30-40 years ago there was a big deal about “Ergonomic” tools – hand tools and yard tools that were designed to be more efficient and put less stress on the body. You had shovels with oddly twisted handles and grips, and pliers with strange handle shapes. But the claim was that these weird-looking designs were more comfortable to use, and more efficient, and less tiring. They had made measurements of muscle use and stress to back this up.
I could understand how the traditional shapes arose – it’s easier to make a shovel with a straight shaft, and it’s stronger that way, too.
But nowadays – even more than when these designs were proposed – we have new plastics and new fabrication methods. Yet straight-handled shovels dominate the scene. Most pliers have pretty traditional grips, or even uncomfortable ones that just look nice. I have a snow shovel and a rake that have double bends in the handles, but if they’re ergonoic, it’s only a cride approximation, and they’re the odd ones in any case – most of the rakes and snow shovels I see are pretty traditional straight-shaft ones.
Was Ergonomic Design a fad? Or was it just too weird for a purchasing public that preferred traditional straight handles they felt they could trust? Or what?
Google turns up several companies that make ergonomic tools. In some cases they run pretty much to lifting devices; drywall lifts, things to lift utility manhole covers and stuff like that.
Maybe the other types turned out to be unprofitable because no one would buy them. People are pretty conservative. Why buy a funny looking shovel that you are not sure works?
No evidence to back this up but memory, but I think that the “ergonomics” things ended up pricing themselves out of the market. They came up with “cool” looking tools, using nifty materials, and probably sold a good bit of these at high prices to yuppies, who never used them. Once all the yuppies had them, the companies died. The kind of people who actually use tools day to day and who would have benefitted from the ergonomics didn’t buy them because they were too funny looking and too expensive to just give them a try and see. Priced low enough that serious tool users would have felt the desire to give them a try, and assuming they really were better ergonomically, they might have been able to pick up an actual clientelle.
Funnily enough, one domain where you run into lots of “ergonomic” stuff is offices.
But I always have to bring a pillow with me because apparently my back is not “standard enough” to be comfortable in an ergonomic chair. I’ve got a similar problem with those tool handles that have sort of large grooves that are supposed to provide better grip: my hands are tiny, so the grooves are always in the wrong place.
I just don’t think Black and Decker will start making powered drills in different hand sizes very soon. But until that happens, the whole “ergonomic” label is mostly a marketing device for those countries where it is actually valued.
The tradespeople who use the tools need something that works for both the biggest and shortest person in the crew (will that ergonomic shovel adjust in length *and * last several seaons?) In the case of shovels, mattocks and the like, they may need the whole length of the implement at one point or another. Also, they want something that stows and can be retrieved easily without anything like a bent handle to get in the way.
Mechanics don’t want a big plastic grip on their rachet drivers since it will get dings, get melted by solvents and get in the way when working in tight quarters.
Also many tradespeople take a conservative attitude with their tools and want stuff “as good as the tools that their grandfathers might have used.” The emphasis is on durability, not ease of use.
Most homeowners will just buy the cheapest tool that gets the job done.
All of this puts ergonomic tools in the box of being “boutique items”, and there just isn’t that big of a market for boutique tools.
I still see them in less obvious places - hammers have curved handles, and screwdrivers come with better grips. These aren’t as “blatant” (for lack of a better term) as the really wild ergo shapes though. Minor improvements, not major changes.
Also plenty of ergo kitchen utensils out there, they seem to sell very well. I love my various “Good Grips” tools.
Personally speaking, I find that ‘ergonomic’ tools have grips made of a softish rubbery material, and when it is put to proper work, it soon gives out.
The handles of ergonomic screwdrivers certainly offer plenty of grip, but its a shame that the handle itself rips apart under the strain, especially in harsh environments where there is heat and also oil contaminants.
Simply put, I find ergonomic tools are not at all durable.
On some jobs, you find that cheapo tools are ideal, they break, get lost or stolen, and it doesn’t matter, give them a bit of abuse, just like you are not supposed to do, and if they fail its not a big deal.
