Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello, and welcome to Developing Perspective.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing news of note in iOS development, Apple, and

00:00:07 ◼   ► the like.

00:00:08 ◼   ► I'm your host, David Smith.

00:00:09 ◼   ► I'm an independent iOS and Mac developer based in Herne, Virginia.

00:00:12 ◼   ► This is show number 105, and today is Friday, January 25th.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:19 ◼   ► All right, so the first thing I want to talk about is a bit of an announcement before I

00:00:23 ◼   ► get into the main topic for today's show.

00:00:25 ◼   ► And that is I wanted to say that I'm going to be in San Francisco next Wednesday, Thursday,

00:00:28 ◼   ► and Friday, coincident with Macworld.

00:00:31 ◼   ► I'm not really part of the Macworld Conference.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I'm not talking or speaking there.

00:00:34 ◼   ► I don't have a booth, nothing like that.

00:00:36 ◼   ► I just thought it would be an interesting time

00:00:37 ◼   ► to be in San Francisco and to potentially meet and talk

00:00:40 ◼   ► with interesting people.

00:00:41 ◼   ► So if you're going to be either out for Macworld or just

00:00:44 ◼   ► in San Francisco and want to get together, hang out,

00:00:48 ◼   ► grab a cup of coffee, whatever it is, just let me know.

00:00:51 ◼   ► The usual means, Twitter, email, something like that.

00:00:54 ◼   ► And just let me know.

00:00:55 ◼   ► And I'd love to meet you and hang out with you.

00:00:58 ◼   ► just want to let everyone know that's where I'll be. Alright, so the actual main topic I'm going to

00:01:01 ◼   ► talk about today, you could broadly start put into the bucket of what I think a lot of people refer

00:01:07 ◼   ► to as ergonomics. Though moreover, I think what I'm going to be kind of taking the the approach of

00:01:12 ◼   ► it of as is under creating a working environment where you can work for as long as you need to. And

00:01:20 ◼   ► so, you know, it's the kind of thing that my work environment should provide no strain, certainly

00:01:27 ◼   ► no injury, or those types of things.

00:01:29 ◼   ► I don't want to have my work environment be something that puts constraints on my ability

00:01:33 ◼   ► to work, on my ability to function in my work, and my ability to do what I'm doing.

00:01:39 ◼   ► That applies both on a daily basis.

00:01:41 ◼   ► I want to be able to do what I do for a whole day, whether that's eight hours, six hours,

00:01:47 ◼   ► 10 hours, 20 hours.

00:01:48 ◼   ► I want to be able to sit and do my work or stand and do my work, however you would do

00:01:53 ◼   ► it.

00:01:54 ◼   ► But your work environment needs to allow you to do that.

00:01:56 ◼   ► And then secondly, and probably more importantly,

00:01:58 ◼   ► it has to allow you to continue to do that sort of,

00:02:01 ◼   ► in some ways you'd say, indefinitely into the future.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I am developing and nurturing a set of skills

00:02:07 ◼   ► that requires that I be in front of a computer,

00:02:10 ◼   ► and that I type, and that I interact with the computer

00:02:13 ◼   ► on a constant basis.

00:02:15 ◼   ► And if I injure myself in such a way,

00:02:17 ◼   ► through the way that I'm doing that,

00:02:19 ◼   ► that I won't be able to do that 10 years down the road,

00:02:21 ◼   ► that's very problematic.

00:02:22 ◼   ► It's not the kind of industry where you--

00:02:25 ◼   ► I'm not a professional football player or basketball player

00:02:27 ◼   ► where you make a huge salary for a couple of years

00:02:30 ◼   ► and you blow out your knee and it's fine.

00:02:31 ◼   ► To be a software engineer, to do this on a sustainable basis,

00:02:34 ◼   ► you really want to be able to do this for as long as you need

00:02:36 ◼   ► to.

00:02:37 ◼   ► I'd love to be able to still be a programmer doing

00:02:39 ◼   ► interesting projects and things 20, 30, 40, 50 years down

00:02:43 ◼   ► the road.

00:02:43 ◼   ► And in order for me to do that, I have to have good ergonomics

00:02:46 ◼   ► and I have to have a good setup that sort of sustains

00:02:50 ◼   ► and nurtures me in that.

