John Lykins

Title: Glove Usability Report: Examining the Performance of Structural Fire Fighting Gloves, Leather Work Gloves, and a Leather and Medical Glove Combination Compared to Bare Hands

Abstract:

Gloves that significantly reduce the sense of touch, inhibit hand movement, and lack liquid protection canreduce workers' capabilities and create barriers to using protective equipment properly. Protective glovesunsuitable for the assigned task may be discarded, increasing the potential for skin exposure to chemicaland physical risks. This study evaluates the performance of several gloves commonly used by firefightersto measure their usability compared to bare hands during demobilization and equipment cleaning tasks.The gloves tested include structural firefighting gloves, leather work gloves, and a combination of leatherouter gloves with a medical examination glove underneath. We tested for tool manipulation, torque grip,finger dexterity, and surface grip tests using standards from the National Fire Protection Association(NFPA) and the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The testing results compared barehand baselines to completing the same tests with gloves to examine the trade-off between gloveprotection and loss of finger dexterity and how it affects usability. Subjective feedback from participantswas gathered through completion survey questions to add context to the testing data, providing insightsinto the user experience regarding effort, comfort, precision, and control.The results indicate that structural gloves significantly hinder performance in tasks requiring fine motorskills and torque application, possibly due to their construction and the additional thickness necessary toprovide physical protection and insulative properties. Leather gloves offer slightly reduced dexteritycompared to bare hands and provide some physical protection from cuts and punctures, but liquids leakthrough stitched seams to reach the skin. The leather and medical combination glove usability resultswere comparable to regular leather gloves, offering additional temporary resistance to liquids leakingthrough the stitched seams. Participants indicated that structural gloves offered much less precision andcontrol while requiring much more effort to complete tests than bare hands. Survey results for the leatherand leather and medical combination gloves indicate less precision and control, with more effort requiredto complete the tests than bare hands.