Talk:Human factors

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Human factors practitioners can come from a variety of backgrounds; though predominately they are Psychologists (Cognitive, Perceptual, and Experimental) and Engineers. Designers (Industrial, Interaction, and Graphic), Anthropologists, and Computer Scientists also contribute.

Where as ergonomics tends to focus on the anthropometrics for optimal human-machine interaction, human factors is more focused on the cognitive and perceptual factors.

Areas of interest for human factors practioners include the following: workload, fatigue, situational awareness, usability, learnability, attention, vigilance, human performance, control and display design, stress, visualization of data, individual differences, aging, accesibility, shift work, work in extreme environments, and human error.

Human Factors is only one element of the broad category of Critical Systems Research, in which human performance (accurate, difficult and error-prone) and machine performance (accurate, difficult and error-prone), are critically studied to reveal patterns of outcome that can be labelled as 'successful,' 'somewhat reliable,' 'error-prone' or 'failing completely.' When systems, both biological and mechanical/artificial, reach system critical conditions they fail to operate as intended by humans. This moment of criticality defines the upper limit of the system's functional utility. Study of critical systems helps humans find ways of improving their desired function and outcomes. Both human factors and ergonomics fall into subset studies within the study of critical systems. Critical systems also include fields of study that are not necessarily man-machine interaction specific (such as linguistics, medicine, the law, business management and all applied fields of study). Failures in these areas often prejudices direct man-machine interaction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.249.33.193 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 20 May 2005

Earlier roots

Human Factors and Ergonomics have as a common root the Time-And-Motion_Study work of Frederick_Winslow_Taylor (1856 - 1915) which was further built on by Frank Bunker Gilbreth (1868 - 1924) and Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878 - 1972). To say Human Factors got its start in WW2 is undershooting the mark by decades. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.136.145.247 (talk • contribs) 05:46, 17 May 2006

Comment: The "common root" referred to above is more a root of Industrial Engineering - which has similarieties to Human Factors but seems less interested in cognition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.183.226.168 (talk • contribs) 21:18, 24 June 2006

Overview

It is also worth noting that ergonomics primarily originates in Europe, while human factors was mainly developed in the United States. The terms have only been widely used in recent times; the field's origin is in the design and use of aircraft during World War II to improve aviation safety. It was in reference to the psychologists and physiologists working at that time and the work they were doing that the terms "applied psychology" and “ergonomics” were first coined. Work by Elias Porter, Ph.D. and others within the RAND Corporation after WWII extended these concepts. "As the thinking progressed, a new concept developed - that it was possible to view an organization such as an air-defense, man-machine system as a single organism and that it was possible to study the behavior of such an organism. It was the climate for a breakthrough."[1]

The recognition and study of human factors is important for safety because they can be the cause of serious human errors on the levels of physical behavior and socio-cognitive decision-making (A.M.Gadomski).

Human factors involves the study of all aspects of the way humans relate to technology, with the aim of improving operational performance and safety through improvements in the experiences of end users.

Specializations within this field include cognitive ergonomics, usability, human-computer interaction, and user experience engineering. Human factors professionals share an underlying vision that through application of an understanding of human factors the design of equipment, systems, and working methods will be improved to directly affect people’s lives for the better.

Human factors practitioners come from a variety of backgrounds, though predominantly they are psychologists (engineering, cognitive, perceptual, and experimental) and physiologists. Designers (industrial, interaction, and graphic), anthropologists, technical communication scholars and computer scientists also contribute. Though some practitioners enter the field of human factors from other disciplines, both M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in human factors engineering are available from several universities worldwide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger lew (talk • contribs) 18:53, 5 August 2008

Contents
1. Overview
1.1 Regional Semantics
2. History
3. Applications
4. Fields of Human Factors
5. Organizations
6. See Also
7. References
8. Further Reading
9. External Links — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger lew (talk • contribs) 18:56, 5 August 2008

Regional Semantics

Many human factors practitioners within the United States view ergonomics as a sub-discipline of human factors. It is also commonly believed that most Americans are more familiar with the term human factors (see Wiki discussion page). Those who argue the terms refer to distinct fields argue that some ergonomics programs do not offer training in cognitive psychology (although accreditation by the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics includes both cognitive and physical components in their examination). They also point out human factors includes additional disciplines of inquiry such as: communication, management, information science, interaction and graphic design. Some argue ergonomics is less likely to apply to interface design and human computer interaction.

The terms ergonomics and human factors are treated synonymously by professional organizations such as the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), the Ergonomics Society of the UK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger lew (talk • contribs) 18:53, 5 August 2008

History

Before World War II, HFE had no significance in the design of machines. Consequently, many fatal human errors during the war were directly or indirectly related to the absence of comprehensive HFE analyses in the design and manufacturing process. One of the reasons for so many costly errors was the fact that the capabilities of the human were not clearly differentiated from those of the machine.

Furthermore, human performance capabilities, skill limitation, and response tendencies were not adequately considered in the designs of the new systems that were being produced so rapidly during the war. For example, pilots were often trained on one generation of aircraft, but by the time they got to the war zone, they were required to fly a newer model. Unfortunately, the newer model was usually more complex than the older one, and controls may have had opposing functions assigned to them. Some aircraft required that the control stick be pulled back toward the pilot in order to pull the nose up. In other aircraft the exact opposite was required; namely, in order to ascend you would push the stick away from you. Needless to say, in an emergency situation many pilots became confused and performed the incorrect maneuver, thereby causing disastrous results.

Along the same line, pilots were subject to substitution errors which were due mostly to lack of uniformity of control design, inadequate separation of controls, and/or the lack of a coding system to help the pilot identify controls by the sense of touch alone. For example, in the early days of retractable landing gear, pilots often grabbed the wrong lever and mistakenly raised the landing gear instead of the flaps. Sensory overload also became a severe problem, especially in cockpit design. Responding to the varied lights and switches could be a bewildering experience. Fortunately, the 1950s brought a strong program of standardizing control shapes, locations, and overload management.

The growth of human factors engineering during the mid- to late-1940s was evidenced by the establishment of several organizations to conduct psychological research on equipment design. Toward the end of 1945, Paul Fitts established what came to be known as the Behavioral Sciences Laboratory at the Army Corps Aeromedical Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. Around the same time, the U.S. Navy established the Naval Research Laboratory at Anacostia, Maryland (headed by Frank V. Taylor) and the Navy Special Devices Center at Port Washington, New York (headed by Leonard C. Mead). The Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, California, was established about a year later with Arnold M. Small as head.

In addition to the establishment of these military organizations, the development of a human factors discipline is evidenced by the growth of several civilian activities. Contract support was provided by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force for research at several noted universities, specifically Johns Hopkins, Tufts, Harvard, Maryland, Holyoke, and California (Berkeley). Paralleling this growth was the establishment of several private corporate ventures. Thus, we can see that as a direct result of the efforts of World War II, a new industry known as engineering psychology or human factors engineering was born. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger lew (talk • contribs) 18:56, 5 August 2008