Ergonomics
As we were walking along in Billund, the city that Lego built, I saw in the middle of a nicely trimmed lawn what I at first took to be a statue of a seated man. Now, admittedly, my eyesight is not as good as it used to be and I can imagine that in a couple of years time I will be a walking rendition of Mr. Magoo, but I’m not quite there yet. It was actually just a riding mower.
It struck me, though, that the reason it looked like a seated man was the thorough ergonomics of its design. The headrest resembled a head. The controls were on two arms which actually resembled arms, at least in a rough outline. The seat, of course, resembled a human buttocks because, of course, it has to. That is where the buttocks is placed. If the seat of a riding mower resembled a flag pole or a porcupine, it would be quite uncomfortable and nobody would buy that brand of mower.
So, the most perfectly ergonomically designed machines and furniture are almost guaranteed to resemble the human figure. The curvature of an ergonomically designed keyboard should resemble the skeletal structure of the hand and fingers, an ergonomically designed pillow should be like a 3-d photographic negative of the head and neck, and so forth.
It is the manifest destiny of mankind to recreate the world in our own image.
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