Health+and+safety+legislation.

=Safety testing. =  Why do we test objects?

To show the product or system is safe to use.

To show the product or system meets all safety requirments, (from national governments, EU etc).

To try and work out ways a product or system could be misused.


 * There are a number of safety tests available to view on youtube and google videos.

This one shows mountain climbing equipment being tested.

It is not hard to imagine what could happen if the equipment failed while in use.

You can see lots of this type equipment at Decatholon in Colomiers, or ask Mr Allaway. || media type="youtube" key="vtq51h6zcvY" height="344" width="425" ||



**__Thermal comfort in a working environment. __**

 * [[image:https://www.toonpool.com/user/2442/files/too_cold_378735.jpg width="163" height="166" caption="Cartoon: Too cold (medium) by luka tagged enegry" link="javascript:void(img9.show);"]] || This describes a persons psychological state of mind and involves a number of factors: ambiente temperature, heat sources (natural, accidental or manufactured) air velocity, style of clothing, metabolic rate.

As a designer you will be aiming to have an environment that will suit the majority of the people using the space. ||

__Legislation.__
In many countries there is legislation in place to protect and ensure the safety of people.

Legislation can cover:

Temperature.

Noise.

Designing safety into products and systems.

Duty to warn and risk assessment.

Supply of personal protective equipment.

[|Risk assessment.]
There are many ways of identifying hazards and evaluating risks.


 * Hazard assessment. || This highlights possible causes of injury and highlights ways to avoid getting injured. These are the ones we mostly use in our studio. ||
 * Fault tree analysis. || This looks for causes of failure in products and systems, what type of injuries could occur from these failures and can end up with a complete redesign of a product or system. ||
 * Scenario analysis. || This is where we ask the "what if?" question, we will look at the pattern of behaviour that precedes accidents, if a certain type of behavior can be identified the product or system could be redesigned to avaoid this type of behaviour. ||

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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">__How do we determine adequate product safety.__
We can, with some degree of accuracy, determine how different materials and constructions will behave under different conditions, (these can be tested in a number of ways) but experts can use another two different types of testing to help us do this. || <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Behavioural testing is when the testers will get a user to perform a task of some description on the product or system. || || <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Conceptual testing involves the evaluation of safety instructions, warnings etc without actually exposing people to dangerous situations. ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Behavioural testing.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Conceptual testing.