00:02:51 ◼   ► And probably a good side note there is just

00:02:53 ◼   ► that an experience that I've had at a couple of different companies I've worked at, and

00:02:56 ◼   ► it's probably worth mentioning if you're someone who listens to this show, but who works in

00:03:00 ◼   ► but I would, you know, whatever, a nine to five typical kind of corporate job. ergonomics

00:03:06 ◼   ► is often something that's easier addressed than you may be thinking. A lot of places

00:03:10 ◼   ► will have a standing contract with someone who handles or who a professional like ergonomic

00:03:18 ◼   ► an analyst or those types of people who

00:03:21 ◼   ► can come into your office and look at your setup

00:03:23 ◼   ► and help improve it.

00:03:24 ◼   ► So it's always worth asking your human resources department

00:03:26 ◼   ► if that's something that the company has.

00:03:29 ◼   ► And then two, in my experience, any time

00:03:31 ◼   ► you want to make ergonomic changes to your work

00:03:33 ◼   ► environment, I've very rarely found a place

00:03:36 ◼   ► where they resist that.

00:03:39 ◼   ► Maybe there are probably some exceptions to that.

00:03:42 ◼   ► But for the most part, if you decide,

00:03:44 ◼   ► I really want to try a different style of keyboard.

00:03:46 ◼   ► I want a split format.

00:03:47 ◼   ► I want something slightly different.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Very few places will have super strong pushback on that.

00:03:52 ◼   ► And a lot of that, I think, has to do with, obviously,

00:03:55 ◼   ► workers' compensation and the fact

00:03:57 ◼   ► that if you injure yourself doing your job

00:03:59 ◼   ► and you told them that your job was affecting you

00:04:03 ◼   ► in a way that was negative, then they all of a sudden

00:04:05 ◼   ► are liable and culpable for that in a way that's

00:04:07 ◼   ► not great for them.

00:04:08 ◼   ► All right, so the first part of ergonomics

00:04:11 ◼   ► that I thought I'd talk about is actually--

00:04:13 ◼   ► I remember this was a talk I had when I was back in college.

00:04:16 ◼   ► I went to the University of Cambridge in England for my undergrad in computer science. And

00:04:20 ◼   ► at the beginning of the first semester of the first year, you have everybody in the

00:04:26 ◼   ► class, you know, all computer science people had to come to this mandatory lecture. And it

00:04:30 ◼   ► was a lot of it was to tell you, you're talking about administration, a straight of stuff, how

00:04:33 ◼   ► you know how the process works, what it's like to be a student there, and so on. And one of the

00:04:37 ◼   ► things though, at the end, they had this guy, one of the professors come up, and he talked

00:04:40 ◼   ► about essentially ergonomics. He talked about the importance of having not developing bad

00:04:46 ◼   ► habits because you will not be able to, you know, effectively complete your degree if

00:04:52 ◼   ► you're having trouble with these types of things. And he said something at the beginning

00:04:56 ◼   ► of that that I thought was rather novel, and in my experience has been very, very true,

00:05:01 ◼   ► that the root of good ergonomics actually stems largely from good hydration. And it's

00:05:08 ◼   ► It's kind of a strange thing to say, but in that if you are working in an environment

00:05:12 ◼   ► where you're always drinking water, you're always drinking juice, whatever it is that

00:05:15 ◼   ► you like to drink, but you're staying well hydrated throughout the day, it'll force you

00:05:20 ◼   ► on a physiological level, you'll be forced to take frequent breaks.

00:05:23 ◼   ► You'll be forced about every, whatever, 45 minutes, half an hour, hour, whatever it is

00:05:27 ◼   ► for you, be forced to get up, walk somewhere, and come back.

00:05:31 ◼   ► And that's just the nature of being well hydrated.

00:05:34 ◼   ► And so he said that, and in general, for a lot of ergonomics, the biggest problem a lot

00:05:39 ◼   ► of people have is that they just get stuck into one position, and they stay in that position

00:05:42 ◼   ► all day, for three, four, five hours, and that's very dangerous for you.

00:05:48 ◼   ► And so the number one thing you can do from an ergonomics perspective to protect your

00:05:51 ◼   ► body and to do that is to stay hydrated.

00:05:53 ◼   ► A, hydration is good for your body, and B, it allows you to protect yourself by taking

00:05:58 ◼   ► frequent breaks and forcing you to take frequent breaks, even at times that you wouldn't necessarily

00:06:02 ◼   ► want to or think to otherwise.

00:06:04 ◼   ► All right, then so now I'm going to talk through some

00:06:07 ◼   ► of the different parts of a good setup, at least

00:06:10 ◼   ► in my experience.

00:06:10 ◼   ► These are some of the parts of it

00:06:12 ◼   ► that I think are important to do.

