[comp.society.women] How women wont't fit in...;-)

viljanen@kreeta.cs.Helsinki.FI (Lea Viljanen) (04/12/89)

[mouse usage, again...]
>Any other examples of designs that are more likely to be difficult for women to
>use? 

Yes. I'm quite small (162 cm, don't know about feet) and my present car is
relatively small too. But the driver's seat has been made so that it's im-
possible for me to sit there longer than two hours because my shoulders
don't reach the place where the designers thought they would be...

Another example (cars again) came up when I was visiting a car design
show here in Helsinki. There was an example cabin of Saab 900 and I stepped
in. Otherwise it was OK, but I had to move the seat forward as much as it 
went and still my feet didn't reach the pedals normally. So, I'll never by
a Saab... But then, Saab has been advertised here as some kind of a macho 
mobile...

>Miriam Nadel
>-- 
>"Most kayaker's EEGs show signs of standing waves, reversals and eddies."
>                                                   - Dr. Surf
>
>mhnadel@gryphon.COM    <any backbone site>!gryphon!mhnadel



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Lea 'LadyBug' Viljanen           ____     University of Helsinki, Finland
viljanen@finuha.bitnet       \  / . '     Dept. of Computer Science
viljanen@cs.helsinki.fi       \/  |_      " I'm not a feature "

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[I included this because it points out the way that market can determine
ergonomics--if the car has a macho audience, they don't bother to size
it for small people.  The same is true of computers (computers designed
for kids have, if I remember correctly, smaller keyboards and smaller mice.)
So, perhaps women with small hands could get the mice for the kids computers
and use them with their own computers?  TR]