Development of a critical task methodology for furniture evaluation

In customer service operations at post offices, furniture is installed behi nd the clerk's counter to provide temporary storage of special mail to be c ollected or brought in by the customer. Such furniture allows the clerk to perform almost all required functions in full sight of the customer, preven ting customer frustration at not understanding what the clerk is doing and enhancing security by not leaving the customer unobserved. It also means th at customers can observe any errors and difficulties encountered by the cle rk, suggesting that an ergonomic analysis of the storage furniture is requi red before deployment takes place. This paper shows how a suitable methodol ogy based on critical tasks was derived, and how the results led to specifi c design recommendations. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserve d.