Creative Commons License photo credit: ºDaines

The selection and arrangement of the keyboard plays an important role in decreasing the exposure to awkward postures, repetition and stress. While designing your computer workstation, you should keep in mind certain vital factors like the height of the keyboard, its distance, and the use. You should choose a keyboard and find a proper place matching with the other components like the pointer/mouse and wrist/palm rests.

Keyboard Guidelines

  1. Ensure that the keyboard is placed directly in front of you.
  2. Ensure that the elbows are close to your body and the shoulders are in relaxed position.
  3. Ensure that your wrists are straight and in-line with your forearms.


Keyboard Placement – Height

Probable Risks

You tend to keep your shoulders, arm, and wrist in awkward positions if the keyboards, pointing devices, or working surfaces are placed too high or too. Normally, your wrists bent up when the keyboards are placed too low and you raise your shoulders to elevate your arms when the keyboards are placed too high. Such kind of awkward postures may lead to discomfort of the wrist, hand, and your shoulder.

Feasible Solutions

  • To maintain a neutral body posture, the height of the chair and the work surface need to be adjusted. Your elbows need to hang comfortably to the side of the body with the height almost same as the keyboard. The shoulders need to be in relaxed position and ensure that your wrists do not bend up or down or to either side while you are using the keyboard.
  • Ensure that the thickness of your work surface is not more than 2 inches.
  • Good keyboard trays with adjustable height and tilt giving enough space for leg and foot along with adequate space for other input devices like keyboard and pointer/mouse are available in the market if you find it difficult to adjust your work surface or your chair. While selecting a keyboard tray, ensure that it has all the mentioned features.
  • The vertical position of the keyboard should be maintained within the recommended range. Its tilt can be raised or lowered using the keyboard feet to maintain straight, neutral wrist postures while making slight changes in arm angles.

Keyboard Placement – Distance

Probable Risks

A keyboard user is forced to assume awkward postures such as reaching with the arms, leaning forward with the torso, and extreme elbow angles if the keyboard or pointer/mouse is placed too close or too far away from him. Studies have shown that such awkward postures generally lead to musculoskeletal disorders of the elbows, shoulders, hands, and wrists.

Feasible Solutions

  • Ensure that the keyboard is placed directly in front of you at a distance that keeps your elbows close to your body with the forearms approximately parallel with the floor.
  • If the armrest of your chair doesn’t allow sitting in a comfortable position or if your desk space is small, you can use a keyboard tray.

Design and Use

Probable Risks

While using a traditional keyboard, you may have to bend your wrists sideways to reach all the keys. When you extend the legs on the back of the keyboard, you tend to bend your wrist upward causing a keyboard tilt. The keyboards of the laptop computers that are comparatively smaller than the normal ones also force the user to sit in awkward positions. This in turn leads to contact stress to the tendon sheath and tendons that must move within the wrist during repetitive keying.

Feasible Solutions

  • Adjust the height of the keyboard or chair to attain a neutral wrist posture thus reducing the awkward wrist angles.
  • The user may even elevate the back or front of keyboards to achieve a neutral wrist posture. Normally, if the user is sitting in a position lower than that of the keyboard, a slight elevation made to the back of the keyboard would help maintain a neutral wrist. Similarly, if the user is typing with the keyboard in a lower position, raising the front of the keyboard may help maintain neutral wrist postures. If the keyboard feet tend to increase the bending of the wrist, do not use it.
  • You can sit with neutral wrist postures by taking into account alternative keyboards. These can be provided on a case-by-case basis. It takes time to get used to such mechanisms. Though alternative keyboards help the users to maintain neutral wrist postures, studies have not yet provided enough information regarding its capability to avoid discomfort and injury.
  • The size of the keyboard and spacing of the keys should be of appropriate size to suit majority of the customers. The recommended spacing between the centers of two keys horizontally is 0.71-0.75 inches (18-19 mm) and vertically is 0.71-0.82 inches (18-21 mm).

Keyboard Recipe

  1. You can maintain neutral wrist postures by using split keyboard designs.
  2. Keyboards with more adjustability options are often better than the others to maintain neutral wrist postures. There are keyboards with adjustable feet that can accommodate a wider range of keyboard positions and angles. Keyboards with adjustable feet on the front as well as the back will further aid adjustments.
  3. Ensure that the cord connecting the keyboard and the CPU has ample length to let the user place both these components in a variety of convenient positions in the workstation. The recommended cord length is around six feet.
  4. Consider a keyboard without a 10-key keypad if the task does not require one. If the task does require one occasionally, a keyboard with a separate 10-key keypad may be appropriate. Keyboards without keypads allow the user to place the mouse closer to the keyboard.
  5. If you prefer to work with the keyboard tray, ensure that the size and shape of the keyboard matches with that of the tray.
  6. It is always better to buy separate wrist rests than going for keyboards with built-in wrist rest.
  7. If you have to work for prolonged hours with keyboards, detach them from the display screen. Do not use laptop for long hours of typing jobs.

Keyboard Tray Recipe

  1. The width and depth of the keyboard trays should be large enough to accommodate the keyboard and any secondary devices, such as a mouse.
  2. The minimum vertical adjustment range (for a sitting position) should be 22 inches to 28 inches from the floor, if you are working in the sitting position using the keyboard tray.
  3. Ensure that your keyboard tray has adjustment mechanisms that lock into position without having to turn knobs. These are frequently over tightened, which can lead to stripped threads, or they may be difficult for some users to loosen.

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