the hook. Could we not have a button which, when pushed, gives the caller a signal which indicates that the object of his attentions is busy? Perhaps this same button could so disconnect the handset that the attentions of those who try to 'bug' telephones to transmit whilst not in use would also be foiled.
Applied Ergonomics December 1972
237