00:06:13 ◼   ► And as you're listening to this, if you're in your office

00:06:16 ◼   ► or if you get an X in your office, some of the things

00:06:18 ◼   ► that I think are good to think about and to evaluate

00:06:21 ◼   ► in your office to look for.

00:06:23 ◼   ► So the first one is your chair and table.

00:06:27 ◼   ► Your chair is something that's probably

00:06:28 ◼   ► the most important part for your overall comfort.

00:06:31 ◼   ► I'm not going to talk about standing desks, treadmill

00:06:33 ◼   ► desks, all that kind of stuff.

00:06:34 ◼   ► That is a perfectly valid and interesting side of this

00:06:38 ◼   ► that a lot of people like and prefer.

00:06:40 ◼   ► In my experience, I've never been in a situation

00:06:42 ◼   ► where that really worked out well for me.

00:06:44 ◼   ► So I've just, in general, I sit for most of my job,

00:06:47 ◼   ► which I'm sure is killing me in some ways.

00:06:49 ◼   ► You always hear these reports about people

00:06:51 ◼   ► who sit all day live less time than people who stand all day.

00:06:55 ◼   ► And this is something that I may try more fully down the road.

00:06:58 ◼   ► But right now, I sit in a chair.

00:07:00 ◼   ► Having a good comfortable chair is, I think,

00:07:02 ◼   ► an important part of it.

00:07:03 ◼   ► You can spend a lot of money on that.

00:07:04 ◼   ► You can spend a little bit of money on that.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Important parts, I think, of a comfortable chair

00:07:08 ◼   ► is that it should support your body without you putting you

00:07:12 ◼   ► into an awkward position.

00:07:14 ◼   ► So it should follow the contour of your back a little bit.

00:07:17 ◼   ► It should have a long enough leg bed

00:07:20 ◼   ► so that your legs aren't in tension the whole time.

00:07:23 ◼   ► It should be adjustable vertically

00:07:25 ◼   ► so that your leg can be at the right appropriate angle.

00:07:28 ◼   ► I think I like it just slightly beyond a 90 degree angle.

00:07:31 ◼   ► It feels very comfortable for me.

00:07:33 ◼   ► I use a Herman Miller Embody Chair,

00:07:36 ◼   ► which is one of those chairs which is a very dangerous thing

00:07:38 ◼   ► if you ever sit in one.

00:07:40 ◼   ► The first time I went into a store and sat in one,

00:07:42 ◼   ► I was like, oh my goodness.

00:07:44 ◼   ► You just ruined all the other chairs here

00:07:45 ◼   ► because it is so comfortable.

00:07:47 ◼   ► It is kind of an amazing thing.

00:07:50 ◼   ► Of course, it's also incredibly expensive.

00:07:51 ◼   ► So be careful of trying one out if you can't afford one.

00:07:55 ◼   ► It's sort of a comment I always-- I remember a friend of mine

00:07:57 ◼   ► When he first got a BMW, he said--

00:08:00 ◼   ► I was asking what it was like to drive.

00:08:01 ◼   ► And he said, well, the problem is,

00:08:03 ◼   ► once I took it for a test drive, I

00:08:05 ◼   ► couldn't drive any other cars.

00:08:07 ◼   ► So just be careful.

00:08:08 ◼   ► You don't want to--

00:08:09 ◼   ► it's like, if you can afford one, great.

00:08:11 ◼   ► If not, just find a comfortable chair.

00:08:13 ◼   ► I mean, for a long time, I had a relatively inexpensive chair.

00:08:17 ◼   ► And it was fine, as long as I adjusted it and corrected it

00:08:20 ◼   ► appropriately.

00:08:21 ◼   ► Sometimes you have to put-- maybe you

00:08:23 ◼   ► were putting a cushion at the bottom to support

00:08:24 ◼   ► the curve of your back and the lower part.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Whatever it is.

00:08:27 ◼   ► make sure that's comfortable. Desk is one of those funny things that some people spend

00:08:32 ◼   ► a lot of money on desks, I've never really found the need to do that. I think a desk

00:08:35 ◼   ► itself is something that I just like a nice big wide workspace. I want something that

00:08:40 ◼   ► allows me to access and re-end deal with all of what I need on a day on a regular basis

00:08:45 ◼   ► without having to do, you know, reach and lean in awkward in awkward ways. And it should

00:08:51 ◼   ► be at a height that lets you either adjust its height to fit the rest of it, or be at

00:08:58 ◼   ► the height so that when you're in your ergonomic setup, so when you're sitting in your chair

00:09:03 ◼   ► at the appropriate level, so your leg is at a 90 degree angle, your arms, when they touch

00:09:09 ◼   ► the keyboard, should also be loose and free at your side, which I'll talk about a little

00:09:13 ◼   ► bit when I talk about keyboard in a moment.

