Be the Helvetica of ergonomics

By Ashley Bischoff

I first noticed the precursor symptoms to repetitive strain injury when I was in college. And since it could be quite the boat anchor to my career if I weren’t able to type, I dove into researching ergonomic options as soon as I got that diagnosis at the campus health center. More recently, I gave a talk at ACES 2019—“Be the Helvetica of Ergonomics”—where I shared advice on how you can make your working environment more ergonomic.

My talk draws parallels between Helvetica’s design throughlines and several ergonomics guidelines. You can check out my slides online.

Before I pass along some pointers, I should start off with a disclaimer: This is an issue that personally affects me, and I’ve done a lot of research on this, but I’m not a doctor. And if you have pains in your hands or wrists, you should see a doctor.

Helvetica vs. Arial

Let’s talk a bit about Helvetica and its doppelgänger, Arial. Helvetica is a sans-serif typeface that was developed in Switzerland in 1957 for the type foundry inotype. It was so named because “Helvetica” means “Switzerland” in Latin. Helvetica picked up steam throughout the ’60s, and it continued to be a big seller for Linotype.

Seeing Linotype’s success with Helvetica, Monotype—a competing type foundry—wanted something to scratch that sans-serif itch. So in 1982, Monotype developed a knockoff of Helvetica called Arial. And I don’t use “knockoff” lightly: Monotype designed Arial so that the dimensions of each of its letters would have the exact same proportions as the corresponding letter in Helvetica. The probability of all that being a coincidence is about the same as that of two novels from different authors having the same word count.

If perhaps you’ve seen Arial and Helvetica side by side, they might look somewhat comparable from afar. You might even be wondering, “So how much of a difference is there between Helvetica and Arial anyway?” Well, here’s one way that you can think about it—if you were hosting the next U.S. president for brunch, would you offer her a Coke? Or do you figure that Safeway Cola would be fine?

Much like Helvetica and Arial, Coke and Safeway Cola may seem similar from afar. But for folks who enjoy an ice-cold Coke now and again, they can attest that Coke and Safeway Cola aren’t exactly interchangeable. And such is the case here—because when it comes to typefaces, Helvetica is real Coke.

My talk goes through some examples of how you can tell the difference between Helvetica and its doppelgänger, Arial, but here’s an abridged version: The largest difference between Arial and Helvetica is that all of Helvetica’s terminals are either parallel or perpendicular to the baseline, while Arial’s terminals are pretty much higgledy-piggledy to the baseline.

(If you aren’t familiar with those terms, the baseline is the invisible horizontal line that the letters sit on. And a terminal is the end point of any stroke within a letter. So for instance, a capital S has two terminals—one at each end.)

Our body’s natural form mimics Helvetica

Here’s how this is related to ergonomics. The human body really isn’t designed to do any one task for hours at a time—whether typing or otherwise. But we can reduce that strain by keeping our working posture in as neutral a position as possible. And that means keeping our terminals (limbs) either parallel or perpendicular to the baseline (the floor).

These tips scratch the surface of some of the ergonomics advice in my talk, and if you check out my slides you’ll also get a heads-up about some common ergonomic pitfalls as well as some recommendations for ergonomic keyboards and mice that I can vouch for. (The latter are also listed in this article’s sidebar.) Spoiler: Virtually all “ergonomic” keyboards from big-box stores aren’t that ergonomic. (Oh, and just to keep things on the up-and-up: I have no affiliation with any of the companies that I mention in my talk. I just like their stuff.)

At the end of the day, you might be saying to yourself, “Do I really need to worry about all this? I feel fine.” But think of it this way: How would you feel if you met a 30- or 40- or 50-year-old copy editor who smoked a pack a day and who said to you, “Do I really need to worry about this? I feel fine.”

Typing all day and every day over a span of years might not pose the same risk as smoking a pack a day—but neither habit is harmless. And by the time the warning signs start to bear down on you, it may already be too late. Even if you haven’t given much thought to your ergonomic habits so far, there’s always a good time to start.

Ashley Bischoff is a freelance copy editor at Friendly Editing. She’s got a knack for taming technical and business writing, and she’s a heartfelt advocate for plain language. Ashley lives in Dallas, and she likes listening to metal and drinking tea. To learn more, check out the slides from Ashley’s talk, “Be the Helvetica of Ergonomics.” And if you have any questions, feel free to tweet her at @FriendlyAshley. (Note: the slides links are available to members only in the originally published article in Tracking Changes).

Be the Helvetica of Ergonomics was originally published in Tracking Changes (Fall 2019 edition). Members receive a PDF of the quarterly Tracking Changes newsletter by email.

Header Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash