School combo-desk comfort assessment: a method for weighing postural factors that affect the overall perceived comfort while performing different activities

t In recent years, a growing interest in ergonomics and comfort perception in secondary schools and universities can be detected, with the aim of going beyond the UNI-EN regulations and understanding how practically improve students’ perceived comfort during lessons. The aim of this study was to analyse the discomfort perceived by students while sitting on combo-desk during lessons. A statistical sample of 20 healthy students performed a combination of three different tasks in two sessions - listening, reading on a tablet and writing - in a mixed sequence. Subjective perceptions were investigated through questionnaires, in which the expected comfort and the overall one were rated on a 10-point comfort scale and the perceived comfort on a 5-point Likert scale. Subject’s postures were acquired non-invasively using cameras; Kinovea® software was used to detect postural angles directly on pictures; the acquired angles were used for the virtual-postural analysis, using a DHM (Digital Human Modelling) software; CaMAN® software was used to obtain an objective measure of the postural comfort. Once correlations between subjective and objective data were calculated, the results of the analysis were used to define the influence of each body part comfort on the overall perceived comfort and to quantify the weight of each factor influencing the overall perception. Finally, some guidelines to modify the combodesk design, in order to increase the level of perceived comfort, were developed.