Manuals such as the Handbuch der Ergonomie (Schmidtke et al. 1989 – HdE), the Anthropologischer Atlas (Flügel et al. 1986 – AA) or the Internationaler anthropologischer Datenatlas (Jürgens et al. 1989 – IAD) contain comprehensive, user-friendly tables of human body dimensions of relevance to ergonomics. They have the advantage of not only describing the measurement method in detail, but also simplifying transfer of the dimensions to the field. They contain harmonized tables for a comprehensive selection of body dimensions, stating values at least for the 5th, 50th and 95th percentiles. The data for men and women are always shown separately in the tables and are broken down by age group and in some cases regional differences. These publications all appeared over 20 years ago, however, and new editions have not appeared.
The Handbuch der Ergonomie supplements the detailed information on the measurement method used with information on the relevance of individual items of data in practice (such as measurement of the height sitting at workstations for seated workers) and in some cases information to be considered by the designer during use of the dimension concerned. The influence of clothing can be determined by the designer at his own discretion, since for some dimensions, not only are allowances stated for footwear or headgear, but also body dimension values measured separately with the body both unclothed and with light or heavy clothing. The Handbuch der Ergonomie groups the populations into the age ranges 18-19, 20-25 and 26-40.
Besides the detailed description of the measurement method, the Anthropologischer Atlas contains tables of dimensions for men and women aged 18 to 59. This age range is divided in turn into age groups each spanning 5 years. This subdivision begins with the group aged 20-24 and ends with that aged 55-59, thereby providing a clear overview of the physical attributes of each age group. The majority of values are also provided for the group aged 60-64. A general section explains biological causes of the variability in body dimensions, such as differences between the sexes, social differences, and differences in body type.