Product Ergonomist, Microsoft Hardware Group

Hugh McLoone Product Ergonomist, Microsoft Hardware Group Microsoft Corp.

Hugh McLoone, a product ergonomist with the Microsoft Hardware Group, designs and tests mice, trackballs and keyboards. He conducts usability studies of the company’s desktop peripherals, with the goal of refining their designs to create the most comfortable and productive devices possible. McLoone has incorporated his research findings into nearly three dozen products and has earned more than 30 design and utility patents.

Since joining the Hardware Group in 1996, McLoone has won numerous awards for his work, including the Industrial Designers Society of America’s (IDSA) Bronze Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) in 2002 for the Microsoft® Office Keyboard. He invented the left-side Single Touch Pad layout on the keyboard — which included one-touch commands and a scroll wheel — to provide users with easily accessible, bimanual controls. In 2000, McLoone co- designed the Microsoft IntelliMouse® Optical pointing device, a truly ambidextrous mouse with back and forward buttons ergonomically positioned on the side. The mouse won the IDSA’s Gold IDEA and PC World’s “Best Input Device of 2000.” McLoone’s research led to redesign of the geometry of the Natural® Keyboard, thus improving the industry-standard split keyboard.

Outside his work at Microsoft Corp., McLoone is a director and the vice president of the Office Ergonomics Research Committee, which funds research into how ergonomics improves health in the workplace. With the Office Ergonomics Research Committee, McLoone organized the fifth annual Marconi Research Conference in California, where nearly 50 researchers from seven countries met to explore how ergonomics affects human performance and health.

McLoone has a master’s degree in public health from the University of Washington, where he won the Outstanding Student award from the Department of Environmental Health. He participates in several professional organizations, publishing papers and presenting talks for the International Ergonomics Association and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

McLoone lives with his wife and two children in Bellevue, Wash., where they enjoy visiting the zoo, playgrounds and gardens.

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Microsoft, IntelliMouse and Natural are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Last updated Feb. 17, 2003