Human Factors Engineering Quiz

Final Summary HF - Human Factors

• Human factors engineering is a discipline that considers cognitive, physical, and organizational influences on human behavior to improve human interaction with products and processes.
• It aims to improve human interaction with systems by enhancing:
  • Safety: Reducing the risk of injury and death
  • Performance: Increasing productivity, quality, and efficiency
  • Satisfaction: Increasing acceptance, comfort, and well-being
• Design of high-risk systems prioritizes safety, while workplace design prioritizes performance, and consumer product design focuses on satisfaction.
• There is a trade-off between these three goals, but good human factors design aims to avoid these tradeoffs.
• Human factors design involves a cyclical process of understanding, creating, evaluating, and refining solutions.

CH1-Introduction

• Human factors engineering considers the cognitive, physical, and organizational influences on human behaviour to improve human interaction with products and processes.
• Six human factors design interventions exist:
  • Task design
  • Equipment design
  • Environmental design
  • Training
  • Selection
  • Team and organizational design

CH2-Design Methods

• Systematic design processes include steps for understanding user needs, creating the product, and evaluating its effectiveness.
• Design processes differ in their structure, with some being sequential (e.g., Vee process) and others iterative (e.g., Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle).
• The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle is a common model for iterative improvement in design, while the scrum model is common for software.

CH3-Evaluation Methods

• No single evaluation method provides a comprehensive answer.
• Evaluation methods are categorized as formative (used during development) or summative (used after development) depending on their purpose.
• Techniques include open-ended surveys, task analysis, heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthroughs, usability tests, and field tests.
• Different evaluation methods are appropriate at different phases of the design process.

CH6-Cognition

• Human information processing involves sensation, perception, central processing, and responding.
• It is affected by bandwidth (how quickly things change), familiarity of the environment, and knowledge of the world.
• Attentional factors (salience, effort, expectancy, value) and top-down processing influence our perception and cognition.

CH7-Macro-Cognition

• Macrocognition is the understanding of high-level mental processes like planning, decision-making, awareness, and problem solving.
• Important elements of macrocognition are planning, decision-making, situation awareness, and problem-solving.

CH8-Displays

• Displays are artifacts designed to convey information and guide attention.
• They are classified based on their static or dynamic nature, data elements, and principles.
• Crucial principles, regarding for example salience, proximity, resource availability, and mental model relevance for efficient information transfer and comprehension
• Displays need to support both bottom-up (sensory input) and top-down (knowledge, expectations) processing.

CH9-Affect and Product Qualities

• Emotions are important in user experience.
• Affect can be categorized as physical, social/emotional, and/or ideo/psychological.
• Human factors considerations in product design should include affect and user experiences.

History

• Taylor (1911): Father of scientific management; attempted to apply scientific methods to improve engineering.
• Gillbreth (1924): Developed time and motion studies.
• Muybridge(1830-1904): Captured biomechanical action.