Human factors

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See also The Human Factor (disambiguation).

"Human Factors" is an umbrella term for several areas of research that include human performance, technology, design, and human-computer interaction. It is a profession that focuses on how people interact with products, tools, procedures, and any processes likely to be encountered in the modern world.

The term "human factors" is used mainly in the United States. Variants include "human factors engineering", an extension of an earlier phrase, and "human engineering". In the rest of the world, the term "ergonomics" is more prevalent. Cognitive ergonomics is another term used. Within the US, the term "ergonomics" tends to apply to the anthropometrics for optimal human-machine interaction, whereas "human factors" is used to refer to a focus on psychological factors (e.g., behavioral, cognitive, perceptual, psychodynamic).

Human factors practitioners can come from a variety of backgrounds; though predominantly they are Psychologists (Cognitive, Perceptual, and Experimental) and Engineers. 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, and degreed professionals can obtain professional certification.

Areas of interest for human factors practitioners may include: workload, fatigue, situational awareness, usability, user interface, learnability, attention, vigilance, human performance, human reliability, human-computer interaction, control and display design, stress, visualization of data, individual differences, aging, accessibility, safety, shift work, work in extreme environments including virtual environments, human error, and decision making.

Simply put, human factors involves working to make the environment function in a way that seems natural to people. Although the terms "human factors" and "ergonomics" have only been widely known 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 working at that time and the work that they were doing that the terms "applied psychology" and "applied psychologist" were first coined.

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[edit] The human-machine model

see also: human-machine system

The simple human-machine model is of a person interacting with a machine in some kind of environment. The person and machine are both modeled as information-processing devices, each with inputs, central processing, and outputs. The inputs of a person are the senses (e.g., eyes, ears) and the outputs are effectors (e.g., hands, voice). The inputs of a machine are input control devices (e.g., keyboard, mouse) and the outputs are output display devices (e.g., screen, auditory alerts). The environment can be characterized physically (e.g., vibration, noise, zero-gravity), cognitively (e.g., time pressure, uncertainty, risk), and/or organizationally (e.g., organizational structure, job design). This provides a convenient way for organizing some of the major concerns of human engineering: the selection and design of machine displays and controls; the layout and design of workplaces; design for maintainability; and the design of the work environment.

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