Ergonomic furniture design for secondary girls school in Bangladesh

This study has been carried out to evaluate the number of mismatches between secondary girl student’s anthropometry and existing furniture dimensions in Bangladesh. In this study, 375 students (girls) are in classes 6-10 in the age group between 10-15 years that have randomly selected from three secondary girl schools in Bangladesh. Twelve anthropometric measurements and seven existing furniture dimensions were taken to find out the possible mismatch. A defined match criterion equation used to determine the mismatch. Various researchers gave these equations. The result indicates that there is a significant mismatch between anthropometric measurement and furniture dimensions. The highest mismatch percentage for seat height is about 90% for class 9. Therefore, 90% of girls use the seat that is too high (high mismatch). Mismatch percentage for seat depth is 100% for all classes. As a result, seat depth is so small for all students. Seat width is 100% for class 8 and 60% for class 9. The desktop height is about 100% mismatch for all classes. This paper also proposes dimensions for new furniture. The new furniture improves the match percentages from 50% to 100%.

Keywords:

Ergonomics , Anthropometry , Mismatch