00:09:15 ◼   ► But basically, you want to make sure your desk isn't constraining your work environment

00:09:18 ◼   ► in that way.

00:09:19 ◼   ► be just-- most desks, I think, are probably

00:09:21 ◼   ► designed for someone who is probably between, I don't know,

00:09:25 ◼   ► maybe less like 5, 8 to 6 foot, something like that, it seems.

00:09:29 ◼   ► I have no idea what that is in metric.

00:09:31 ◼   ► But at least in the United States,

00:09:32 ◼   ► that seems to be a standard desk height, which,

00:09:34 ◼   ► if you're in that range, works pretty well.

00:09:36 ◼   ► But if you're particularly tall or particularly short,

00:09:38 ◼   ► you might need to adjust your desk appropriately.

00:09:40 ◼   ► The next thing, and this is very important,

00:09:42 ◼   ► and something that I used to not really pay attention to,

00:09:44 ◼   ► is you want your monitor to be at a height such

00:09:48 ◼   ► that your eye level, when you're looking straight ahead,

00:09:51 ◼   ► I find it works best is if you're about a third down

00:09:54 ◼   ► on your monitor-- and this is the main display

00:09:56 ◼   ► that you're working on-- if you have multiple displays,

00:09:59 ◼   ► whatever one you're kind of looking at most of the time,

00:10:01 ◼   ► you want it to be about that level.

00:10:04 ◼   ► So when you're looking straight ahead,

00:10:05 ◼   ► you're hitting about the line that's

00:10:08 ◼   ► a third down on the monitor.

00:10:10 ◼   ► And that's because you want to be able to keep

00:10:12 ◼   ► your neck in a neutral position so that you're looking straight

00:10:14 ◼   ► ahead for the most part.

00:10:15 ◼   ► Obviously, your eyes are going to be moving around.

00:10:17 ◼   ► I have a nice 27-inch display.

00:10:19 ◼   ► And so my head is moving around within that.

00:10:23 ◼   ► But a lot of people, especially I find with Mac monitors,

00:10:27 ◼   ► they have a very short stand compared

00:10:29 ◼   ► to the height of the monitor.

00:10:31 ◼   ► And so I always have to find that I take that monitor

00:10:34 ◼   ► and I have to put it up on something.

00:10:35 ◼   ► It's a book.

00:10:36 ◼   ► It's a box.

00:10:36 ◼   ► I think right now the one in front of me

00:10:38 ◼   ► is sitting on an iPad One box, just the little white box

00:10:41 ◼   ► that it came in, which for me works perfectly.

00:10:43 ◼   ► And you just want to elevate it up so that you're not

00:10:45 ◼   ► looking down, so that you're not kind of straining your neck

00:10:47 ◼   ► the entire day.

00:10:49 ◼   ► Because that's, again, just one of those problematic things.

00:10:51 ◼   ► You want everything in your body to be as neutral as possible.

00:10:54 ◼   ► You want it to feel as though you could just

00:10:56 ◼   ► sit in that position and be totally comfortable,

00:10:58 ◼   ► be fairly relaxed throughout the entire day.

00:11:01 ◼   ► And the next part is your keyboard.

00:11:03 ◼   ► And this is probably the most important part

00:11:07 ◼   ► in terms of-- this is probably the most controversial part,

00:11:11 ◼   ► too.

00:11:12 ◼   ► I find that your keyboard is the thing

00:11:13 ◼   ► that you're trying to-- if you're trying to avoid getting

00:11:16 ◼   ► RSI, which is one of the biggest fears I think anyone

00:11:19 ◼   ► in this industry has, is getting repetitive stress injury.

00:11:22 ◼   ► There's all kinds of forms and various of that.

00:11:24 ◼   ► And it's fairly not particularly well understood.

00:11:26 ◼   ► But the part of it that is understood

00:11:28 ◼   ► is that if you are working not in a great way

00:11:32 ◼   ► or in a manner that is uncomfortable to your body,

00:11:34 ◼   ► putting a lot of tension and stress in your body,

00:11:36 ◼   ► you'll hurt the tendons in your forearms and arms and hands

00:11:40 ◼   ► and things and create a lot of pain, which then may prevent

00:11:42 ◼   ► from doing your job.

00:11:44 ◼   ► For me, I've always used-- I think

00:11:46 ◼   ► this is-- I first got this keyboard probably back

00:11:49 ◼   ► in 2000, 2001, basically when I started working commercially.