Ergonomic tools are neither strong enough, or cheap enough.
Ergonomic tools are just tools for folk who don’t work with them each and every day, because when you do operate like this, you find you adapt to the conventional tools just fine. (disclaimer here is that probably every tradesman does have one or two ergonomic tools in their kit but its not usually the bulk of it)
I think what killed weirder shaped ergonomic tools (there are plenty of good and usable tools with slight improvements in ergonomics) was
a) as has already been mentioned, that they often fit only one size of hand
and
b) they restrict the use of the tool
It may be most efficient and safe to use a spade in a particular manner, and you can shape the tool perfectly for that. But sometimes you want to turn it sideways for some reason, or use it to fight an army of zombies, and then a “super”-ergonomic design becomes a design-flaw.
Interesting answers, all, but I think there’s one misconseption – ergonomic tools – at least as originally envisioned – didn’t have padded plastic handles (that can come apart or be attacked by solvents, etc.) The “ergonomic” referred to the odd shapes, and they generally had tough, ordinary handles. I mention Plastic as a material because you can easily make odd shapes in plastic (and many of them are tough and solvent-resistent, like nylons and acetal plastics), and that would give an alternative to making handles out of straight wood.
I would not be surprised to find out that they did more harm than good. I tried one of those bent showshovels once.
ONCE.
My reaction was to contort myself into uncomfortable positions to get the end of the shovel to land where I felt like it was supposed to land. In other words my body always wanted to compensate for the oddball design of the tool.
The only places that I have seen ergonomic changes in a tool’s design take off are in framing hammers and screwdrivers. A few decades ago people on the West Coast started putting hatchet handles on framing heads, creating the California framer (personally, I find them to be awkward as all hell and a good way to bend nails and skin my left thumb.) Also, several framer designs have the weight of the head moved towards the face and others are made of titanium, both of which allegedly cause more force to be transferred to the nail. While these aren’t ergonomic designs in the way we usually think of it, they supposedly make things easier for the carpenter.
Screwdriver handles can be made in any shape, and personally, I love my Snap-On “ergonomic” screwdrivers that I bought twenty years ago. The three-sided grip fits my hand and makes it a lot easier to apply torque. That said, it looks like Snap-On has stopped making that handle.
This is the crux of it right here, I think. Any jackass industrial designer with an idea about how to make something ergonomic can market as such. That claim of being, “ergonomic,” hasn’t exactly been evaluated by the FDA.
I’ve tried ergonomic tools, I just don’t find them that comfortable to use in many cases. I don’t think that there’s necessarily any advantage.
Also, our forefathers weren’t idiots and they usually bought their own tools. If there were fundamental changes that could be made to hand tools that made them easier to work with, they would have been made long before power tools made the work easier.
Ergotools are everywhere. I have two s-bend snow shovels, so I can clear the driveway without screwing up my back. My ratchet screwdriver has a fat handle. My garden hose has a 3-foot wand on it. The Oreck vacuum has an ergo handle. My bike’s handlebar is covered with thick foam padding. All my favorite pens and pencils have a fat, soft grab place. I’m sitting in front of a keyboard thingie with a rest for the heel of my hands, and a mouse pad with a wrist pad.
In the kitchen, lots of things have soft fat handles (thanks, OXO.) My Chicago boning knife has a bend in the handle to match my grip. My “sudoku” knife keeps me from bonking my knuckles on the cutting board.
It’s odd, but you are right, it’s a recurring fad. Every year we see the same improvements heralded. The shovel with the extra grip handle half way down, the chair with extra joints.
And they all fail because they aren’t economical because they aren’t popular because nobody buys them because they aren’t economical.
When Walmart demands a cheap ergonometric shovel from it’s China source, the dam will break and they will flood the market.
In the meantime, count on paying quadruple for a good ergonometric desk chair.
keeps me from bonking my knuckles on the cutting board.