Abstract
Human being has been involved in a tough fight for survival against living and non-living creatures since the first appearance on earth. Human being has been able to live comfortably in an environment after establishing appropriate environmental conditions or possessing products. After beginning to live in an environment, human being has always struggled for living in better conditions. He has managed to create an enhanced habitable environment and product as a consequence of an improvement in knowledge, talent, experience and technological development. Although human being has developed several products that make the life easier since the first appearance, he/she could create ever-increasing a more technological, more powerful and relevant environment as well as manufacture products after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution until the Second World War. However, the reality that these were all done and used by human being has always been ignored. From the Second World War, the idea of highlighting human being factor has become gradually popular. The importance and the value of producing an environment or a product proper to the property and the capacity of customer and beneficiary have just been understood nowadays. An environment or a product can be accepted as ergonomic if they are created in accordance with functionality, originality, technological, aesthetical, anthropometrical and economical criteria. Therefore, environments or products that are designed and produced ergonomically are the precondition for the physical, spiritual and social health of human being. Additionally, the necessity of creating environments or products based upon ergonomic criteria for the motivation and productivity of human being has recently been recognized. In this paper, anthropometry technique is introduced and a brief history of ergonomic design is presented. Furthermore, the importance of anthropometry for all kinds of ergonomic environment and product design, the applications that affect the accuracy and reliability of anthropometry technique, the disciplines as well as industrial organizations that make use of anthropometry technique are explained. The significance of anthropometry technique in qualified environment and product design is emphasized and the contributions of this technique to the improvement of life quality are discussed.