A Comparative Analysis of the Ergonomic Anthropometry and Usability of Locally Designed and Foreign Designed Smartphones

摘要

Nowadays, mobile phones have become an essential tool for people's everyday lives. In designing smartphones, various factors are to be considered. People usually prefer smartphones which are user friendly and is a good tradeoff between price and functionality. One of the traits that Filipinos have in this generation is their patronage to foreign designed and manufactured gadgets and smartphones. Since those devices are designed abroad, it is possible that they are only manufactured for the optimal usability of the users of the country where they are manufactured from. Hence, there is a possibility that the physical design and dimensions do not conform to the Filipino users due to the differences in the anthropometric measurements between races, specifically in the measurement of the hands and fingers resulting to awkward positioning of the hands or being unable to grip the smartphone properly when using the smartphones. In this study, the proponents conducted a comparative analysis of ergonomic anthropometry and usability of locally designed and foreign designed smartphones. The researchers gathered the most commonly used locally designed and foreign designed smartphones that Filipino use and their corresponding dimensions and physical design. The results showed that the top 2 most frequently used foreign designed brands are Apple and Samsung and locally designed brands are Myphone and Cherry Mobile. For the uniqueness of model, the latest LG smartphone was also considered. The researchers gathered the dimensions and the distances from the bottom left corner left and the bottom right corner of the smartphone to the physical buttons such as the power, volume, home, multitask, back, silent buttons, and the status bar.