Folk Norms and Biomechanics

In: Human factors: the journal of the Human Factors Society, Band 5, Heft 5, S. 427-441

Abstract

This paper describes some of the folk norms or so-called "rules of thumb" that governed the making of tools and implements up to middle of the nineteenth century. These norms were established on the bases of intuition or through a long process of development by trial and error. In many instances dimensions arrived at on the basis of these norms have agreed with those established as optimal by means of biomechanical analysis.