00:11:54 ◼   ► And it's the Microsoft Natural split format keyboard.

00:11:58 ◼   ► It's relatively inexpensive.

00:11:59 ◼   ► I think it's about $40.

00:12:00 ◼   ► And it's a split format.

00:12:04 ◼   ► And by that, I mean the keys from A to G,

00:12:07 ◼   ► looking at the home row, A to G are sort of split to the left.

00:12:11 ◼   ► And H through the semicolon are split to the right.

00:12:15 ◼   ► So that when you put your hand on it,

00:12:19 ◼   ► your forearms are no longer parallel.

00:12:21 ◼   ► Your forearms instead are kind of creating a trapezoid.

00:12:25 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a trapezoid.

00:12:27 ◼   ► Which is a very natural position.

00:12:29 ◼   ► If you were to kind of just naturally put your arms out

00:12:32 ◼   ► in front of you and make your wrists parallel,

00:12:34 ◼   ► you immediately-- even if you do it right now--

00:12:37 ◼   ► you put your arms out.

00:12:38 ◼   ► And then you turn in your elbows to make your forearms

00:12:41 ◼   ► parallel, you already feel a little bit of tension.

00:12:44 ◼   ► The natural position, the one with the least amount of work,

00:12:48 ◼   ► is in that trapezoidal position.

00:12:50 ◼   ► And so for me, I find a split format keyboard great.

00:12:53 ◼   ► Some people don't like the clickiness of it or whatever.

00:12:55 ◼   ► I mean, there's millions of things like that.

00:12:57 ◼   ► There's really fancy keyboards you

00:12:59 ◼   ► can get into that have all the cherry switches and stuff

00:13:03 ◼   ► that I never really cared too much about.

00:13:06 ◼   ► But I find that the split format is great for me.

00:13:10 ◼   ► Secondary to that is that you saw it was great to get

00:13:12 ◼   ► a good mouse.

00:13:14 ◼   ► I use-- and this for mice in general,

00:13:16 ◼   ► I find that the best things you can find are almost always

00:13:19 ◼   ► from gamers.

00:13:20 ◼   ► So I use a gaming mouse.

00:13:21 ◼   ► I use a Razer DeathAdder.

00:13:25 ◼   ► And the reason I say gaming mice are the best

00:13:27 ◼   ► is they're designed and engineered

00:13:29 ◼   ► for people who use a mouse in a way that most of us never would.

00:13:34 ◼   ► If you watch someone who's a competitive StarCraft 2 player,

00:13:37 ◼   ► you'll see that they are using the mouse in a way

00:13:39 ◼   ► that none of us ever would, moving it thousands and thousands of thousands of times in an

00:13:43 ◼   ► hour.

00:13:44 ◼   ► And so the ergonomics and the experience of that are really good.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Putting it on a nice mouse pad is actually something that I recently did.

00:13:49 ◼   ► I got a SteelSeries 4HD mouse pad and it's fantastic.

00:13:54 ◼   ► It has this really nice feel in terms of the friction of the surface and that creates,

00:13:59 ◼   ► I think, a lot less sort of friction and tension whenever I'm using my mouse.

00:14:02 ◼   ► So definitely recommend getting both of those.

00:14:05 ◼   ► And that's kind of the experience and that's kind of how I set it up.

00:14:07 ◼   ► My goal, like I said, is that if I come into my office and I sit down and I'm in my normal

00:14:11 ◼   ► work position, that I should feel no tension or stress anywhere in my body.

00:14:16 ◼   ► I should be able to hold that position with great comfort for however long as I need to.

00:14:21 ◼   ► And it's really important.

00:14:22 ◼   ► I can't emphasize this long enough.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I've known enough people in this industry who end up just working.

00:14:27 ◼   ► It's like they're crunched over a laptop all day, every day, and just end up hurting themselves.

00:14:33 ◼   ► It's just a terrible, tragic thing that can have really big impacts in your career.

00:14:37 ◼   ► So please take care of yourself.

00:14:39 ◼   ► All right, that's it for today's show.

00:14:41 ◼   ► As always, if you have questions, comments, concerns, or complaints, I'm on Twitter @_davidsmith.

00:14:46 ◼   ► I'm on AppNet @davidsmith.

00:14:47 ◼   ► If you want to email me, my email is david@david-smith.org.

00:14:51 ◼   ► And I look forward to seeing you in San Francisco.

00:14:53 ◼   ► And as always, happy coding, and I will talk to you next week.