What does your home office look like? And do you know what risks there are in working from home?

Whether we work at home or in an office, we are always exposed to environmental sounds and external influences. Sometimes (or often) we would like to be alone in the world when we work. No distractions from the environment. Just complete peace to do our work with maximum concentration.

Working undisturbed (at home)

A headset with Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) is an easy way to concentrate at home or at the office. With an ANC headset you create an ‘I’m working with concentration’ bubble.

Headsets with active noise cancelling reduce unwanted sounds by neutralising them. This is in contrast to passive headsets which, if they reduce ambient noise at all, use limited techniques such as sound isolation.

 

In order to suppress the low frequencies of noise, a Tilde headset uses active noise cancelling: through multiple microphones, the Tilde picks up the sounds or noises of the environment. It picks up conversations, transforms them into waveforms and mixes this into the desired sound level for the user, so that noise or colleagues are not completely suppressed, but can be adjusted to one’s own requirements thanks to an optimal volume level.

Background noise is not only reduced by the Tilde headsets, but also regulated. The Tilde headsets thus ensure greater focus and better concentration without completely isolating the user from the outside world.

 

Don’t just use a standard keyboard

On average, your fingers travel 32 km on a keyboard in a day. So a good keyboard is essential! Yet many of us still use the standard, often computer-supplied, fullsize keyboard with fixed numeric part. With a compact keyboard you work more comfortably, because it reduces the reaching distance to the mouse (Cook C, et al., 1998). It reduces the strain on the forearms and shoulder.

A good keyboard:

• Provides a perfect typing feel (operating force, key travel, keys).
• Gives the right tactile feedback
• Provides sufficient contrast (light keys with dark letters make reading easier – ISO 9241) and contributes to increased productivity (Snyder, 1990).
• Is light and not too thick (mobility and no curved wrist).

 

Full-size keyboard

A full-size keyboard can be found in most offices, as just mentioned. Below is a drawing of a full-size keyboard. The numeric part (the part with numbers) is on the right-hand side of the keyboard.

 

 

 

 

Compact keyboard

On the compact keyboard, the numerical part on the right side has been omitted. On this keyboard, the numerical part is integrated into the keyboard (near the letter part), as shown below on the drawing of the compact keyboard. You can easily turn your NumLock on or off with a shortcut key, indicating whether you want these keys to function as numbers or letters.

 

 

 

 

Compact standard keyboard

Do you miss the numerical part on your keyboard? Then there is also another possibility to work in a compact way, but with a numerical part. Below you can see the UltraBoard 960 Compact Standard. This keyboard is still 8 cm smaller than a full-size keyboard. So it has the advantages of both a full-size and a compact keyboard.

 

 

 

 

Use a good (ergonomic) mouse

With the keyboard we travel 32 km a day as we have read previously, but we use the mouse 50-65% of our time behind the computer. This makes the mouse the most used accessory in our workplace. With a standard mouse, turn or tilt your wrist inwards which can lead to discomfort and even complaints. To prevent this, it is better to use an ergonomic mouse.

Research has shown that a loose mouse in use with a laptop leads to a clear improvement in performance (Sommerich et al., 2002). Subsequently, replacing a standard mouse with an ergonomic one significantly increases comfort.

A standard mouse causes an unfavourable hand, wrist, and forearm posture. The body is put under extra strain in three ways by using a standard mouse:

Pronation: Turning the wrist inwards from the forearm.

Wrist extension: Extension of the wrist.

Ulnar and radial deviation: bending sideways from the wrist

 

 

 

 

 

Mice solutions

In addition to the standard mouse, we distinguish 4 different types of mice. The vertical, the precision, the central and the special ergonomic mouse. Below you will find a brief overview of the advantages:

1. Vertical mouse – your hand has a ‘handshake’ position

• Muscle activity in the forearm is lower than in a normal mouse (Quemelo & Vieira, 2013);
• Faster recovery of arm, wrist, and hand complaints when using a vertical mouse (Aarås et al., 2001).

 

 

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