Remember the urban myth claiming that computer users are more exposed to repeated strain injury risks? Despite the fact that there were no reports of people suffering from RSI or carpal tunnel conditions in more than 12 years of hardcore computer use, researchers at the Cornell University claim that the myth might be based on a grain of truth.

The research group has been working on an innovative keyboard design, that is alleged to let users play their keyboards just like an accordion and not like a piano. One of the Cornell University ergonomists claim that the prototype vertically-split keyboard (VK) would allow computer users to keep their hands in a low-risk position for carpal tunnel syndrome.

Cornell scientists also found out that, while using the VK, wrist angles and forearm movements stayed in the lowest risk zone for carpal tunnel syndrome 71 percent and 78 percent of the time, respectively.

"These findings are important to the design of future keyboarding systems," says Alan Hedge, professor of design and environmental analysis at Cornell and director of Cornell's Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory.

The study was conducted on users wearing special gloves, equipped with strain sensors. The results unveiled that wrists are extremely exposed when typing on a conventional keyboard, and are in a high-risk position 98 percent of the time spent typing.

The new vertically-split keyboard lets hands adopt a natural, strain-free position. However, researchers found out that subjects encounter some adaptation issues and had a lower typing rate than when using an average keyboard. Still, Hedge claimed that this shortcoming is fixed as the subject uses more and more the VK.

"The magnitude of the difference is trivial, and with more practice on the VK, we believe the typists' performance would soon be on par with their work on traditional keyboards," he claimed.